We are at the two-week point from the FCC’s further decimation of American media. Last week a communiqué of sorts came in from media scholar and author Bob McChesney: “Please spread this article around on the Internet. Thanks.”
While that one is good, if you had to pick only one article on media ownership to forward around in a last-minute flurry of activist email, I’d pick McChesney’s “The FCC’s Big Grab,” which is the most succinct yet complete synopsis available on the FCC’s pending action and its disastrous implications for media democracy.
Category: FCC
Super Bowl Pirates Fined $12,000
Most pirates in the United States operate on sporadic schedules. The 24/7 in-your-face operations may be the best-known and most-heralded, but the vast majority of unlicensed broadcasting is done on the sly in the hopes of staying under the FCC’s radar.
The rules are different, however, if the broadcast piracy involves professional sports. A nebulous outfit called Global Radio, Inc. operated pirate stations on multiple frequencies during this year’s Super Bowl and got away with it with a slap on the wrist compared to what most busted microradio stations receive.
Global Radio reportedly specializes in “event broadcast services” and applied to the FCC for six “experimental” FM licenses for use inside San Diego, CA’s Qualcomm Stadium. These temporary stations would give fans in the stands their choice of play-by-play announcer teams to listen to. Game details would be broadcast to the surrounding parking lot and little radios were even set up in the stadium’s bathrooms, so fans wouldn’t have to miss a second of the action on the field. Continue reading “Super Bowl Pirates Fined $12,000”
Dutch Pirate Police Launch Major Crackdown; FCC Enforcement Stats Skew Toward Thuggery
The Netherlands is a small country: about 13,000 square miles, not quite twice the size of the state of New Jersey. But within its borders the Netherlands boasts one of the most vibrant pirate radio scenes in Europe, behind Italy and the United Kingdom. Literally hundreds of Dutch FM pirates are on the air, some running power levels measured in the kilowatts. There is also a thriving shortwave scene.
Until recently the Dutch government’s radiocommunications enforcement agency, Agentschap Telecom (AT), played lots of cat-and-mouse with pirate broadcasters. Most only got pressure to shut down if they were causing interference, although sporadic enforcement offensives have occurred over the last few years.
This has all changed with “Project Etherflits,” AT’s year-long pirate-hunting spree that kicked off in March. So far nearly 80 stations have been nabbed, including one simultaneous raid on 10 stations last month. Project Etherflits has led to the confiscation of gear galore and fines to station operators ranging between $1,200-$2,600 apiece. The pirates are reportedly organizing public protests in hopes of convincing lawmakers to rein in the hounds. Continue reading “Dutch Pirate Police Launch Major Crackdown; FCC Enforcement Stats Skew Toward Thuggery”
Verbal Skirmish w/FCC in San Diego
Free Radio San Diego got a visit from the FCC on Friday; part of the encounter was caught on tape.
Listen to the encounter (MP3, 1:56, 912K)
The FRSD folk seem pretty feisty! Continue reading “Verbal Skirmish w/FCC in San Diego”
Translator Crusades Update
The final total on the number of FM translator station applications filed in March is 13,345. Of those, nearly one-third were tendered by just two groups – Radio Assist Ministry and Edgewater Broadcasting, Inc. – who filed more than 4,200 translator applications between them.
Other known abusers of the translator service are also in on this, like the Educational Media Foundation (875) and the Calvary Chapel syndicate, who applied for 385 stations under at least two names (Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls and CSN International). Continue reading “Translator Crusades Update”
Religious Groups Launch FM Translator Invasion
The FCC has received a deluge of applications for new FM translator stations. Figures released today indicate a total of 13,306 applications were filed for new translator stations during a filing window in March.
This is an unprecedented demand for new translator stations, and it represents a real threat to the expansion of the fledgling LPFM service. While the FCC expects to license only a few hundred new 100-watt community stations from the first batch of applicants, longer-term plans call for future LPFM license filing windows.
As there are only a finite number of open channels available, it appears that this mass filing is designed to snap up the vast majority of open frequencies nationwide where translator or LPFM stations might be sited. If the plan were to succeed, it would be as if someone slammed the door on any LPFM expansion – the FM dial would be jammed with translator stations. Continue reading “Religious Groups Launch FM Translator Invasion”
Reportback from Seattle FCC Festivities
“Strategically optimistic” is the way Jonathan Lawson, an organizer with Reclaim the Media, feels coming out of Friday’s FCC media ownership field hearing with Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. The two certainly got an earful.
Reclaim the Media, along with many other groups, spent a lot of time and energy making the field hearing happen. Because it was not officially sanctioned by Chairman Michael Powell, the FCC wouldn’t release funds for the two Commissioners to travel. Copps paid his own way, presumably out of his own (limited) office expense funds; Reclaim the Media paid the freight for Adelstein.
Having originally scheduled only 30 minutes of time for public comment at the hearing, the Commissioners pledged not to cut off anyone who wanted to speak. They listened to more than three hours of public comment as a result. Not only that, but corporate media executives in the onstage discussion panels were openly jeered. Lawson says the overall sentiment was “overwhelmingly, if not totally opposed” to further relaxation of media ownership rules. Continue reading “Reportback from Seattle FCC Festivities”
FCC Dog and Pony Show Moves to Seattle
Tomorrow, FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein will go through the motions of another “public hearing” on the agency’s media ownership rules review. This one will happen in Seattle on the campus of the University of Washington.
Sounds like it’ll be the same old song-and-dance the folks at the Richmond hearing got last week, except this time the public only gets 30 minutes to speak. That’s because in Richmond the FCC held a six-hour forum; Seattle’s show only runs from 9am to 12:30pm. The last 30 minutes belong to the people.
The strong community of media democracy activists in Seattle are preparing quite a few festivities to go with the official frivolity. The coolest of the bunch will take place tomorrow night, during an “action for media democracy” which will feature Chuck D & the Fine Arts Militia sharing the stage with Commissioner Adelstein. Quite the spectacle for all involved; I hope someone records it. Continue reading “FCC Dog and Pony Show Moves to Seattle”
FCC Gives Public A Last-Minute Listen? Don't Believe the Hype
It’s enough to make you puke: the FCC has released its agenda for the one and only “official public hearing” it will hold on its pending revisions to media ownership rules. Check it out in text (page 1, page 2) or .PDF (page 1, page 2) format.
After the corporate media belatedly began covering the issue (publishing its first stories on the weekend after the written public comment period officially closed), and after an outburst of concern from Congress over the FCC’s foregone conclusions (bigger media is better), FCC Chairman Michael Powell responded like the savvy politician he is. In a symbolic display of civic engagement he agreed to convene the Commission for one “public hearing” in Richmond, Virginia – a whopping 100 miles from Washington, D.C. Continue reading “FCC Gives Public A Last-Minute Listen? Don't Believe the Hype”
Microbroadcaster Gets 4 Months Home Detention
Benjamin Leroy Carter once ran a station in Orlando, Florida. After “complaints from residents and broadcasters…of interference to the reception of licensed radio broadcast stations,” the FCC swooped in. The good news is it took nearly four years for the agency to follow through.
The actual sentence – after pleading guilty to seven counts of unlicensed broadcasting – was 18 months’ probation (of which four are home detention) and 50 hours of community service. Sounds like the FCC didn’t think they’d be able to squeeze dough out of Carter, who becomes (to our knowledge) the second microbroadcaster to be criminally convicted and sentenced for broadcasting without a license.