Fade out for democratic radio?

You know those empty spaces between stations on your radio dial? There's a station every six, eight, 10 clicks and little but static inbetween. Those gaps are nominally there to prevent interference. But really, they're vestiges from anti-interference regulation that dates to 1963, when analog tuners couldn't pinpoint frequencies the way even the cheapest digital radio can today.

Now, the empty-space mandate serves to protect the radio industry from—horror!—competition. The monstrosity that was the 1996 Telecommunications Act gave $70 billion worth of the public airwaves to major TV broadcasters for free and gutted anti-consolidation legislation in the radio industry. It drove 20 percent of all radio broadcasters out of business and allowed Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest radio company, to increase its market share tenfold [Salon, 10/16/00]. As of April 1999, almost half of the 4,992 stations in the country's 268 ranked markets were owned by companies with three or more stations in said market [Washington Monthly, 4/99].

This is bad news: consolidation leads to micro-programmed, micro-marketed micro-specialization, because micro-radio brings mega-profits. Turn on your radio. There's one "Jumpin', Jumpin'" station, one "Hey Jude" station, one "Who Let the Dogs Out" station, and it's the same throughout the entire U.S. of A.

And then there's NPR, tokenism at its finest. Like PBS, NPR is more a comfort blanket for the upper-middle class than a source of genuine grassroots radicalism. Just ask Pacifica Radio, a nationwide patchwork of liberal, freeform community stations, that reaches only one-seventh of the country. Or, ask many of the 1,200-plus applicants for radio licenses under the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) new LPFM regulations, in place only since January.

That's right: 1,200, with many more to come. And here we are: LPFM, a simple idea that holds enormous promise for restoring democracy to the airwaves. LPFM allows 10- to 100-watt stations—stations with a range of a few miles tops, stations that cost only a few thousand dollars to set up and operate, stations accessible to community voices, local churches, school groups, area musicians, political dissidents, and county governments—to fill in the gaps on your radio dial. And because they're low-power, and because today's tuners are so precise, the threat of interference is negligible, at least if the FCC's studies are to be trusted.

LPFM has drawn extraordinarily widespread support from a coalition that includes Ralph Nader, the AFL-CIO, John McCain, the National Bar Association, the NAACP, the United States Catholic Conference, and the United Church of Christ. But it's also drawn virulent opposition from NPR, NRB, and NAB, each striving to protect their markets with millions of dollars to back them up. In May, McCain, the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, managed to stuff a veto-proof House bill that would have killed LPFM. But now, with this year's Congress already two weeks past the scheduled recess date, opponents of LPFM have almost snuck a deadly rider onto a must-pass appropriations bill. Both parties have expressed support for LPFM in the past, but with vacation, big money (NAB), big religion (NRB), and big culture (NPR) staring down their neck, they may well decide it's not worth the trouble.

We bemoan the deficiencies of pop culture, its vapidity and sex and violence, the Very Special Episodism that passes itself off as public morality. And so, Joe and Tipper, Pat and Jerry attack Hollywood and the music industry—not telling them to dismantle themselves, but rather to, you know, tone it down, guys. Instead of tacit censorship that preserves the lowest-common-denominator superstructure, why shouldn't we let more, smaller voices be heard? Don't tell the few what they can and can't say—let the many say what they want, and let the many decide for themselves what they want to listen to. After all, it's our air, and our airwaves. This weekend, send an e-mail to your congressman or congresswoman and your president (congress.nw.dc.us/lpr), and make your voice heard, so that your voice can be heard.

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