Hundreds Apply to Build Local Radio
Due to National Coalition Efforts
From October 12 to October 22, 2007, over 350 local community groups
across the country applied to the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) for licenses to build new community radio stations. They
applied when, after much anticipation, the FCC lifted a freeze in effect
since 2000 on filings for Noncommercial Educational (NCE) radio licenses.
The NCE frequencies, residing on the left side of the FM dial between 88.1
MHz and 91.9 MHz, are granted by the federal government to nonprofit
organizations free of charge. "This is the last free spectrum," said FCC
attorney John Crigler, who helped community radio applicants. "This
filing window will have social consequences. It is a last opportunity to
have a fight about values and how public spectrum ought to be used."
Recognizing the impact the window is likely to have on the radio landscape, media democracy groups organized nationally in a coalition called Radio for People, to promote and help applications for community radio. Their motto was "Be the media!"
Groups the coalition helped included community activists, grassroots
organizations, indigenous tribes, schools, colleges, progressive religious
groups, and already existing community radio stations.
Coalition members include the National Federation of Community
Broadcasters, Native Public Media, Common Frequency, Prometheus Radio
Project, Public Radio Capital, Pacifica Radio, Free Press, Future of Music
coalition, Democracy Now!, as well as FCC attorneys John Crigler, Michael
Couzens, and Alan Korn, consulting radio engineer Michael Brown, and other
radio professionals.
Pacifica Radio participated in the Radio For People Campaign by helping to
fund an initial study of available frequencies and by doing extensive
national outreach and providing support for applicants. Pacifica hosted a
weekly drop-in support meeting via conference call, where applicants were
able to talk with experts and also give each other encouragement and
information. Special efforts were made for outreach to the Midwest and the
Deep South.
Pacifica received a grant from Public Radio Capital to help develop
applications in communities throughout the South. Two field workers, David
Beaton and Christopher Maxwell, traveled from Virginia to Mississippi,
working with community groups. Fourteen applications were filed as a
result of the Pacifica project called Radio South. Applicant groups were
located in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas. Atlanta affiliate WRFG
(Radio Free Georgia) partnered with Pacifica in this effort.
"As an early founder of community radio in America, Pacifica is obliged
and privileged to help this new generation of community radio," said
Ursula Ruedenberg, Pacifica's Outreach and Affiliates Coordinator. "These
applicants are modern-day heroes in a very competitive media environment."
The FCC opened the recent filing window after establishing new regulations
for resolving competition between applicants. The Radio for People
coalition and other media activists had called upon the FCC to establish
regulations that give local community groups fairer opportunities for
competing with national broadcasters who dominated NCE applications in the
past.
According to Michael Brown, of Brown Broadcasting Inc., "In the last 15
years probably 80% of the applications for noncommercial stations have
been by conservative religious national broadcast groups. Our emphasis was
with the community groups whose main goals were secular progressive
programming."
"Community radio is extremely important," FCC attorney Michael Couzens
said. "It's a means for getting people the information they need to make
judgments about news and public affairs and having entertainment options
that aren't provided by giant chains of non-local broadcasters."
On the eve of the filing window, community radio advocates gained a
victory when the FCC set a limit of 10 applications per group. The
Commission explained that "our examination of the record confirms our
concern that failure to establish a limit on the number of NCE FM
applications that a party may file in the window would lead to a large
number of speculative filings, creating the potential for extraordinary
procedural delays."
The applications from the recent filing window have not yet been published
on the FCC website (fcc.gov), but are expected within days. It is being
estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 applications were made for the NCE licenses
and an unprecedented volume of information appears to have been submitted
to the FCC.
Community radio applicants plan to build radio stations for addressing
local cultural and social needs. "We plan to use the radio to benefit
ordinary citizens," said applicant Diane Brown in Fort St. Joe, Florida.
"Now we have a chance to talk about what kind of future we want."
Some plan to feature local music and theater, and oral histories, as well
as indigenous languages at tribal stations. Other stated goals include
emergency warning systems and relief aid, environmental protection,
cooperation between rural communities for farmers' rights, activities for
disenfranchised youth, education for civic participation in local politics
and policies, and on-air public discourse over policies and laws.
"We will hear the pulse beat of the people," said applicant and civil
rights organizer Charles Sherrod in Albany Georgia. "The officials say
they hear people saying one thing and we say we hear them saying something
else. But with a radio station, people can say it for themselves."
Brett Gordon of Iowa City summed up community radio's relevance: "Now is
the time to imagine a citizen media that monitors and deconstructs, opens
the phone lines to listeners and lets us in the Hinterlands chew, swallow
and digest our own information and listen to our own pundits. We are
participating in democracy itself and doing what our founding fathers said
must be done if democracy is to flourish."
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