The Consumers Union is running a campaign to get the FCC to hold public hearings before it engages its next attempt to rewrite media ownership rules. As part of the campaign they're featuring a fun song and music video about media consolidation called "The Tower." I think they should send CDs of the song to community radio stations around the country, since there's a good chance that it would get a decent amount of play that way.
This is a critical time for the media ownership battle, since it's my guess that the issue has fallen off a lot of people's radars after the Third Circuit sent back the FCC's attempt to loosen restrictions. But that didn't signal the end of the battle, just another round, since the FCC still has a mandate to review and rewrite.
The first time around then-Chairman Powell did his best to keep the public out of the process, which backfired famously. My guess is that current Chair Kevin Martin is more savvy than that, but I also think he'd prefer minimize the amount of public input as much as possible.
The CU is running a petition asking the FCC to hold at least 10 public hearings on media ownership as part of its campaign. I'm not certain if it's a real petition -- just a list of signatories -- or whether it's an automated letter to the FCC. I tend to think on-line petitions aren't worth much. But an automated letter to the FCC is very useful, since a deluge of comments can make a difference on Commission staff, and make it a more dicey proposition for the FCC to ignore the demands of thousands of average folks.
And, so what does Cheap Channel management do? They fire two employees--without divulging names or stations--and discipline a few others.
Of course, this action is a typical Clear Channel to distance itself from its stations' payola ways and try to make it look like pay-for-play is an isolated practice at the nation's largest radio owner, rather than business as usual.
Although CC management won't name names, the Times draws an association to two Clear Channel executvies who were named in NY Attorney General Elliot Sptizer's payola settlement with Sony/BMG released several months ago:
In one case, Mr. Spitzer said that Diana Laird, the program director of the company's station KHTS in San Diego, received a flat-screen television - which was disguised as a contest giveaway in the record company's accounting system - in November 2002. ...In another case, Sony BMG label executives had provided Donnie Anderson, now a programmer at WHYI, a Clear Channel station in Miami, with a trip to Las Vegas in July 2003 and, on another occasion, a laptop computer, to secure playing of songs, according to settlement documents.
Just last week, Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays told an anti-regulatory gathering that he doesn't see a "train wreck" coming on the payola issue for his company. Yeah, that's because the shredders were already buzzing, and the goats were already being scaped.
Things are getting desperate for the largest radio owner in the country. Clear Channel blew an enormous wad of cash right after the passage of the 1996 Telecom Act, which opened the floodgates for soon-to-be-giant to buy up radio stations left-and-right. Then Cheap Channel combined stations, firing staff, putting them onto automation and piping in programming and programming decisions from remote corporate headquarters.
And they made mad money at it... for a while.
But now the public is increasingly fed up with being bombarded by commercials squeezed in between the same damn songs over and over again, presented by voice-tracked computers with no local connection. Now listeners with a little bit of disposable income have the opportunity to listen to radio on-line, get satellite radio, or just ditch radio altogether to listen to iPods and MP3 players.
That makes Mark Mays, CEO of Clear Channel very very sad.
So what does Mr. Mays do?
Why, he demands that the US Government to step in and dole out protection from competition for him and his broadcast-radio ilk, and dump regulations onto those rogue satellite broadcasters.
Yep, that's the American capitalist way: tout the benefits of the "free market" until it erodes your competitive advantage.
Apparently, Mays told the anti-regulatory Freedom and Progress Foundation that,
"If XM is allowed to have 150 channels in each market, it is a competitive disadvantage for us to have only eight."Nevermind that "each market" is actually the whole friggin country, in which I believe Mr. Mays' company currently owns twelve hundred "channels." It sure looks like Mays' has a lot more apples than XM has oranges, but that doesn't stop from him demanding that companies like his be able to own as many as twelve stations in the largest markets.
Of course, there really aren't so many companies like his in the country. There's fewer than ten who could pull off such a deal as being able to actually muster the funds to buy another four stations in a market like Los Angeles, where each station would probably cost tens of millions of dollars.
So, really, there isn't much competition in the broadcast radio market to begin with. What's Mays is really saying is now that Clear Channel has pillaged broadcast radio and come close to bleeding it dry of value, he wants the rights to suck the last bit of meat off the bones.
And why is Clear Channel losing listeners to satellite in the first place? I don't think it's because XM and Sirius have more channels. It's because (at least right now) many of those channels don't carpetbomb you with 20 minutes of advertising an hour, and the same set of songs every 360 minutes or so.
On top of begging for the last remaining scraps of broadcast radio, Mays also thinks that satellite providers should be prevented from offering locally oriented programming, like weather and traffic. He does this backhandedly, by supporting legislation that would instruct regulators to look into the issue. Which is like the NRA asking for Congress to look into gun laws -- you know what they want, even if they're not being utterly explicit.
Frankly, if the only thing keeping listeners tuned into their local Cheap Channel station is the traffic and weather updates, then Mays and his cronies deserve the listener exodus.
Going back about 15 years ago, when I took radio production in college, my professor, who was also the advisor to my college station, used to tell us that a radio broadcast license was a license to print money. He also told us that if we wanted to make real money in radio, we'd get into ad sales, not DJing or production.
That was seven years before the Telecom Act, when Clear Channel would make those late 80s days of print money look like small change. But I can't cry for them now that the well runs a little more dry.
That license to print money came free from the FCC, whereas Sirius and XM at least bought their licenses at auction, and still haven't even turned a profit.
But those are inconvenient facts for Mark Mays and Cheap Channel. They're gluttons who'll rail against socialized medical care and healthy diets until they need triple-bypass surgery to stay alive.
If only Cheap Channel were that close to death. But when it is, I'll be glad to pull the plug.
Perhaps the answer to that question is: When their parent companies get as big as the rest of the rest of the media giants.
The SF Bay Guardian has uncovered merger plans for the two reigning giants in the alternative weekly field, the Village Voice and the New Times, creating "an 18-paper chain controlled to a significant extent by venture capitalists."
That's about as "alternative" as a new flavor of Mountain Dew.
The article guesses that the new company is being set up so that the whole she-bang can be sold at a profit. The two companies will also have to work with the anti-trusters at the Justice Dept., since the new company would end competition in the weekly newspaper markets of LA and Cleveland.
Now, it shouldn't come as any surprise that "alternative" weeklies are only alternative to daily newspapers in that they focus more on entertainment and tend to allow edgier content. They are not alternative from the standpoint of management style nor ownership.
That doesn't mean they don't occasionally produce good content or challenging stories -- but, then, so does the LA Times and Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Rather, whatever "alternative" perspective they once offered during the birth of the alternative weekly as a form in the 1960s and 70s has been entirely captured by the mainstream media form. Gathering them together into one big company is just a culmination of this process.
Kari Lydersen files a nice article for Infoshop.org on the premiere of TeleSur a new Latin American TV news channel:
Spanish-language TV both in the US and in many Latin American countries is perhaps best known for its sensational, sex- and drama-soaked telenovelas (soap operas) and variety shows, soccer games and news segments heavy on the blood and gore of accidents or street crime.But now, there is a new and controversial alternative available throughout the region, which eschews melodramatic telenovelas and glitzy entertainment for hard reporting on the destruction of rain forests, the effects of globalization and poverty issues, along with promoting Latin American traditional and contemporary arts and culture. TeleSur, short for Television of the South, was launched in July, broadcast by satellite from Caracas, Venezuela, where it shares space with the government-run Channel 8 station. It is partially funded by Cuba, and has bureaus in eight Latin American countries and Washington D.C., along with freelance contributors throughout Latin America and the US.
This one totally flew under my radar: apparently two weeks ago the FCC ruled that fourteen Calvary Chapel churches could get low-power FM licenses.
Last year the FCC held thirty applications from Calvary Chapel churches because they essentially submitted cookie cutter applications. The FCC Audio Bureau Chief Peter Doyle wrote that,
there is nothing in their statements of educational purpose to distinguish these applicants from other Calvary Chapel applicants who filed identical applications for LPFM stations, or national Calvary Chapel radio companies such as CSN International and Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls that own numerous full-service and FM translator stations throughout the country.True community-based LPFM advocates got upset about these Calvary Chapel applications because CSN and Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls have together set up an enormous network of satellite-fed translator stations that take up frequencies that might otherwise have gone to true locally-programmed LPFM stations. Thus the similarity of the individual churches' applications to stuff submitted by CSN and Twin Falls, combined with the apparent connection between them all, gave the impression that these LPFMs would be used primarily as satellite affiliates, rather than true local stations.
However, in the FCC's July 20th decision (download PDF) Doyle decided that each Calvary Chapel LPFM applicant "has adistinct local presence and mission in their respective proposed communities." The Commission allowed them to submit additional documentation on this question, and from that concluded
that each applicant provides its respective community with a variety of programs and activities in the areas of religious education, fellowship, youth programs and strengthening family and social values. ... and is therefore eligible to become an LPFM station licensee.
Although it's disappointing that the FCC has decided to award more stations to this ad hoc network, it shouldn't be surprising, since it should have been very clear to the applicants the exact changes they needed to make to make their applications look different from each other and seems like they would be more localized. The FCC gave them a second chance to do it right, and they did.
I also have to recognize that it would have been difficult for the FCC to deny these applications after allowing the supplemental materials to be submitted -- it really would have been best if the Commission could have simply denied them based on a failure to do it right in the first place, sending them back to the back of the line. Given the scarcity of LPFM frequencies I think it would have been much fairer to reopen for applications in those areas for which these applications were submitted.
The organization of the Calvary Chapel church is quite advantageous for creating this ad hoc network of radio stations that essentially air the same programming, but are, on paper, separately owned and operated. The FCC acknowledges this in a footnote
In their joint declaration, Joint Petitioners declare that: each is an autonomous, “independent locally-governed church”; each paid its own legal bills and prosecuted its application “free from the influence or control” from any outside group; each petitioner is separately incorporated and is governed by its own board and has its own officers and pastor; ... each is financed entirely by contributions from its local members and receives no money from any national church organization; the Calvary Chapel movement does not have a parent church or any organizational structure whatsoever; ... and petitioners have no agreements or understandings of any type with CSN, Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls or any other Calvary Chapel church regarding programming to be broadcast.
However, the Commission also says that this fact was beside the point, provided the individual churches demonstrated community involvement, which the Commission believes they have.
The only infraction that could be hung on these Calvary Chapel applicants was their carbon-copy applications, and once the Commission gave them the opportunity to file that opportunity was lost. But then, for the last twenty years, the FCC hasn't been known as a harsh regulator of licensed or wanna-be licensed stations.
One hope will be that the management behind these stations will realize that they will be watched, and can't just turn around and air nothing but CSN programming (although they may air some). They will have to at least attempt to be local stations, even though the last thing our FM dials need is more religious stations.
According to Broadcasting and Cable (sorry, no free story beyond the summary), Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold connected the dots between radio payola, as being investigated by the NY attorney general. Of course, he's suggesting legislation, perhaps similar to the "Competition in Radio and Concert Industries Act," he introduced in 2003.
Similar to the media reform bill recently introduced by NY's Rep. Hinchey, I don't think the Democrats have enough Republicans on their side, especially in the House, to get a serious reform bill through Congress right now. But they can definitely use growing public awareness and outrage to their advantage -- I doubt many radio listeners are willing to defend payola.
This all can make good leverage when it comes time to actually write the Telecommunications Act of 2006, where a lot of the details get horsetraded and worked out in committee. This works to favor of media reformers because Senate Republicans have been more open to this issue than those in the House, and negotiations will tend to favor the Senate.
But do not get too excited or optimistic -- this will be about porkbarrel horsetrading, and the pro-consolidation and rape of the public interest Bush administration is still in power with Republican domination of the Congress. It will be ugly sausage making at its most disgusting.
Yet, the hopeful element is that there should be more public awareness than in 1996, and many Congresscritters will be forced into paying a little more than lip service to their constituents on these issues. Don't expect miracles...
And don't stop agitating and making media waiting for salvation to be delivered. It won't, and we're going to need the grassroots, independents and the pirates to keep reminding us how much better and just our media environment can and should be.
According to Radio Currents Online, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) has introduced the Media Ownership Reform Act of 2005 (MORA).
According to Hinchey's press release the bill, "seeks to undo the massive consolidation of the media that has been ongoing for nearly 20 years." So, it hits most major media reform points:
- reinstate a national cap on ownership of radio stations
- lower the number of radio stations one company can own in a single market
- reinstate the 25 percent national television ownership cap
- require regular public interest reports from broadcasters
- establish new public interest obligations
The bill's number is H.R. 3302. Click here for the full text.
Pre-P.S.: Just as I was finishing up this post, I learned that the House voted not to cut $100 million from the CPB. Is it coincidence that this happens within hours of the appointment of the new CPB CEO?
I'm kind of immersed in the non-commercial radio world, at the intersection of public, community and underground. Right now it feels like people are losing their minds over the current threat to CPB funding from Congress and the reign of loyal Bush company man Tomlinson heading up the CPB board pushing whatever cash is left to the right.
The panic is real, and I think pretty justified, even if I'm too jaded to get panicked myself.
Our local, and excellent, news/talk public radio station has already just announced that it is dropping affiliation with American Public Media, and therefore losing several programs, including Prairie Home Companion, Sound Money, As It Happens and The Writer's Almanac. Personally, I will most miss the CBC's As It Happens, since it gives me a nice dose of Canadian perspective along with news about our friends north of the border that I would never get on any US news source.
A big cut from the CPB would likely threaten more national programs, and their ability to retain staff.
A massive CPB funding reduction would also hit my local community station, but less severely, and in a more targeted way. WEFT gets a grant from the CPB to pay for syndicated programming, and most of WEFT's syndicated programming is news and public affairs, like Free Speech Radio News and Democracy Now.
WEFT gets 15 grand a year from the CPB, which isn't chump change for a non-commercial community station. Losing that would force the station to scramble in order to keep these syndicated programs.
On top of that, a CPB hit would also affect the production of programs like FSRN and DN, which also receive some level of funding.
I say I'm a bit jaded, because it all looks like a big Republican gambit to capture public broadcasting, rather than simply kill it. Installing a right-wing crony at the head of the board of directors with an administration mouthpiece as CEO, it looks to me that the Republicans saw that an outright Gingrichian attack on public broadcasting would be less effective than simply taking it over.
I wonder if the plan isn't to launch the funding threat from Congress, only to have Tomlinson and the new CEO swoop in and save the day by "convincing" their Republican House cronies to scale back the cuts.
It's all about the managing of expectations. When you threaten $100 million in cuts, with the plan to totally defund over the course of a few years, then it's easier to get the public to accept a lower cut, say $25 or $50 million, as more reasonable.
And then Tomlinson and his new lieutenant Patricia S. Harrison can say, "See, we're trying to save public broadcasting. We got Congress to back off."
However, even if this is all spectacle, they're playing with real bullets, and defunding public media, while it could be a bluff, is a big bluff.
Of course the media reform juggernaut has launched into full action to oppose the attack on public broadcasting, and that's a good thing. I am glad to hear that our local Republican Rep. Tim Johnson opposes the cuts. He's certainly not my favorite, but he also knows that his district is a public and community media loving one.
I sure as hell don't want to see CPB funding go away. While I have real concerns with the institution of the CPB, how its funded and how it operates, I also believe that we need a rich, funded public and community media. Public media in the US is definitely a compromise that was intended to help justify the strip-mining of airwaves by the corporate broadcasters, but public media is necessary and vital, nevertheless.
I would prefer a truly independent CPB receiving its funding not directly from Congress but directly from the monies collected from spectrum sales. Every penny that comes from the impending auction of analog TV spectrum ought to to directly to public broadcasting, without impediment and without strings.
And, yet, I'm also glad that my local community station survives with very little CPB funding, making the station somewhat more immune from these right-wing fiduciary attacks. It does mean that the station is much more dependent on community donations, and because this is a small community, the station doesn't have as big of a budget or staff as the public station or community stations in bigger cities.
But the independence means that a CPB cut will only be a flesh wound, and perhaps motivate listeners to pony up a bit more to keep the syndicated programming.
Government funding is not so different than corporate funding -- it's always a bargain with the devil.
This morning the Supreme Court decided not to hear the media conglomerates' challenge to the Third Circuit Court's decision to strike down the FCC's loosened media ownership rules. The Court ruled without comment, but I can't help think the fact that the FCC and Justice Dept. decided not to pursue the challenge was a contributing factor.
Now the ball is back in the FCC's court to try and hash out revised ownership rules, by order of the Congress and the Third Circuit.
This could make for an interesting fight at the Commission, since right now it has only four commissioners, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, giving the Dems much more power to demand public hearings and other concessions from consolidation-happy Chair Kevin Martin.
I wonder if this will light a fire under the Bush Administration to pick a new commissioner to fill the vacant spot. Of course, that new commissioner requires confirmation by the Senate, which also gives some power to the Dems, who have the opportunity to delay the confirmation of a commissioner that seems too bent on loosening ownership rules.
And yet, the furor over the 2003 loosening of the ownership rules was bipartisan -- not just Democrats were pissed off. It's tough to tell if Senate Republicans will be willing to make a stand on the issue when it comes time to confirm a new commissioner. But there is a chance.
Still, filling the empty FCC seat may be lower on the priority list than pushing through their judicial nominees. It could be a while before a new commissioner gets to the top of the list.
We've got a "new" radio station in Champaign-Urbana. New, in that the old Oldies 92 has flipped format to be called "The Chief." The change mostly means the addition of the 80s to the oldies line up. Oh, and the firing of all airstaff and more automation.
I really haven't listened much, and have only heard the spots with the deep voice saying, "If you owned a radio station, you'd play what you want. Here, we play what the Chief wants."
Normally, a minor radio format change wouldn't merit mediageek coverage. But here in Champaign-Urbana, "The Chief" is a loaded term.
You see, the Chief is shorthand for Chief Illiniwek, the University of Illinois' racist mascot. The Chief is a big controversy here, since progressive minded folks and native americans would like to see him gone, while the Board of Trustees and others appeal to "tradition" to keep him. Nevermind that the Chief bears no actual similarity to any native american tradition or tribe of any sort -- the closest relation to the Chief are the native american stereotypes I saw in old Loony Tunes cartoons as a kid, which I think Warner Brothers pulled from circulation back in the 80s.
See, even the big media conglomerates can be more progressive than the U of I.
So, naming your newly automated station after a controversial university mascot is a ballsy move, and I wonder what's motivating Saga, the corporate owner based in Michigan.
Frankly, it seems more like a cheap shot to drum up some controversy and publicity than any sort of long lasting station identity. But, to me, that's like courting controversy by naming your Brooklyn based station, The Heeb.
The station has been dropping in the ratings over the last few books, so I guess Saga felt like it had to do something. However, the thing that most made the station drop was Saga buying it in the first place, and screwing up a station that had a very loyal local following by ditching the personalities and qualities that made people like it in the first place.
So, once again, a big radio owner makes the race to the bottom rather than actually provide quality programming and local service. I'll be investigating this further when I have more time and the Media Reform conference is over.
The Conference starts officially today, but last night there was check-in and the Academic Brain Trust. Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic in Metro East and then my car died right when we got to the hotel -- which is the best place for it to die. It's just a battery problem, so we're not stranded in St. Louis, but it made us a little too late to participate in the Trust.
Last night we went to a party/benefit for the St. Louis community station, KDHK, called Midwest Mayhem, held at a place called City Museum, which is really just a big jungle gym for adults... with alcohol. There was a big ball pit, lots of spiral staircases that end in big slides, and a strange metal tube catwalk that takes you above the outdoor area 3 - 4 stories into old planes suspended above. It was a good way to let loose just before the conference begins, but after those of us from Champaign-Urbana already had a couple days of the Media Consolidation conference.
We're about 20 minutes away from the opening session and plenary, which I will probably blog at the Be The Media Blog.
The nice part about conferences that you go to more than once is catching up with people you haven't seen in a while, like IMCistas from Michigan, NYC and Madison and folks from Prometheus. So last night was mostly social and today it's back to the business of media reform.
With just a few days to go before the big Media Reform conference the Be the Media Blog is starting to see some action. This blog is a continuation of a project begun at the first Media Reform conference back in 2003. It's a venue for grassroots and independent media makers to comment, report and reflect from a perspective that may differ somewhat from the mainstream of the media reform movement.
Madison-based media activist Kristian Knutsen strated the blog in 2003. I took over hosting for this year's conference and restored the archives from 2003.
If you're an indymedia-affiliated or grassroots media maker who's going to St. Louis and you're interested in participating in this group-blog, drop me a line.
This week there is a one-day pre-conference of sorts to the National Conference for Media Reform: Can Freedom of the Press Survive Media Consolidation? Several big-name speakers will be here, like Seymour Hersh--giving the Tuesday evening keynote--and Danny Goldberg, the new president of Air America. Also in attendance will be several left media luminaries who will also be at the Media Reform shin-dig this weekend, such as Democracy Now's Amy Goodman --who will be broadcasting the show live from the studios of our local public TV station--and Naomi Klein.
I'll be attending the Media Consolidation conference, which is being put on by the Illinois Initiative for Media Policy Research, headed up by Robert McChesney, professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, which is also my academic department. I intend to record it all. Some of it will air on the radioshow this Friday. I will probably post raw audio of everything for those who can't be there.
Jack Brighton, who heads up internet operations for local public station WILL, plans to videotape everything and put it on-line in streaming video.
Then Thursday I'll be off to St. Louis for the big one, to record, interview and see where this media reform thing is taking off to.
Drew and I will do part of Friday's radioshow live from St. Louis by phone, while fellow WEFTie Jeff Nicholson-Owens sits in for us.
Salon's Eric Boehlert does a nice job at outlining the unfortunate outcome of the mutli-lateral coalition that mobilized to help stop the FCC's attempt to loosen media ownership rules:
What is surprising for free-speech advocates such as McChesney and Chester, who fear the effects the indecency reforms could have, is that when they look across the newly formed battle lines they see some of their closest anti-media consolidation allies leading the charge for new enforcement of content.
As I repored on last Friday's radioshow, the most recent wacko salvo in the indecency crusade is House Judiciary Chair James Sensenbrenner's statement to the cable industry last week that broadcast indecency ought to be enforced criminally, not with regulation.
For all the handwringing, I do wonder how far the indecency crusade can go. There are some very high-tension lines of power and money that risk being cut if indecency rules are pushed too hard, or into the criminal realm.
For instance, let's recall that FOX is the recent recipient of a huge $1 million+ fine for an episode of its program, The Bachelor. FOX boss Rupert Murdoch is not likely to sit by too quietly and watch his FOXploitation profits get sucked down by government regulation.
It's one thing when the crackdown targets just a few prominent, and not necessarily popular, scapegoats, like Janet Jackson and Howard Stern. It's another when it threatens some of the most popular programming on television and radio. (And while Stern is tops amongst morning radio shock jocks, I would not classify him as widely popular compared to the top 25 TV prime-time TV programs).
As I've stated before, the crowd that is most concerned with indecency and so-called "values" often values effort nearly as much as results. All the jockying for position on the issue wins big points with the moralizers, even if very little change is effected, while unsuccessful campaigns fade out of the popular memory.
I don't mean to wholly dismiss the gravity of the indecency campaign. Yet it's getting so farcical and moving in so many different directions -- enforce indecency on cable! no, make family tiers! no, let's throw 'em in jail! -- that it's hard to see it as a coherent movement or campaign. Sure, the tenor and tone is pretty clear and scarily widespread in political circles, but it also looks like just a bunch of posturing and grandstanding.
I'm not going to cry over FOX, Viacom and Disney sweating bullets and bleeding money. Of course, the fear is that the same irrational "values" persecution will be levied upon community and college radio stations, too. However, while a multi-hundred-thousand dollar fine will is only a flesh wound for Viacom, it's lethal to a non-commercial LPFM.
I've been mulling this over more than a year now, and I still stand by what I wrote back in Feburary 2004:
Yes, from a principled standpoint the daytime ban on indecency is wrong. But so is the enforced scarcity of broadcast licenses and the FCC's and Congress's refusal to open up the airwaves to more broadcast stations of all types, low power or high power.
The system of broadcast allocation and regulation is fundamentally flawed, unprincipled, inconsistent, and even corrupt. I'd argue there is no principled way to work within such a system to repair it or make it more just.
Most community stations are already very careful about indecency and probably toe a line much more cautiously than commercial broadcasters, since the stakes are higher for them. Many take advantage of the free harbor, moving their potentially indecent programming until after 10 PM, as a good compromise between avoiding fines, but still airing challenging content. Luckily, these days indecency is exclusively defined as sexual and excretory talk, and cannot be legitimately applied to muck-raking political reporting.
I'm not wishing for more indecency regulation, enforcement or legislation. But, frankly, I'm not wishing for much more media regulation or legislation in the first place, since most laws and regs are intended simply to provide an advantage to one industry or company at the expense of another. Very rarely does any law or reg actually protect any semblance of the public interest.
There is almost never any such thing as deregulation -- just new regulations that hand over the prize to a different competitor.
The indecency spectacle will play out, and I'll be glad to watch the broadcasters, cable operators, religious right, reactionary Democrats and sycophant Republicans all clamor and step over each other. It should make for good slapstick.
The last two mediageek radio shows are both on-line and definitely worth a listen if you've been following the FM translator trafficking scandal, or interested in free radio and TV.
- mediageek 3-25-05: Free Radio Workshops on Tour
On this program we talk with Stephen Dunifer, of Free Radio Berkeley, about their upcoming Radio Camps, offering a four-day workshop on building and operating unlicensed low-power FM transmitters. The camps will be going on tour this Spring to Madison, WI, and several other locations in the US and Latin America. Dunifer also tells us about FRB's recent foray into unlicensed TV broadcasting. - mediageek 3-18-05: Harold Feld of MAP Explains Christian Radio Translator Trafficking Scheme
Harold Feld of the Media Access Project gives us the skinny on a petition by Prometheus and other media reform groups to the FCC demanding a freeze on noncommercial FM translator stations applications in order to halt what they see as a trafficking scam. And, coincidentally, the FCC does it, but as part of a LPFM strengthening effort.Posted by paul at 02:39 PM
As promised, attorney Harold Feld, representing Prometheus et al, has filed his opposition Download file">(download pdf) to Edgewater et al's motion to dismiss Prometheus' petition to freeze translator applications (follow that?).
Prometheus calls Edgewater's bluff:
Ministries has failed to produce any evidence to rebut the prima facie case, based on publically available documents, that the principles of “Ministries” have engaged in an illegal scheme to traffic in Commission licenses in violation of Section 309(j)(3)(C) and Section 309(j)(4)(E) of the Communications Act and longstanding Commission policy. ...Feld goes on to claim that Edgewater's motion to deny rests primarily on flimsy procedural claims:Applicants Parrish, Williamson and Atkins do not give more than general denials to the facts stated in the Petition and supported by public documents.
Caught with their hands in the public cookie jar, “Ministries” has attempted to shift ground and seek dismissal on procedural grounds. The thrust of “Ministries” Motion is that the Petition constitutes an untimely Petition to Deny the initial applications of Parrish, Williamson and Atkins in their various corporate guises. This misunderstands the nature of Petitioner’s filing.On Edgewater et al's claim that Gloria Tristani, Manager of UCC Office of Communications, improperly contacted current FCC Commissioners about the issue, Prometheus says, essentially, that Edgewater doesn't understand the rules:
Furthermore, the accusation that former Commissioner Gloria Tristani violated the ex parte rules is simply inaccurate and represents a misunderstanding of the procedural posture of the case and of the ex parte rules.
This is the most excitement the world of FM translator stations has seen in years. But I don't mean to minimize the real importance of this case. The abuse of translator stations to create huge networks of low-power radio clones where true community LPFM stations could go is a travesty. That World Radio Link can then profit from the venture is a true looting of public coffers.
I hope that it's clear to the FCC that they can't ignore this situation.
To hear more from Harold Feld on the translator trafficking scandal, listen to this Friday's radioshow (5:30 PM, WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign, IL), or listen to it on-line at the radioshow page, starting next Monday.
Yesterday the Edgewater Broadcasting / Radio Assist Ministry / World Radio Link triumverate filed a motion (download pdf) to dismiss the Prometheus et al petition to freeze the ongoing issuing of new translator radio station licenses by the FCC.
Edgewater et al are three companies owned by the same three individuals. Edgewater and Radio Assist Ministries have applied for thousands of low-power translator station licenses, which are now being sold off by World Radio Link before any actual stations have even been built.
Prometheus et al believe the scheme amounts to trafficking in translator construction permits for stations that aren't even on the air yet, against FCC policy and federal law.
Edgewater et al don't mince words in their response to the FCC. Attorney Dawn M. Sciarrino writes:
The Petition fails to make a prima facie case that the grant of any or all of the pending FM Translator applications is inconsistent with Section 309(a) of the Act, 47 D.S.C. § 309(a), nor does it raise a substantial and material question of fact regarding the qualifications or actions of the Ministries. ... Petitioners' hyperbole, conjecture, and histrionics do not amount to a scintilla of evidence of wrongdoing.In a footnote, Sciarrino targets Gloria Tristani, Managing Director of the Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ and a former FCC Commissioner, claiming that she improperly contacted other FCC Commissioners regarding the Prometheus petition.
It certainly looks like the gloves are off. There is too much money on the table for Edgewater et al to ignore.
This afternoon I spoke to Howard Feld, the Prometheus et al attorney with the Media Access Project, for an interview that will air on this Friday's radioshow. He tipped me off to the Edgewater et al motion, and said they plan to reply to the motion very soon.
John and DIYmedia tipped me off to the petition, filed this past Wednesday, March 9, asking the FCC to freeze the processing of applications for new translators stations, based upon allegations of trafficking, as covered here at mediageek and at DIYmedia. The coalition behind the petition includes the Prometheus Radio Project, REC Networks (which did the primary research that smoked out the trafficking scheme) and the United Church of Christ.
In the petition, they write:
Prometheus Radio et al have discovered evidence of a massive trafficking scheme in violation of the Communications Act and longstanding Commission policy. Three individuals, Clarke Parrish, Earl Williamson, and Diana Atkin, used two dummy corporations – Radio Assist Ministry, Inc. and Edgewater Broadcasting, Inc. – to apply for thousands of translator licenses in the March 2003 Translator Window… The Applicants have used a third dummy company, World Radio Link, Inc., to aggressively market the naked construction permits. ...The LA Times is the only mainstream news outlet to cover the petition, and, unsurprisingly, they fail to get comment from REC, Edgewater or World Radio Link. An FCC spokesperson tells the Times that the commission is aware of the situation and is "working tirelessly to ensure a fair balance between the needs of the broadcasters and the communities they serve."As the Commission has long recognized, allowing the sale of naked construction permits in the broadcast services is contrary to the public interest and corrupts the integrity of the Commission’s processes. The harm to the public is particularly onerous here, because these translator licenses come at the expense of future low power FM stations.
My pal John Anderson was our guest on the show this past Friday again, since he's been doing a lot of the digging into Calvary Chapel, Edgewater Broadcasting, their various associates/aliases and the exchange of FM translator station licenses.
The program is now posted for download, streaming and podcasting.
On the program, I neglected to mention that its the phenomenally thorough research of REC Networks that tipped John and I to what they call the "translator invasion." I apologize for the oversight.
For those of you who haven't been reading each post on this scandal, here's a quick compendium on recent posts from DIYmedia.net and mediageek:
- DIYmedia - Moneychangers In the Temple
- DIYmedia - God Squads Fall From Grace
- DIYmedia - Religious Broadcasting As Franchise Operation
- mediageek - Something Fishy in Right-Wing-Christian-Translator-land, Grabbing Spectrum away from LPFM, Maybe Profiting from the Venture?
- mediageek - Calvary Chapel, LPFM and Plausible Deniability
- mediageek - Calvary Chapel: The Decentralized Christian Clear Channel
As John mentioned on today's mediageek, here's a link to a map of the Calvary Chapel of Ft. Lauderdale's coverage map for their 100,000 watt blowtorch station and its translator repeaters.
The Boston Phoenix reports on CSN's plan to erect a 20,000 watt completely unmanned satellite-driven station on the fringes of several college station's signal:
If the syndicate is allowed to transmit its satellite feed, 20,000 watts strong, from a tower in Plymouth, it could muddle the signal of many lower-power stations — including Boston College’s student-run WZBC (90.3 FM) — for several hundred thousand listeners on the South Shore. It would also set a terrible precedent, allowing a nationwide broadcaster to take up valuable FM bandwidth with syndicated programming antithetical to the local spirit noncommercial radio is supposed to support.
John does some more digging into the various Calvary Chapels that are putting together what look like turn-key radio networks, partially built from translators purchased from Edgewater/Radio Assist Ministry:
Unlike the Calvary Chapels of Twin Falls and Costa Mesa, which had to grow their networks over time by applying for more and more FM stations when they could, Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale and Horizon Christian Fellowship are buying their reach via an intermediary corporation whose founding alumni once worked for Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls, an originator of the FM signal proliferation strategy. ...Then there's the zinger: the person working the FCC filings for at least two Calvary Chapel radio entities is the sitting president of the Federal Communications Bar Association.
John points out that Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale, aka Reach Communications, is not the same Calvary Chapel as Costa Mesa or Twin Falls, which operate the CSN radio network. Apparently incorrectly, Monday I connected Reach with Costa Mesa/Twin Falls. Of course, with all these entities using the Calvary Chapel "brand" (as John calls it), it sure gets difficult to tell the players apart -- especially when they're mostly carrying the same programming.
The important thing to keep in mind when looking at these huge numbers of translator stations is that they are essentially low-power FM stations that are permitted to be squeezed on the dial closer than actual LPFM stations, even though, technically, there's no difference between them.
Thus, FCC rules and federal law permit there to be more satellite-driven non-local low-power FM translator stations than locally-programmed non-commercial LPFM stations.
Indeeed, there are three licensed FM translator stations in the Champaign, IL area, and one application pending from Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls, ID. Yet, our area has just one LPFM license, which we almost didn't get as a result of Congress' evisceration of the service in 2000.
What about your commu