Microstations and Goliath

Federal Communications Commission Chairman William E. Kennard has bent over backward to address big commercial broadcasters’ concern about his proposal to hand out new low-power FM radio licenses to churches, schools, PTAs and other community groups. Last year Kennard proposed the stations as a tiny antidote to homogenized commercial radio, but the big radio chains somehow see them as full-blown competition.

Their objections have been endless. Earlier this year, experts like Virginia Tech’s Ted Rappaport presented Congress with evidence that “in the absolute worst case,” only 1.6% of the new lower-power stations would bleed into existing station signals. Kennard agreed to require low-power stations to shut down if they cannot immediately resolve the interference. Broadcasters then came up with a new set of objections, which Kennard addressed in a directive last month that created a fast-track process for resolving interference complaints from full-power stations. Rather than toning down their ferocious opposition, broadcasters have pumped up the volume. The powerful National Assn. of Broadcasters--which has spent more than $19 million lobbying Congress in the last four years--vows, by the end of this week, to get approved one of three bills that would effectively kill Kennard’s plan for the microstations, which would have a range of about one mile. Senate Bill 2068 by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) would bar the FCC from issuing any low-power FM licenses at all; SB 3020 by Sen. Rod Grams (R-Minn.) would severely restrict and delay new licenses; and SB 2989 by Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) would give big commercial stations new rights to sue and collect punitive damages from any low-power station that interferes with their signal.

McCain’s measure is the most mischievous. It doesn’t specifically ban low-power FM, but effectively kills the idea by placing the burden of proof on the low-power stations, which obviously won’t have the financial and legal wherewithal to withstand such court challenges.

All of these legislators, and McCain particularly, have made election promises to return Washington to the people. But in their attempt to defeat Kennard’s plan “to give voice to those ideas not always heard, but which many yearn to hear,” these legislators have shown that the federal government remains too firmly in the hands of the powerful. Congressional leaders might help prove otherwise by spurning all three bills, allowing Kennard and the FCC to approve the community-oriented microstations.