Yeah, I'm a weekend writer but I'm going to use my free pass to post on legislative topics during the week, because this one's important. Today is a huge day for those of us interested in community radio. Back in 2000, Congress passed the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act that put the kibosh on the issuing of new licenses for low-power FM radio stations. LPFM stations are low-watt community-based radio stations that serve local areas by providing targeted information and acting as community hubs. They're a way of injecting a bit of diversity into a local news market and can serve some of the functions that the Internet/blogs do for people that can't afford a computer or Internet access. In fact, having an LPFM station with staff who have access to one computer and high-speed broadband hook-up can greatly open up the information available in local communities that might otherwise be off the news grid.

In January of 2000, the FCC began issuing LPFM licenses for (what I believe was) the first time. The National Association of Broadcasters objected, and in response Congress called for a study that would investigate whether LPFM frequencies interfered with existing radio stations, as NAB was concerned about. The MITRE corporation did that study and found that, technically, LPFM and full-power broadcasting can live together in almost perfect harmony:

Our principal finding is that LPFM stations can safely operate three channels away from existing FPFM stations, provided that relatively modest distance separations are maintained between any LPFM station and receivers tuned to the potentially affected FPFM station. Those required separations are on the order of a few tens of meters in the best case, to slightly more than a kilometer in the worst case. The main exception to this finding involves FM translator receivers, which may require distance separations up to about 3.2 kilometers from 100-watt LPFM transmitters lying squarely in the main beams of the translators' receiving antennas. If these requirements are met, both analog and digital FPFM stations should be able to operate without significant risk of harmful third-adjacent-channel interference from LPFM.

Facts in hand, now the move is to get Congress to authorize to the FCC begin issuing LPFM licenses again. Today Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Lee Terry (R-NE) in the House and Maria Cantwell and John McCain are introducing identical legislation that would tell the FCC to get to it. This is a simple good move that can get done in this congress, and a blessed rare case of a telecom issue that's politically fairly straightforward. No bill numbers yet, but in both House and Senate it'll be called the Local Community Radio Act of 2007. Congresspeoples need to hear from their constituents that community radio is important to them, particularly those sitting on the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Commerce Committees.

Can you believe that we're already at the seventh installment in our MyDD interview series called Hearing Progressive Voices? Why, it seems as if it was just yesterday that I was thinking, hey, interviewing interesting progressives via instant messenger would be fun, educational, and -- because IM produces an instant transcript -- easy. I'm particularly pleased to have had the chance to chat today with Hannah Sassaman. Hannah is the Program Director for the Prometheus Radio Project, a Philadelphia-based group that helps set up community radio stations and fights for a media landscape that is more fair, more balanced, and more open to all.

The particular focus of Prometheus' fight these days is Low Power FM -- small, community-based radio stations that have a broadcast range of only a handful of miles. In a day and age where Clear Channel owns more than a thousand radio stations across the country, community radio is a means by which the people can communicate, organize, and effect change. But the future of LPFM in America is not certain. Legislation passed by Congress has restricted low-power stations to small cities and towns, claiming concerns over interference with full-power stations of the sort owned by Clear Channel and other corporate broadcasters. There's a chance in the 110th Congress to re-open the radio spectrum to local broadcasting, and even the rare opportunity this fall to grab full-power licenses for non-profit broadcasters. In this interview, Hannah and I discussed deejay-public feedback loops, untying the hands of the FCC, and Prometheus' pirate radio roots.

Hannah eloquently explains the importance of both Low Power FM and telecom policy that frees at least some lines of communication from corporate control. But me, I think it's summed up well in the words of that bard of my generation, John Mayer: "when they own the information, oh, they can bend it all they want."

There's more...