It was the summer of 2007. Not moments after the Republican far right triumphed over President Bush’s hated immigration reform law than Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, introduced a rider to a budgetary bill in the House that would forbid funding for the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the Fairness Doctrine. The bill overwhelmingly […]
Today there are close to 1000 more noncommercial, locally-programmed community radio stations on the air in the US than a decade ago. The reason for this is the low-power FM radio service created by the Federal Communications Commission in 2000. While Congressional intervention cut the new service off at the knees at the end of […]
At the start of the decade the nation’s largest owner of radio stations, Clear Channel Communications, was flying high with a stock price over $90 a share in January, 2000. While public interest advocates and media reformers continued to batter the company with criticism over its tactics, Wall Street was still in love with the […]
A Russian radio station is being sued for disrespecting the memory of Josef Stalin. “What kind of bastard would be brave enough to say one word in his defense?” the host asked. Let’s start with Russia’s Prime Minister.
A couple of weeks ago I reported on Chicago Public Radio taking a glancing swipe against LPTV channel 6 stations that are effectively functioning like radio stations, taking advantage of their audio channel’s proximity to 87.7 FM. Now the owner of the Chicago smooth-jazz LPTV “radio” station WLFM-LP is striking back at CPR in both […]
It’s a day that thousands of low-power FM and community radio activists have been awaiting for just about nine years. This evening, at 7:06 pm the House of Representatives, with a minimum of drama, passed H.R. 1147, the Local Community Radio Act of 2009 by voice vote. Little drama for the House nevertheless meant nearly […]
NPR tells the FCC that its “revenue model, while not immune to the economic and technological challenges of the day, is diversified and relatively secure.” Glad to hear it.
The Local Community Radio Act of 2009 was scheduled for a floor vote in the House of Representatives today, a moment that LPFM activists have been awaiting for almost nine years. And wait they did. Anyone who has watched her share of C-SPAN knows that the House moves at its own pace, for its own […]
The Federal Communications Commission’s Diversity Officer defended himself this morning from the veritable avalanche of attacks he has sustained since he took his job. Speaking at a Washington, D.C. conference, Mark Lloyd asked to be allowed to “clear away some mud:” “I am not a Czar appointed by President Obama. I am not at the […]
On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported news that’s no surprise to radio industry watchers, that the third largest radio owners in the country, Citadel Communications, is about to declare bankruptcy in a deal pre-arranged with its creditors. The loudest critic of Citadel has been industry-insider Jerry Del Colliano who predicted last week that the […]
