Copyright 2000 Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles
Times
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March 27, 2000, Monday, Home Edition
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 4; Editorial Writers
Desk
LENGTH: 377 words
HEADLINE: STATIC SURROUNDS RADIO PLAN
BODY:
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) has been one of the
most eloquent defenders in Congress of local control over public policy. "The
basic themes that have made New Hampshire strong," he told legislators earlier
this year, are "strong community involvement, commitment to individuals and
family, and the sense of the state as a neighborhood."
Gregg, it would
seem, would be the perfect champion of a plan by Federal Communications
Commission Chairman William Kennard to give low-power FM radio
licenses to churches, schools, PTAs and other community groups eager to have
their authentic local voices heard above the growing din of commercial radio.
Instead, Gregg is leading a vote tomorrow in Congress to kill Kennard's
"micro-radio" plan. The weapon is a bill introduced in the Senate by Gregg and
in the House by Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) to annul the micro-radio policy and
prevent any similar plans.
Gregg accepted nearly $ 8,000--a large
contribution in a very small state--for his 1998 campaign from micro-radio's
fiercest opponent, the National Assn. of Broadcasters, and has supported other
NAB efforts.
The NAB claims that signal and static "bleed" from the
low-power stations will harm their listenership. That claim is flatly
contradicted by studies like the one that Ted Rappaport, an electrical
engineering professor at Virginia Tech and leading authority on signal
interference, presented to Congress last month. Rappaport said that "in the
absolute worst case" only 1.6% of the micro-radio stations would bleed into
existing station signals. Under Kennard's plan, such stations would be required
to eliminate the interference or shut down.
Legislators are now throwing
hard balls at Kennard's plan. Take the chairman of the House subcommittee on
telecommunications, Billy Tauzin (R-La.), who received more than $ 57,000 from
political action committees representing broadcasters from 1989 to 1999,
according to Common Cause. Tauzin said Kennard's plan proves that the FCC has
become a "rogue agency" that should be "reined in. . . . It works for us, not
the other way around."
Actually, the FCC works for the American people,
not just powerful Washington lobbyists and the members of Congress whose
reelection coffers they fill.
LOAD-DATE: March 27, 2000
