06-10-2000

TELECOMMUNICATIONS: Watts Up?

The web of a thousand spiders can capture a tiger, says an African
proverb. But can an unlikely coalition of the Indigo Girls, the Catholic
bishops, college radio stations, punk-rock fans, and a collage of
Washington interest groups overwhelm the National Association of
Broadcasters?


Radio is the issue. In January, the Federal Communications Commission said
that it would grant FM broadcast licenses to noncommercial 10-watt and
100-watt stations. Those low-power radio stations have a range of
approximately three miles. The FCC's order was clear: Let a thousand
stations boom. Movement partisans promise an explosion of innovative
programming. A Catholic parish could broadcast the Mass in Latin. A black
activist in the inner city could mix rap music with political exhortation
and beam the message to nearby housing projects. A local band without an
agent or a record contract could blast its tunes to an enthusiastic, if
tiny, neighborhood audience. Radio pirates, once the FCC's Public Enemy
No. 1, could go legit. Micro-radio operators "are to the media what
Rosa Parks is to the civil rights movement," Robert McChesney, a
journalism professor at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign),
told Salon.com.


The low-power-radio initiative was in part the FCC's response to the 20
percent drop in radio station owners since the enactment of the 1996
Telecommunications Act. Today, four mega-broadcasters own a total of 1,000
stations. "We support the right of the public to hear diverse voices
on broadcast airwaves," said Katherine C. Grincewich, the assistant
general counsel at the U.S. Catholic Conference, the policy arm of the
Catholic bishops. "This rule-making is an outgrowth of that larger
policy objective."


But the broadcasters took their case against low-power radio to Capitol
Hill. That gave House Republicans another shot at the FCC, which they view
as hell-bent on overregulating the communications industry. The NAB
mounted a technological challenge to the FCC, claiming that the commission
ignored engineering studies showing that low-power stations would
interfere with their broadcasts. The FCC ruling, they argued, threatens
the integrity of radio. National Public Radio raised similar technical
challenges. More important, NPR's stance undercut the argument that only
broadcast-industry bullies worry about low-power radio. FCC engineers
still say that low-power radio will cause only minuscule interference,
which could be resolved on a case-by-case basis. But on April 13, the
House voted 274-110 to restrict the FCC's low-power-radio
initiative.


Score one for the broadcasters, who persuaded lawmakers to move a bill
that had had one day of hearings to the floor for a vote. Low-power-radio
backers concede that they underestimated the NAB. Given the mega-issues on
the broadcasters' plate, some opponents of the NAB are outraged that the
industry devoted its energy to crushing low-power radio. "But the
broadcasters are so drunk with power" that they went to Capitol Hill
to overturn an agency rule-making, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president
and CEO of the Media Access Project, a public-interest group that backs
the FCC initiative.


The House vote was a wake-up call for the groups that back low-power
radio. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., has introduced a measure that would
cripple micro-radio operators. But there was good news for the insurgents.
In late May, 11 Senators, including Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., moderate John Breaux, D-La., and
Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., signed a "Dear Colleague" letter that backed
low-power radio.


Supporters of low-power-radio are employing classic lobbying techniques to
rally the troops. Consumer groups have joined the fight. So have civil
rights groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which
represents dozens of organizations. In a June 5 letter to Senate leaders,
the conference condemned the Gregg measure.


Meanwhile, the Media Access Project adopted the classic underdog stance
and ran newspaper advertisements mocking the NAB's $5 million-a-year
lobbying budget. The $200,000 ad buy was interesting. The ads ran only
once in 12 major newspapers and in the 25 largest-circulation college
newspapers. The college newspaper ads, says Schwartzman, were the more
effective buy. "We tapped into some incredible things."


Other low-power-radio supporters are relying on a guerrilla-type public
affairs campaign. Musicians such as the Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt, and
Mike Watt have dedicated their concerts to the cause. "Music fans are
a key constituency," said Michael M. Bracy of Bracy Williams &
Co. and the executive director of the Low Power Radio Coalition. Other
advocates say low-power radio has tremendous appeal for hip artists and
their audiences who want to hear music from somebody besides Britney
Spears.


Bracy's coalition has used the Web as a way to communicate with
alternative weeklies and relies on e-mail as a daisy chain to inform its
supporters of Washington developments, such as the recent "Dear
Colleague" letter.


The Washington insiders and the grass-roots team were expected to gather
for a rally in the Commerce Committee hearing room on June 8. The LPRC
rally was to feature the Indigo Girls playing a few tunes and several
lawmakers addressing the crowd. But whether the movement will slow the
broadcasters remains unclear. The broadcasters no longer appear
unbeatable, Bracy says. "I am not predicting that we will win, but we
are recasting the debate."


W. John Moore

National Journal