Let a Hundred Transmitters Bloom

Jesse Walker | June 21, 2006

John McCain has proposed an amendment [pdf] to the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 that would lift the limits on low-power radio that Congress imposed back in 2000. It wouldn't be a total deregulation, but it would allow hundreds of new stations to go on the air.

The Prometheus Radio Project has more details.

Comments

|6.21.06 @ 11:48AM|#

Just so long as you don't mention any political campaign or candidate on the air, McCain's cool with it. Big of him.

Warren|6.21.06 @ 12:25PM|#

Hey that's great and all, but I'd sooner live with only one state run radio station than live with BiCRA

|6.21.06 @ 12:34PM|#

Good point, Warren. Typical of Congress to include one half-measure of decency in a bucketload of crap.

|6.21.06 @ 1:59PM|#

Clever! Splitting the DIY-media constituency by allowing low-power community radio while gutting net neutrality.

At least this way some of the podcasts and streaming-audio feeds that ISPs will be able to "prioritize" into unlistenability will have a new way to reach anyone living within a five-block radius.

|6.21.06 @ 6:05PM|#

...it would allow hundreds of new stations to go on the air.

Thereby breaking the government-enforced oligopoly that is today's radio industry. For that reason, look for Clear Channel and the NAB to fight this tooth and nail.

|6.21.06 @ 6:24PM|#

A shameless grab for the pirate radio vote. What next? A tax credit for bloggers?

Robert|6.21.06 @ 7:18PM|#

Hah, 100 watt stations. What about the old 10 watt FM station?

|6.21.06 @ 9:29PM|#

Too late. I have foresaken my FM for XM.

I ain't never goin' back.

|6.21.06 @ 10:13PM|#

"Just so long as you don't mention any political campaign or candidate on the air, McCain's cool with it. Big of him."

Quite the opposite, McCain has never attempted to police political talk radio, just paid media.

What's the matter, Clean Hands, do you have something against people's political expression being unmediated by the Big Media?