Those of us looking for new radio venues with more innovation, creativity, chutzpah, and spontaneity are ecstatic with a new directive from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Last week, the FCC announced it will be seeking public comment on a proposal (identified as MB Docket 07-294) to expand the FM radio band by reallocating FM frequencies currently used by Channels 5 and 6 television; these frequencies will become vacant next February when television converts to digital broadcasting. Under the plan, sixty new FM channels will become available. The alternative to this option, as written in an earlier column on this page, is another idea floating in Congress that would place these frequencies up for auction to the highest bidder (under the guise of helping to retire the national deficit; a drop in the bucket which does not address another kind of DEFICIT heard over much of the public's airwaves).
Let’s hope forces at our national's capitol will opt for a long over-due infusion of new blood into the radio world. It's really no choice at all.
Now, it really is UP TO US. Isn't it time to send your Congressman/Congresswoman and U.S. Senators some friendly and pertinent correspondence?
Sunday, March 9, 2008
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