Grassroots Radio Stations and Media Deregulation:

Why It Matters, and What We Have to Do to Stop It

(published by the Prometheus Radio Project and the FCC Workshop at the Grassroots Radio Convention, June 15, 2003)

 -- What is deregulation?  Deregulation happens when a federal regulatory commission, like the Federal Communications Commission, decides to throw out or revise the rules, which limit how many properties a company can own in a particular field.  The phone companies, energy companies in many states, water companies, and now, media companies have all benefited from deregulation.

-- When was media last deregulated, and what did it do?  The last round of deregulation happened in 1996.  Among other things, the FCC relaxed the rules governing radio ownership.  Radio station ownership fell out of the hands of hundreds and into the hands of a few.  Owners could own up to eight stations in major markets, rather than the two or four permitted under the old rules.  The Clear Channel Corporation, for example, expanded its holdings from 40 stations to over 1200.  And the quality of radio went down.  Corporations like Clear Channel 'voicetracked' canned broadcast talent, weather, and news out of San Antonio, and fired engineers, broadcasters, and support staff.  Local news died.  Quality shot down.

-- Give me an example.  In Minot, North Dakota, Clear Channel owned all six stations in that small town after 1996.  When a train derailed, spilling very caustic and poisonous ammonia gas through the town in the middle of the night, the town called the Clear Channel stations, hoping to get an emergency alert on the air. Because all of the programming was shunted out of Bismarck and San Antonio, there was not one person at any of those stations.  Major damage to the town, livestock, and citizens ensued.  One person died.

-- What will the current round of deregulation do?  The FCC, led by the son of our Secretary of State, Michael Powell, voted to deregulate on June 2nd.  When these new rules are put into place, they will, among other things:

-- remove the rules preventing newspaper companies and broadcasting companies from cross-owning each other.  What would it mean to your community if the same conglomerate owned all the alternative newsweekly, the daily paper, the radio stations, the television stations, and the power company?

-- raise the cap that limits national reach of a broadcaster from 35% of the nation's population to 45%.  This will allow more encroachment of corporate TV and radio companies into places they were never allowed before.

Why does this matter to community radio?

-- Community radio doesn't exist in every city and town across this country.  Commercial radio does.  And with this new deregulation, commercial radio will have an uncontested chance to affect the way millions of citizens participate in their communities, and their democracy.

--  The Federal Communications Commission, led by Chairman Michael Powell, has proven through these actions that he thinks corporate radio, especially in its centralized, consolidated state, does a fine job of serving the public interest.  The non-commercial band, Low Power FM, and other 'rights' that we retain could easily be taken away from us in continuing rounds of deregulation, led by powerful corporate lobbyists.

-- Why does community radio matter in this issue?  Grassroots radio is our most powerful weapon in fighting the push to deregulate.  It was before June 2nd, and it will be in these next few important weeks.

The members of the Grassroots Radio Coalition understand how important our efforts and programming are in galvanizing the dissent that exists within our communities, across the country, and around the world.  We didn't just witness the Federal Communications Commission's push to deregulate the nation's media system.  We understood that removing the rules that limit corporate ownership of radio, television and print media would kill what diversity of voice remains in the overwhelmingly powerful commercial media.  We didn't just witness this push.  We chose to act.  Our efforts to educate our listeners about the importance of this issue -- efforts that dwarfed the coverage of the deregulation push available in the corporate media -- helped to turn millions of people into media justice activists.  It was the effort of the independent media which built a coalition of bipartisan groups and diverse individuals that told the FCC 'No!' when they said that a paltry few owners of media outlets was good for diversity.  Our efforts captured the imagination of citizens and senators, moguls and mothers.  And this coalition is angry that the FCC voted to deregulate anyway.  It needs to know what it can do.  And it needs to hear what it can do from us.

Grassroots radio covered this story incessantly.  The democratic commissioners at the FCC, who fought deregulation violently, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, spoken dozens of stations.  Our stations covered the field hearings on this issue -- hearings that were barely mentioned by other news outlets.  And grassroots radio stations brought hundreds of thousands of the 750,000 formal comments on this issue to the FCC, by mentioning on the radio where their listeners could learn more, and fight back.

Why should we fight now?

-- Even though the FCC voted to deregulate, our efforts brought the attention of the Senate Commerce Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, over one hundred Congresspeople, Senators Fritz Hollings, Ted Stevens, Trent Lott, Russ Feingold, and John McCain.  Major cities passed resolutions condemning the push to deregulate.  And our legislators are working RIGHT NOW on passing legislation.  Our senators need to continue to hear from us, to know that they can get our support in exchange for   fighting this important battle.  We can get some of our airwaves back IF WE ACT   FAST.

-- There is a real threat to our space on the dial, as mentioned above.  Nothing is sacred.    

-- We made more allies than just legislators in this last battle.  Media activists, independent media organizations, and grassroots media makers brought peace and justice activists, environmental activists, poor people's rights activists, and civil liberties activists into the light when it came to media.  The repulsive coverage of   the war in Iraq fed to us by our corporate producers woke up millions of people to the power media holds over us.  These new allies are potential listeners, members, volunteers, and programmers.  By keeping their attention with this important issue, and by proving that we are useful and powerful tools by telling them how to fight back, they will turn to us for progressive and pertinent news and public affairs from now on.

-- If and when we win, we'll have a group of powerful and excited legislators who care about media issues.  We can start to shape a media environment that is really diverse, and that reflects our dreams.  (More on that later.)  

How can we fight now?     

-- There are public service announcements you can drop into your playlists right now athttp://www.mediadiversity.org.      

-- Encourage your listeners to call, write, and fax their legislators on this issue every possible moment!  They need to know we are incredibly interested in their unflagging pursuit of fair media.  While the different bills come to the front, telling your senator     'I support community media, and am against the deregulation push at the FCC,' is enough.

-- Support the many powerful e-petitions and letter writing campaigns being organized across the country, and tell your listeners to learn more from these groups.  You can find links to Common Cause's campaign, Free Press's campaign, and moveon.org's campaign at mediadiversity.org.    

-- Keep doing the excellent investigative reporting on this issue as it unfolds in your hometown.  Stories with which you can begin your research can be found at mediadiversity.org.  You could:

 -- look at media ownership in your own town, and how conflicts of interest in ownership assert themselves in the lives of your town's businesspeople and listeners.          

-- interview the media activists who are up to date on the progress of the bills in the House and Senate.

-- incorporate coverage and media issues into other stories your station reports.

-- talk with your board and staff.  Tell them why deregulation matters to community radio.  Keep them aware and active.          

-- make the deregulation issue a center of your fundraising campaigns.  Your station is a bastion of light in a darker and darker world.  Help keep it that way.

-- always understand the threat to our public airwaves as you go about your business at the station.

-- If and when we win, what might we fight for to preserve, enrich, and strengthen community radio?  The FCC workshop at this year's GRC talked about many things we could fight for.  They included:

-- ensuring that environmental factors are taken into consideration when telecommunication towers/cell phone towers are built.

-- questioning the dubious legal assumption that corporations, including media corporations, should be given the same rights as individual people when it comes to free speech.

-- challenging the Free Trade of the Americas agreement, which will give power to corporations to silence voices, opinions, and decisions when their free speech is challenged in America and across the hemisphere.

-- ensuring that anyone who has use of the airwaves for commercial purposes be required to provide political candidates with free broadcast time.       

-- expanding the educational bandwidth, forcing bloated corporations to divest themselves of some of their commercial stations.       

-- demanding a definition of community and a definition of public interest to which corporate broadcasters must adhere.

The Prometheus Radio Project and members of the workshop on FCC deregulation issues will be drafting a one-page sheet on deregulation -- how it is affecting us now and how we can fight back -- to serve as a template for mailings to your members and as a tool within your own stations.  Check for it soon at the Grassroots Radio Coalition website, on the GRC mailing list, and at mediadiversity.org.  And discuss this document (still in development); discuss what we are fighting for, how we are fighting for it, and what we demand from our government and ourselves if and when we win.    

GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING won us Low Power FM.  GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING galvanized coordinated resistance to the war in Iraq that the media couldn't ignore, no matter how it tried.  And GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING will win us back our airwaves.  Let's do it!                 

215.727.9620 -- www.prometheusradio.org