The Local Community Radio Act won Congressional approval last week after a 10-year battle led by groups such as the Prometheus Radio Project, which is dedicated to "freeing the airwaves from corporate control." Basically, the legislation will enable the FCC to license many more small, local, independent radio stations. Here's Prometheus's short-version explanation of the legislation:
The main impact of the legislation is that it repeals the restrictions on Low Power FM radio licensing that were put into place by the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act (RBPA) of 2000. The RBPA said that the FCC couldn't give a license to a Low Power FM radio station (an LPFM) if there was a full-service radio station nearby on the third-adjacent channel (that is, three "clicks" away on the dial). The stated purpose of this rule was to prevent interference to full-service stations, but there has been some good research showing that it's highly unlikely that LPFMs will interfere with full-power stations that are so far away on the dial. The new legislation removes the restrictions on spacing between Low Power FM radio stations and full-service radio stations on third-adjacent channels. That's what LPFM advocates have been hoping for for years, and it makes space for lots of new LPFMs! Yay!
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