How is it that Americans have gotten so interested in dynasties lately? There are the obvious oneâ??s Bush II, the Osbornes, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Then there are the unusual, not so obvious ones like FCC chairman Michael Powell son of Colin Powell.
Michael Powell son of Colin Powell has pushed for some of the most audacious deregulation efforts in telecom history. Though he has been temporarily thwarted by unprecedented public outcry he continues to allow enormous mergers while refusing to enforce existing regulations. Just recently he allowed media giant Rupert Murdock (owner and creator of Fox News) buy one of only existing satellite dish networks.

It was in this environment that the Civic Media Center applied for a Low Power FM license three years ago. The FCC was overwhelmed by the response to their Low Power FM Initiative, so overwhelmed that they put the entire matter on hold for to years.

When they finally decided to revisit LPFM they had made some changes. Everyone who wanted an LPFM license within the same market would have to agree to share it.

Knowing that there were a lot of religious groups interested in LPFM, some with legitimate applications, some fraudulent, and that many community groups would not want to share with religious groups and vice versa this move was clearly calculated to be discouraging.

The Civic Media Center found itself in an agreement with two religious organizations. Gainesville already has three religious stations on the radio dial. The Civic Media Center concluded that rather than live in a town with four religious stations and no community radio it would be better to have 3 and 2/3 religious stations and 1/3 of a community radio station.

The CMC submitted its time-sharing agreement this spring. While we wait for FCC approval it is a good idea for us to get prepared to build the station. That means researching equipment, finding an engineer, finding space to house the studio and of course raising money. We really need the support of committed, experienced community members like you to help us. If you know how you can help please contact us at

Thank you.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 5th, 2006 at 7:13 am and is filed under Community Radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.