With the new Biden administration in place, we’ve quickly seen a series of leadership shifts at the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its related international broadcasting groups, including Voice of America (VOA). Up until his final weeks, Trump-appointed CEO Michael Pack had been installing conservative allies throughout the organization and its affiliates.

Pack resigned on January 20 after he was told that he would be terminated. On the same day, Biden appointed former VOA executive Kelu Chao as Acting CEO of USAGM. Chao quickly fired a number of recent appointees and agency leaders.

On Sunday, January 24, USAGM announced that Chao had replaced the heads of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Additionally, she replaced three board directors that had been appointed by Pack in his final days as CEO.

NPR reported on Pack’s tumultuous seven months at USAGM, with staffers “…characterizing him as seeking political control over their coverage,” adding that, “Pack routinely accused journalists of anti-Trump bias, sought to fire top executives as part of a ‘deep state,’ ominously accused the networks of being receptive to foreign spies and denied requests for visa extensions from his own staffers who are foreign nationals.”

On last week’s Radio Survivor show/podcast, we covered some of the most recent controversies under Pack, including his call for the demotion of a journalist who had asked a serious, yet unwelcome question to the current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a Voice of America event on January 11. But that was just the tip of the iceberg, as Pack was also making even higher profile personnel changes in his last few weeks in office. Many of these moves signaled a focus on shifting USAGM and its affiliates in the direction of being a more conservative mouthpiece for the United States.

With Chao now working to undo those last-minute changes by Pack, she emphasized the importance of independent journalism in a statement this week. “I have great faith in these leaders in ensuring the highest standards of independent, objective, and professional journalism,” she said in regards to the new leaders of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

It’s also interesting to note that VOA’s new acting director as of January 21, Yolanda Lopez, had been briefly sidelined by Pack following the Pompeo incident. NPR writes, “On Jan. 12, Lopez was stripped of all editorial oversight of the English-language news hub after one of her White House reporters posed pointed questions to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about his remarks, made after the presidential election, about a second Trump administration.”

For even more history and context about USAGM and Voice of America as well as some scoop about the first few months of USAGM under CEO Pack, listen to Radio Survivor show #265 from September, 2020, on which we had an esteemed panel of historians and archivists who are experts on the topic.

The post Leadership Changes at U.S. Agency for Global Media and Voice of America appeared first on Radio Survivor.

There are a few stories we were watching closely at the end of 2020, and we wanted to bring listeners up to date. First up is Section 230, the law that provides a degree of immunity to online platforms – from social media to community radio stations – for consequences resulting from what their users might post or share on their platforms. Trump had urged its repeal, apparently to get back at big tech companies like Twitter, and installed a new FCC commissioner in December who is very supportive of the FCC taking over administration of the statute, regulating online speech. That put eyes on the FCC’s January meeting. We’ll tell you what happened.

We’ve also been tracking controversies at the Voice of America, where a political appointee has been pressuring staff to avoid news coverage critical of the US. The situation recently came to another head. Then our reflection on VOA’s mission spurs Paul to share the story of when his grandmother was a broadcaster for the service.

We also spend some time learning about Jennifer’s new podcast project, and discuss the evolution of podcast formats since the early days of the medium.

Show Notes:

• On these two episodes Prof. Christopher Terry discusses the recent controversies over Section 230:
  • Podcast #277 – How Does the FCC Solve Anything?
  • Podcast #258 – Trump Admin Raises the Specter of the Fairness Doctrine
• Podcast #265 – Inside the “Little Known” Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media
• PBS Newshour: What we saw the day the Capitol was attacked | ‘America, Interrupted’ Podcast
• Marc Maron reflects on the medium of podcasting in the 300th episode of WTF
• Updates on changes at the USAGM and VOA in the days following the recording of this episode: Leadership Changes at U.S. Agency for Global Media and Voice of America

The post Podcast #281 – Wrapping Up Section 230 & the VOA appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Radio waves don’t obey borders, and stations have been taking advantage of this fact since the dawn of the medium – often despite the rules of government regulators where the signals go.

Dr. Kevin Curran of Arizona State University has been studying border radio stations extensively, making it the subject of his doctoral dissertation. Everyone has a ton of radio nerd fun as he takes us back to the 1920s, when Canadian and U.S. regulators struck a treaty to split up the AM dial and limit maximum broadcast power, but left out Mexico. That opened up an opportunity for stations in that country to cover the continent with hundreds of kilowatts, attracting broadcasters from north of the border wanting to take advantage.

Many infamous and colorful personalities were amongst this group, from Dr. John Brinkley, who promoted goat glands to cure male potency problems, all the way to man named Bob Smith – later known as Wolfman Jack – who blasted rock and roll that most American stations wouldn’t touch.

Dr. Curran explains why stations along the Mexican border remained popular with U.S. broadcasters even after that country lowered maximum power levels, in treaty with its northern neighbor. He also explores the relationship of U.S. stations to Canadian markets, where stations are more highly regulated. If you’ve ever wondered why radio is different along the border, you’re curiosity will be satisfied.

Show Notes:

• Radio World: Goat Gland Man Has Enduring Appeal; Though His Remains Are Safely Entombed in Memphis, Dr. Brinkley’s Legend Lives on
• Wide Open Country: How Border Radio Helped Popularize Country Music
• Texas State Historical Association: Border Radio
• SpectacularOptical: Clap for the Wolfman
• The Classic CKLW Page
• Wolfman Jack biography
• Wikipedia: XEROK-AM

The post Podcast #212 – Border Radio in North America appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the “Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act,” but does it actually have a chance at putting a dent in unlicensed broadcasting? We review the provisions of the the bill – called the PIRATE Act for short – and wonder if an uptick in the war on pirates can be any more successful than the war on drugs.

Then Eric and Paul note the major push into podcasting by the nation’s largest radio broadcaster, leading down a garden path that ends with Eric reminiscing about his days making an independent national community radio newscast.

As we discuss on this episode, the 20th anniversary of birth of Indymedia at the Battle of Seattle is coming this November.

Underlying this is a nearly forgotten history of independent media that connects unlicensed radio, pre-social media open publishing on the internet and the birth of LPFM. With your help we want to record and document this important history at Radio Survivor.

To do this we need to get to 100 Patreon supporters by this July. That will help give us the resources we need to begin this work in time for the N30 anniversary.

Show Notes:

• Radio World: Six Things Broadcasters Should Know About the PIRATE Act
• Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map
• Podcast #178 – Irish Pirate Radio Archive
• Podcast #133 – Preserving Brooklyn Pirate Radio
• Podcast #181 – Visiting Community Radio Stations Around the World
• Podcast #103 – The Popular Community Radio Movement in Argentina
• Free Speech Radio News
• Indymedia

Feature image credit: Wikimedia Commons

The post Podcast #183 – Can Congress Stop Pirate Radio? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The president’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2018. Radio Survivor’s own Matthew Lasar joins to help us put this attack on public broadcasting in historical perspective. He analyzes the inherent weakness in the design of the CPB and proposes ways in which the system could be both stronger and more independent.

Matthew also shares a couple of community radio nuggets he’s recently uncovered in the Internet Archive, including a bygone cable-radio station from Bloomington, Indiana, and late night broadcasts from Wichita, Kansas.

Please help us our work in providing community radio and podcasting coverage seen nowhere else. If we don’t do it, it won’t get done.

Make a monthly contribution of $1 or more to our Patreon campaign or a one-time contribution via PayPal.

Show Notes

• Sally Kane of the NFCB explained the importance of CPB funding for tribal stations on episode #81
• DJ “Gary Indiana” on WQAX-FM (“Quacks”), February 1981
• The Mumbles play on Sister Midnight: Wichita public radio, 1987
• 1951: Uncle Sam produces military training film on independent radio

The post Podcast #85 – Dreaming of a Better CPB appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Four years ago, on July 7, 2011, the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a second “remand” to the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to weaken its media ownership rules. When a court remands an action by a government agency, it is telling the agency that the decision is somehow wrong, often procedurally wrong, and needs to be revised. The challenge to the FCC was initiated by the Prometheus Radio Project.

The controversy began in 2003, when, in the Prometheus Project’s own words: “the FCC, under Chairman Michael Powell, sought to dismantle the remaining protections against media consolidation. Many large companies wanted media ownership rules abolished, allowing them to buy up unlimited media properties and monopolize local markets. Prometheus organized against these changes and commented to the FCC. Then, when the FCC ignored the millions of anti-consolidation comments, we sued the FCC in federal court.”

Christopher Terry’s essay below marks a crucial anniversary in a case famously known as Prometheus versus FCC. Terry teaches Media Law and Policy in the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has 15 years experience as a producer in commercial radio. His doctoral dissertation examined more than 1,000 FCC media ownership decisions between 1996-2010. “I thought we might take the opportunity of this anniversary to discuss how radio got so bad,” he wrote to us.  – Editor

July 7, 2015

On February 8th, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into the law the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Provisions within the Telecommunications Act implemented significant changes the legal, policy and social dynamics of media ownership. Although these changes could be felt across the media spectrum, the radio industry was fundamentally changed by the FCC’s implementation of the legislation.

In terms of legal changes, the Telecommunications Act implemented specific limits on media ownership, mandated by Congress, rather than limits created through rulemaking by the FCC. This change was significant, as prior to 1996, the FCC had determined the limits on media ownership and made decisions on media cross ownership prohibitions through developed rulemaking proceedings. These legal changes also resulted in a significant change in media ownership policy. While the FCC had been slowly raising the limits on media ownership, the changes brought about through rulemaking proceedings had been much smaller in scale. And the scale of the changes to the top end limits on media ownership, including the move to allow the creation of large numbers of commonly owned and operated radio stations at the market level, literally changed the radio business from a local to a national one.

Speaker at the FCC’s 2007 Seattle hearing on its media ownership rules.

The issue of empirical evidence (or rather the lack of it) in the FCC’s rulemaking process dealing with the limits on ownership of media outlets became a multi-prong problem for the agency. Even setting aside the usual administrative agency requirements for evidence to support rational decisions made when implementing policy, embedded within the 1996 Telecommunications Act was §202(h) which requires the agency to remove or modify rules that are no longer necessary to promote competition or in the public interest. Faced with this mandate, and the requirement to review the existing rules every four years, the Commission has found itself in a serious rulemaking quandary, and one in which policy decisions have suffered significant setback when rulemaking processes have come under judicial review.

Part of this problem stems from the Commission’s attempts to regulate media for three policy objectives, Competition, Localism and Diversity, simultaneously. Favoring the first through the implementation of structural limits on numerical broadcast station ownership, while paying lip service to the second through a seemingly endless rulemaking proceeding, in a vain effort to ensure the third which the FCC repeatedly claims to be the most important, the Commission has struggled to find evidence to support the decisions it has made regarding the media ownership rules, most notably during the release of new regulations in June of 2003. After proposing the Diversity Index, a new system for calculating concentration of media ownership, a diverse coalition of citizen groups ranging from the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association spoke out against the new media ownership decision, and as nearly a million comments came into the FCC, the Commission faced judicial review of the new policy proposal in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Prometheus Radio Project v FCC.

Upholding parts, but remanding large sections of the FCC’s decision in 2003 to the Commission for further review and clarification, the majority in the Third Circuit encouraged the Commission to generate some evidence to support future rulemaking decisions regarding media ownership regulations.

Michael Powell, Chair of the FCC from 2001 through 2005.

Given the weight of evidence standard that applies in the legal review of administrative rulemaking, the deference typically given to an administrative agency’s expertise by the courts, and the lack of evidence in the form of a review of the effects of the implementation of its structural regulatory scheme, the Prometheus remand in 2004 and second remand issued by the Third Circuit in Prometheus II in 2011 has effectively cut-off any changes to the policy.

Unfortunately for the FCC, the agency’s media ownership policy has become a double-barreled combination of more of the same and evidence which undermines the last 19 plus years of policy implementation. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the FCC’s implementation of media ownership policy, has been, remains, and will continue to be an important democratic issue. The relationship between control of media outlets and the sources of and the diversity of information that citizens have access to is an important one to understand, even in the age of the internet. Broadcasting still plays an important central role in the media use of every day Americans. The use of broadcast media remains at high levels. Even in the face of the digital communications revolution, a large quantity of the informational content on the web is simply repackaged and redistributed from existing media, including “the dinosaurs” of newspapers, radio and broadcast television.

The FCC has failed through a continued reluctance to engage in any sort of meaningful policy evaluation that would provide a measure of viewpoint diversity available within the modern media environment.  This failure has been created out a series of interrelated problems. While failing to do any sort of meaningful evaluation of its media ownership policy and going so far as to ignore evidence which demonstrated the policy implementation was having the absolute opposite effect of the intent of the policy, the FCC justified a massive first wave of consolidation in media ownership using theoretical benefits, such as economy of scale, without logically applying the effects of the change, such as the massive reductions in staff and content sharing, to viewpoint diversity.  In fact, the FCC championed the benefits of economy of scale in media mergers, until such time as the mergers grew large enough that the control of advertising markets became an issue. As this new challenge arose, the FCC changed the criteria by which it judged mergers, until such a point that the agency was examining mergers that gave the top two competitors in a media market control of up to 99.5% of advertising in that market. With no more room to use advertising markets as a control mechanism, the agency again changed its approach, stating that numerical limits were the best way to ensure viewpoint diversity. And in what might be described as the ultimately craven move by the FCC, the agency justified this third change in approach by recycling nearly forgotten rhetoric about protecting the public interest in ensuring access to diverse and antagonistic viewpoints.

The FCC retains a longstanding belief that each individual owner in a media market will provide one viewpoint, and that competition, both internal (from commonly owned stations) and external (from competitors) will result in an increase in content diversity which meets the stated policy goal of a diversity of viewpoints. As commercial entities, media outlets generate income by selling audiences to advertisers, therefore, external competition limits a station’s audience in situations where competing media organizations provide similar or identical formats. When competing media outlets are providing similar programming, and thus splitting the potential audience for that programming choice between them, theoretically an economic incentive is created to provide alternative programming options to competitors. This incentive to create new programming options will therefore result in content diversity.

If external competition between media organizations theoretically produces content diversity, what about the internal competition between commonly owned media outlets? The theory of a relationship between internal competition and diversity rely on Peter Steiner’s 1952 proposition that a monopoly firm in media could provide more diversity than competing firms. The FCC has adopted this theory as part of the support for its continued reliance on a structural regulatory scheme, arguing that as more media outlets are consolidated into common ownership, an economic incentive is created for a media organization to provide a more diverse set of programming, rather than to provide multiple programming formats that compete for audience with other commonly owned stations.

Competition for audience then, according to theory, creates content diversity through economic incentive, as desirable programming content will be produced by competitors seeking to generate audiences. An audience makes choices, and by keeping marketplace mechanisms in place, you provide the freedom for these consumers to “shop” for the content they want.

Unfortunately for the FCC, among the critics of its structural regulation policies are the federal courts. The primary reason for these legal setbacks has been the Commission’s inability to produce rational empirical evidence supporting licensing and ownership decisions.

In June, 2003, in response to the requirement of a quadrennial review of the media ownership rules, the Commission, without a period of public comment or review, released a revised set of rules that relaxed media ownership limits. At the heart of this order, which allowed substantial additional concentration of media ownership, was the FCC’s new Diversity Index (DI). The Commission’s stated goal was to assure that at least six competitors, newspapers, radio, television and internet sites would exist in each market.

Following a large public response against the new ownership limits, a legal challenge to the order occurred in Prometheus Radio Project v FCC in 2004. The majority took a dim view of the FCC’s new Diversity Index and the relaxed ownership limits the methodology could mathematically justify. As the Commission had failed to provide any evidence to support its decision-making, the court remanded to policy to the FCC. In terms of radio, the majority cited two studies in the docket which demonstrated a 34% in reduction in owners and concrete examples of consolidated radio groups eliminating local news production, to support the majority opinion to retain the existing limits was not supported by the analysis in the docket.

The remand in the first Prometheus Decision remains the primary obstacle of the FCC’s media ownership policy. The Prometheus decision made clear that in order for the Commission to modify its regulations in any significant way, whether in favor on increasing concentration or some types of rollbacks, the FCC must to generate evidence that at least rationally supports the agency’s rulemaking decision.

After the remand was issued, the FCC retreated to lick its wounds. A new FCC chairman, Kevin Martin was appointed in March of 2005, and the media ownership process was set aside until June 21st, 2006 when the FCC began the first required quadrennial reviews under section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act.

As the proceeding unfolded during the following months, a report was leaked to California Senator Barbara Boxer “indirectly from someone within the FCC who believed the information should be made public.” The report, was launched under the previous Chairman, and now industry lobbyist, Michael Powell’s tenure, after he tasked FCC Media Bureau staff to develop evidence on localism in broadcasting. Notably, the study demonstrated that the local ownership of television stations added almost five and half minutes of news to broadcasts including more than three minutes of “on-location” (i.e. local) news and conclusion that was in direct opposition to the FCC contention in 2003 that “commonly owned television stations are more likely to carry local news than other stations.” After the Senate hearing, news reports also surfaced that the Commission had ordered all copies of the draft study destroyed.

Five days later, a second unreleased draft study, which had been generated as part of the 2002 Review, also surfaced. This study, titled Review of the Radio Industry, contained evidence that was even more damning of the policy implementation than the television localism study. Examining the effects of consolidation on the radio industry between 1996 and March of 2003, the report reached five major conclusions, all of which would have been problematic for the FCC’s decision making in 2003. First, despite a nearly 6% increase in the number of radio stations overall, the number of owners had decreased by 35% and change brought about almost entirely by mergers between existing owners. Second, the largest group owner in 1996 had 65 radio stations which meant that the consolidation of ownership had been even more significant than the 35% reduction suggested. In just seven years, the top two companies, Clear Channel and Cumulus Media, had come to own more than 1,200 and just over 250 respectively. Third, at the local level, the report marked a downward trend in the number of owners in Arbitron markets. Fourth, in terms of advertising competition, the data demonstrated that the top firm in each market controlled an average of 46% of the advertising, and that the top two firms controlled an average of 76% of the advertising market. The report concluded that this level of control was at least partially responsible for an 87 percent increase in ad rates, despite falling ratings numbers. Finally, in terms of the effect of consolidation on the format diversity available, the study suggested that while the numbers of formats had remained largely steady overall, in the larger markets, there was actually a slight reduction in the number of formats being offered.

Each of the findings in these two “lost” studies should have provided the FCC the evidence necessary to reach the absolutely opposite conclusions than it had reached during the 2002 Review. While the localism finding is logical, the assessment of the effects of consolidation on the radio industry are damning of the policy decisions being made at the Commission during the rapid years of radio consolidation 1996-2003.

Kevin Martin, Chair of the FCC from 2005 through 2009.

Not surprisingly, facing the tough evidence and rationale obligations of the Prometheus Remand and the uncovering of evidence which demonstrated that the last ten years of policy decisions were having the opposite effect of their intent, on November 13, 2007, Chairman Martin released a proposed change to only one rule, a partial repeal of the longstanding prohibition on Newspaper-Broadcast Cross Ownership.

After a questionable process that included the circulation of two different versions of the order less than 12 hours before a vote was taken in December of 2007, the rule change was included in an order in February, and a month later, the FCC released one additional media ownership rule developed in a separate proceeding, which was designed, at least nominally, to help increase ownership of media outlets by minorities and women.

No longer allowed to favor minority applicants directly, the agency relied on the Small Business Administration, and created a class of applicants called “eligible entities.” The proposal adopted financial standards, created by the Small Business Administration (SBA), based on gross sales revenue for a radio or television company.

These decisions, like the ones from 2003, were also challenged, and then reviewed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel, under the provisions remand in the first Prometheus case. In July of 2011, the Circuit again remanded the agency decisions again citing procedural and evidence problems with the FCC’s actions. The elements of the judicial review in Prometheus II were very reflective of the issues raised in the decision from Prometheus I. The majority in both cases was critical of the procedure undertaken, the rationales provided, the policy decision reached, and the evidence used to support those decisions.

The majority was extremely critical of the agency’s failure in 2007 to meet the requirements of the earlier remand on the ownership of stations by women and minorities that was issued in the first Prometheus decision. Suggesting that the agency had “in large part punted” on the issue, the ruling imposes a mandate that the remand be addressed before the 2010 Quadrennial Review was completed.

The second Prometheus decision, much like the earlier Prometheus case, is illustrative, in  a crystal clear fashion, of the FCC’s ongoing problematic situation with the collection and development of  evidence. As the agency continues to struggle with this issue and then using the evidence to demonstrate a reasoned analysis for its decision making, it is important to summarize the process which occurred from 1996 to 2010. The agency, pursuant to the Telecommunications Act, launched into a proceeding without collecting any evidence. Then faced with multiple reviews of its decision making, the agency has failed to generate evidence which would support its decision making, ignored evidence which demonstrated that the policy implementation was failing to meet the stated objectives, and has proposed policies that even reviewing courts suggest “defy logic.” The agency’s decision making on media ownership has endured four remands on judicial review, or more specifically, one for each of the reviews in which changes were proposed. While faulty administrative procedure and poor policy design have each played a role in the failures of the FCC’s decision-making on media ownership, the evidence issues, specifically the lack of evidence, cannot be ignored.

In basic terms, the reality is that it does not matter what measurement method you apply, every existing evaluation of the FCC’s current policy implementation, including the two the agency temporarily “lost,” has demonstrated that the agency’s stated policy goals are not being achieved, and in many cases are being undermined, by the ownership policy decisions the Commission has made since the 1996 Telecommunications Act was handed down. No empirical results exist that support the theory that either internal or external competition is increasing the quantity or diversity of informational programming.

So what does all this jibber-jabber mean?  As we celebrate the anniversary of the Prometheus Radio Project, remember, radio is in the state it is in today because our regulators chose to make it that way, and still, in the face of overwhelming evidence, continue to refuse to admit they were wrong.

Dr. Christopher Terry is a Lecturer of Media Law and Policy in the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who spent more than 15 years as a producer in commercial radio. His dissertation examined more than 1000 FCC media ownership decisions between 1996-2010, and he has published research on media diversity, political advertising and of course, media ownership policy.

Contact him via email at crterry@uwm.edu or on twitter @christopherterr

The post A Legacy of Failure: FCC and Media Ownership Policy appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Reports of FM’s death in Norway are premature. That’s according to the Norwegian Local Radio Association (NLF – Norse Lokalradio Forbund in Norwegian) which sent us a press release saying that 200 local commercial and community radio stations outside the country’s four largest cities will continue broadcasting in analog. Waves were made in the international press the last few days with the initial report that Norway will shut down FM radio service in 2017.

However, according to the NLF, only 23 local radio stations in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Stavanger, along with major national broadcasters, will make the transition from analog to digital DAB broadcast. The group also highlights a recent report from the Government Statistical Bureau that says only 19% of listening is on broadcast DAB, below the 50% threshold set as a prerequisite for the change.

Apparently, the analog switch-off still requires approval in Parliament, where it has majority support, but opposition from the Progress Party–part of the governing coalition–and the Green Party. Part of the objection is based on claims by groups like the NLF saying DAB’s adoption was spurred by lobbying from the Digitalradio Norge AS company, not by consumer demand. That should sound familiar to HD Radio critics in the US.

There is also concern that foreign motorists from across Europe, where DAB penetration is much lower, will have no access to radio while visiting Norway’s major cities, cutting them off from news and information like traffic reports and emergency alerts.

I’ll admit that I was skeptical of the broad, sweeping claims of FM’s demise in Norway, especially since only the big national stations were mentioned in the Culture Ministry’s release. While I argued that the country is an outlier in making such a transition, I should have been more forthright in expressing my doubts that it would affect all FM stations.

Unfortunately, my inability to read Norwegian hampered my ability to do better research. That’s not an excuse, by the way. I have now found that Google Translate does a very good job with Norwegian.

Instead it’s just another lesson that I, and journalists in general, shouldn’t abandon our critical eye in the face of a juicy headline. I’ll keep a closer eye on what happens in Norway, because the political and regulatory aspects certainly hold lessons for communication policy in all countries.

The post FM in Norway Isn’t Dead, Says Norwegian Local Radio Association appeared first on Radio Survivor.

See our most recent update to this story: FM in Norway Isn’t Dead, Says Norwegian Local Radio Association

Last Thursday Norway’s Ministry of Culture announced the national transition from analog FM to digital DAB radio beginning on January 11, 2017. This move, akin to the digital television transition the US made in 2009, has been years in the making. At least one major reason for the switch is the stated savings of over 200 million Krones a year by the state NRK broadcaster, equivalent to about US $25 million. That money is planned to be invested in programming.

The Ministry first published a report calling for the end of analog radio in 2011. One of conditions stated in that report was being able to reach more than 90% of the population with a digital signal, equalling the coverage of the national NRK P1 station on FM. Additionally, at least half of all listeners had to listen to a digital station daily by this past January 1. Both of these conditions were met.

There is less analog radio in Norway than in many other European countries, and significantly less than in the US. Many press reports have repeated the Ministry of Culture’s statement that there are only five nationwide FM stations. Because DAB offers capacity for 42 national channels–22 are in use now–the Ministry says there will be more nationwide service.

However, mostly gone unmentioned is that there are dozens of additional local FM stations, many of which are part of the NRK public radio service, that will have to transition. Norway has no medium wave (AM) stations since NRK P1 ended broadcasts on that band in 2006.

Over the last decade other European countries, including the U.K., Germany and France, have entertained proposals to phase out FM, though none has followed through. The U.K. has the most well developed DAB system, with 36.8% of listening hours dedicated to 34 BBC channels and over 200 commercial stations. At the same time, it should be noted that many listeners complain about relatively low sound quality, due to the aging circa–1990 MP2 compression used by DAB. The newer DAB+ standard–used by many Norwegian stations–offers higher fidelity by using the more modern AAC codec.

Norway, therefore, should be considered an outlier in making an all-digital transition, even amongst countries that rolled out digital radio around the same time–some two decades ago. Moreover, this long gestation period for DAB in Norway means the country is not a bellwether for the US, where at best 2 – 3% of listeners tune in a digital radio signal.

Certainly, Norway’s comparatively centralized broadcasting infrastructure, combined with a population 1.5% that of the US, contribute to the ability to make a digital transition. While Norway has to transition maybe a few dozen stations, in the US 15,542 would have to adopt digital–only about 1,900 broadcast HD digital signals now. (In 2009 only about 2,200 US TV stations had to go digital, and they had 13 years advance warning).

Another significant factor is that DAB is a very different standard than HD Radio. DAB uses separate spectrum from FM, and is more efficient to broadcast. In most countries adopting DAB, the incentive to upgrade to DAB receivers was to access new, digital-only stations.

By contrast, HD Radio is broadcast alongside its partner analog FM broadcast, with identical programming as on the main digital channel. While HD offers fidelity-limited HD2 and HD3 channels not necessarily available in analog, most broadcasters in the US have invested little in these digital-only signals, giving listeners very little incentive to go HD. Nearly all the growth in HD receivers is due to automakers integrating the technology into car radios. In Norway and other countries DAB radio receivers of all kinds are widely available, beginning at around US $50. Good luck finding a non-automotive HD receiver in the US that’s not integrated in a thousand dollar A/V receiver.

While FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently asked in blog post if the top end of the AM band, 1605 – 1705 KHz, could be carved out for digital-only stations, this is the closest the US is likely to come to digital radio transition plan. Also note that this was just one of several ideas he proposed for utilizing that section of bandwidth. He promises we’ll see a concrete proposal soon.

It will be informative to watch how the digital radio transition unfolds in Norway, especially as listeners make the inevitable mad rush to buy DAB receivers at the close of 2016. Whether broadcasters in any other country–including the US–actually learn anything is another matter.

The post Norway’s Digital Radio Transition Is an Outlier appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago, John Anderson shared with Radio Survivor readers some details about a Library of Congress initiative focused on the preservation of local radio history all over the country. As he mentioned, The Radio Preservation Task Force is now hard at work identifying radio collections in every corner of the United States.

Radio Survivor is excited to announce that we are an official online partner and will be providing regular updates about not only Radio Preservation Task Force activities, but will also be publishing guest posts from Task Force members. It’s long been a goal of mine to increase Radio Survivor’s coverage related to not only radio history, but also radio scholarship, so I’m thrilled about this partnership.

And, finally, I am also happy to announce that I have joined the Radio Preservation Task Force as a Research Associate. Through my participation, I hope to bring more attention to college radio’s rich history. To that end, if you are aware of college radio archives, collections, and artifacts, please get in touch (Jennifer AT Radio Survivor DOT com).

For our first Radio Preservation Project guest post, I’m pleased to share this update from Radio Preservation Task Force Director/Convener Christopher Sterling and Research Director Josh Shepperd. – Jennifer Waits, Radio Survivor Co-Founder and College Radio & Culture Editor

Post by Christopher Sterling and Josh Shepperd

Growing out of the National Recording Preservation Plan (NRPP) of the National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB), the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF) is the Library of Congress’s first national radio history project.

The Radio Preservation Task Force (@radiotaskforce) was mandated by NRPB Chair Sam Brylawski in early 2014, and is directed by eminent broadcast historian and NRPB member Christopher Sterling, Associate Dean at George Washington University. Comprised of 100 media history faculty and the staff at the Library of American Broadcasting at the University of Maryland-College Park, the RPTF is currently aggregating participation from Affiliate Archives and assessing their collections. Radio shows that aired between 1925 and 1975 have been preserved in the form of “program transcriptions” – most often reel-to-reels or broadcasts pressed to vinyl. Thanks to previous work by the LoC, media libraries, and “Old Time Radio” (OTR) preservationists, the golden age of commercial radio is well represented at digital archives. The RPTF continues this work in application to local, regional, noncommercial, and under represented movements in broadcasting history.

Over the course of 2015 the RPTF will begin to analyze processed and unprocessed collections to create a national finding aid. Surveying the landscape of extant radio materials will require the application of metadata analytics to sound history, as well as the development of research caucuses comprised of faculty specialists and state university archivists. This work will culminate in an autumn radio history conference at the Library of Congress.

As we move closer to the conference, the RPTF will be airing features and series with our growing contingent of Online Partners beginning in November. Antenna will be running an ongoing series in which RPTF participants, graduate researchers, and radio practitioners will discuss historical and contemporary issues in radio studies. Over January and February Sounding Out! will air a short series on endangered radio collections, and In Media Res will run a week-long feature on radio archives. Next May, FlowTV will publish a special issue on historiographical and cultural questions facing radio researchers. Radio Survivor, a blog renowned for its ties to college radio, will post continued updates about the project. And we are delighted to name two preservation pioneers – Orphan Film Symposium and Ubuweb – as new partners.

Perpetually declared to be a dying medium, radio has continued to attract dedicated listeners and receive commercial and public support. We argue that the study of radio history is also a chronicle of cultural history in the United States. Radio historians have written about radio’s role during the progressive era, wartime propaganda, the origins of reception research, the struggle over the public sphere, program innovations in genre and journalism, and cultural tensions over gender and identity, among numerous other topics.

Yet so much of the cultural history of mass media remains inexplicably untapped, perhaps due to problems with availability and accessibility. Radio’s characteristic “liveness” has made it an integral tool for 20th century social movements, community building, civil rights, and local politics. Community and college programs have disseminated perspective, performance, and provided a medium for aesthetic experimentation. Educational and public stations have long aired (and hence preserved with their transcriptions) documentary evidence of national, regional, and local interviews, debates, curricula, and perspectives. Historical questions regarding the role of “old media” in social advocacy, cultural conflict, race, orientation, class, labor, and political uses of technology, are in many cases lying in wait to receive their first historical exegeses by media scholars. We hope that making radio materials widely accessible will help to encourage further interdisciplinary discourse about technology’s role in American history.

The RPTF is organized to encourage the preservation, research, and pedagogical application of media history through the implementation of five core initiatives, also listed at our Library of Congress site.

1. To support collaboration between faculty researchers and archivists toward the preservation of radio history
2. To develop an online inventory of extant American radio archival collections, focusing on recorded sound holdings, including research aids
3. To identify and save endangered collections
4. To develop pedagogical guides for utilizing radio and sound archives
5. To act as a clearing house to encourage and expand academic study on the cultural history of radio through the location of grants, the creation of research caucuses, and development of metadata on extant materials

This post originally appeared on Antenna and is reprinted with the permission of its authors.

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I mentioned this initiative a few months ago when I first heard about it, but the details have only recently been released. Can you help us assemble a national archive of local radio broadcasts?

The official name of this project is the Radio Preservation Task Force, being conducted under the auspices of the LoC’s National Recording Preservation Board. For many years, the NRPB has pursued various study-strategies to get a sense of just how much of our nation’s broadcast history has actually been preserved.

Turns out, it’s not much: sure, you can easily find and watch pretty much any of the “Big Three” national TV newscasts of the last 40+ years, but radio has no such archive, and local radio is especially unremembered. The Radio Preservation Task Force hopes to change that, with special focus on radio broadcasts from 1922-1980, and especially those from the noncommercial, educational side of the medium.

Many scholars (including myself) were invited this summer to join the Task Force. Earlier this month, we were given our charges: find what existing radio broadcast archives exist, what they contain, and what general condition they are in. The country’s been divided up so each “faculty research associate” is responsible for a particular geographic area.

My task is to identify extant radio broadcast recordings from Brooklyn, Staten Island, Long Island, and a goodly part of New Jersey.

We’re concentrating on a meta-review right now, just to get a sense of the scale and scope of what recordings may be available. While the primary focus is on institutional archives such as libraries and musesums, I sincerely believe there’s a veritable gold mine of privately-held archive material that’s out there.

We’re all supposed to report back on our searches by November 1st, at which point the Task Force will coallate everything and make a presentation to the NRPB. At that stage, the Board will decide how we take the next step—accessing these recordings and putting together a plan to digitize them in a national archive. To be clear, the Task Force does not seek to accumulate the tapes of everyone: we just want to see what’s out there and figure out some master plan for a future repository.

I’m honored to have been invited to participate in this ambitious project, and I’m casting a wide net. Historiography is a lot like treasure-hunting, full of dusty places and hard work, but rewarding for the gems we unearth.

If you have any leads on local radio recordings from the NYC/Long Island/New Jersey areas, please drop me a line. You can also check out the Task Force members’ list to send tips to those scholars with responsibilities where you live. Sometime next spring, we’ll all convene at the LoC to plot future moves.

This post originally appeared at DIYmedia.net and is republished by permission.

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There’s been quite a bit about unlicensed radio in the news lately. So it’s time for a pirate radio round-up: NY Times reports on Syrian opposition stations; Protest grow in Ireland over jailed peace and radio activist; FCC’s 2013 enforcement tallied up; When pirate radio ruled an English seaside town.

NY Times Reports on Syrian Opposition Stations

Last week the New York Times covered the Instanbul-based Radio Watan which is broadcast by “pirate transmitters in pockets across Syria,” along with “more than dozen opposition radio stations that have sprung up since the revolt against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.” The article notes that some of the stations, most of which produce programming in Turkey, have received support from the US government.

We have been following reports on opposition radio stations in Syria, including a station that was raided by an al Qaeda group in October of last year and earlier reports from last fall of “at least a dozen FM radio stations” operating in Syria since the war began.

Irish Peace and Radio Activist Margaretta D’Arcy Jailed

Protests are growing in Ireland over the imprisonment of writer, filmmaker, peace activist and radio activist Margaretta D’Arcy. She was given a three-month jail sentence for participating in a peace protest at Shannon Airport which the Irish government allows the US to use in the transit of military forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. D’Arcy was offered a suspended sentence if she agreed to sign a pledge not to repeat the protest. The 79 year-old, who is also suffering from cancer, refused.

Beginning in the late 1980s D’Arcy has operated regular broadcasts of unlicensed station in Galway, called Radio Pirate Woman. She is also considered one of the foremost radical feminist filmmakers in Ireland.

There have been daily solidarity protests in Dublin, and a national demonstration in solidarity with D’Arcy is scheduled for February 22, happening in the capital and other cities. A Facebook group has formed to advocate for D’Arcy’s release, and her own page is also a source of information and discussion.

Tallying FCC Enforcement in 2013

At DIYmedia.net John Anderson has posted his annual review of FCC enforcement against unlicensed broadcasters and declares the past year to be “no Great Crusade.” 2013 saw a slight decline in enforcement actions over 2012, with activity in 24 states and the District of Columbia. He notes that most of the action is administrative, with it taking years to from the initial notice to when a fine is issued. Read John’s post for the rest of his analysis.

When Pirate Radio Ruled an English Seaside Town

A former radio pirate from the small English seaside town of Whitby recollects his time on the air in the late 1970s for the Whitby Gazette. While the BBC established its first Rock N Roll station, Radio One, in 1967 partly in response to offshore pirates, former DJ David Hesleton explained that even in 1979 “local radio hadn’t developed enough and there were a lot of communities and towns that felt they were missing out.”

So Hesleton and two friends used a VHF transmitter to fill the void with music and even prank calls. When government officials got wind, they slowed broadcasts and went mobile for a while.

For someone who grew up in the US it’s fascinating to learn that just thirty-some years ago the FM dial in many parts of the UK was still “only white noise, unless it was Saturday night.” Certainly understandable, then, how tempting it was for a young radio pirate.

FCC Upholds Pirate Cat Fine, Their Attorney Responds

Don’t miss our coverage of the FCC’s recent action against the shuttered Pirate Cat Radio and its former figurehead, Daniel “Monkey Man” Roberts. The Commission rejected Roberts’ petition for reconsideration, upholding a $10,000 fine against him. His attorney spoke with us, calling one of the FCC’s justifications “ridiculous and frightening.”

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Reading today’s New York Times story about National Security Agency USB hack gadgets that radio computer data back home, I immediately thought to myself: are these authorized by the Federal Communications Commission as Part 15 unlicensed broadcast/radiation devices? Or even, gulp, licensed?

The Times reports that the NSA gadgets get plugged into foreign host computers as circuit boards or USB cards. Then they send out a “covert” radio signal that can be picked up miles away via a “briefcase-size” relay station. This technology has been around since 2008, the article says:

“The radio frequency technology has helped solve one of the biggest problems facing American intelligence agencies for years: getting into computers that adversaries, and some American partners, have tried to make impervious to spying or cyberattack. In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user.”

I suppose that this is all being done solely to protect us from evildoers, of course: terrorists, hacking units of the Chinese Army, etc. The article quotes officials saying that these snoopy USB radio chips have never been used in the United States, and I don’t believe that either. Maybe I’m being too paranoid, but the map in this article (and seen above) seems to suggest access points in the United States. If I’m right, it would be interesting to know which frequencies these devices use, and, to the extent that they do carry across or into the USA, to what degree the Federal Communications Commission is consulted on the matter.

Somehow I don’t think I’m going to find this out by skulking around the Commission’s frequency databases. On second thought, let me go look . . .

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Communications legislation and regulation are moving back to the front burner in Washington as both Congress and the FCC turn up the flames on this policy area that has seen relatively little attention in the last five years. The Republican-controlled House leadership is pushing for a Communications Act rewrite, while FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is beginning to stake out some positions on the Commission’s role in broadcast and internet.

On Wednesday four former FCC Chairmen, Richard Wiley, Reed Hundt, Michael Powell and Michael Copps, will testify in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee as chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) try to jump start a revision of the laws that govern telecommunications and media. The last major update to the Communications Act was in 1996, and Rep. Upton and Walden have released a white paper outlining a brief history of these revisions along with a set of questions to frame their effort[PDF].

Radio was forever changed by the 1996 Act, which eliminated the national cap on station ownership and greatly loosened local ownership restrictions, paving the way for the likes of Clear Channel and Cumulus to own hundred of stations. However, we can expect that internet and wireless spectrum regimes will be at the forefront for this week’s hearing. One might argue that the damage to broadcast radio is already done and impossible to roll back.

One of the big questions being posed by Upton and Walden is whether or not the current division in regulatory regimes between telecommunications services–like telephones–and information services–like the internet–is justifiable in the current environment. In their whitepaper they note that “Once the law distinguished that ‘information’ services would be largely unregulated while ‘telecommunications’ services would remain highly regulated, information services grew at a rapid pace.” You don’t have to read that statement too closely to see that this question is the tip of an iceberg with a deregulatory trajectory, rather than a warning shot for network neutrality.

Two of the four FCC chairmen scheduled to appear in front of the committee were champions for deregulation, with Copps being the strongest advocate for the public interest during his time at the Commission. Hundt, who served under President Clinton when the 1996 Act was signed into law, became a more outspoken critic of deregulation and industry consolidation in the years after his FCC term.

Even though broadcast radio is unlikely to be a major aspect of a Communications Act rewrite, we shouldn’t expect it to be ignored outright. A forefront issue of great important to radio will be the treatment of wireless spectrum and broadband services. As we see with AT&T’s proposed “sponsored data” plans, the future health of independent and noncommercial online radio services depend the extent to which wireless carriers are permitted to privilege data from certain companies and services.

There are glimmers of light at the FCC for radio fans concerned about additional waves of consolidation. The Commission recently scuttled its December 2011 ownership rules revision that would have further loosened restrictions on the cross-ownership of broadcast stations and newspapers. Chairman Wheeler made it clear this was a deliberate anti-consolidation move in remarks he made to a public town hall meeting last week in Oakland, CA. He also assured the audience that the Commission would examine closely “shell corporations” that large station owners set up to try and skirt local ownership caps.

At another policy address earlier the same day at the Computer History Museum in San Jose, CA, Wheeler also made assurances that “it is essential that the FCC continue to maintain an open Internet and maintain the legal ability to intervene promptly and effectively in the event of aggravated circumstances.”

Wheeler’s fellow commissioners made similar affirmations at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, although they punted on making any specific judgements about AT&T’s “sponsored data” plans. At another CES panel Wheeler said that they to learn more, but should be ready to intervene if the plan turns out to be anti-competitive.

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This was a particularly active week in Washington with regard to legislation that affects radio and our overall communications technology landscape. Here’s what happened.

Innovation Act Passes the House

The Innovation Act passed the House on Thursday by a vote of 325 to 91 with broad bipartisan support. The bill is intended to fix some gaps of patent law, in particular those which permit patent trolls to go after customers and users of technologies, like the trolls who are suing podcasters and HD Radio broadcasters.

Like most legislation that goes through the Capitol Hill sausage grinder, it’s not perfect. But the Innovation Act as it is would likely do more to protect the podcasters and broadcasters currently being threatened with lawsuits for using technology that is either freely available or, as in the case of HD Radio, they license from another company. The bill would allow a technology owner, like HD Radio’s iBiquity, to step in on behalf of its customers.

Patent trolls depend on many of their targets settling because of the often prohibitive costs of defending themselves in court. The Innovation Act provides some potential relief by making the plaintiff liable for the defendant’s legal costs if they lose and the lawsuit is deemed “unreasonable.”

Now it’s up to the Senate to craft its own version of the bill.

House Republicans Announce Communications Act Update

The chairmen of the House Commerce Committee and the Communications and Technology Subcommittee announced during a Google Hangout on Tuesday that they intend to begin a review of the Communications Act, last revised in 1996. Representatives Fred Upton (R-MI) and Greg Walton (R-OR) were joined by former FCC Chairman Robert McDowell, who served under President Bush, to discuss their plans for the update.

They were long on generalities and short on specifics, mostly emphasizing the changes in internet and wireless technology since the ’96 Act. Revealing an obvious deregulatory bias, McDowell recalled how the 1996 Act was built on the 1934 Act which itself was built on the foundation of the 19th century Railroad Act. He emphasized that different technologies are regulated based on their history which he said is increasingly “irrelevant.”

Radio felt an enormous impact from the Communications Act of 1996 because it eliminated the national cap on station ownership and greatly relaxed the market caps, resulting in a tidal wave of over-leveraged industry consolidation that arguably gutted most commercial stations of their local staffs and service. Though no specific mention of radio was made in the hangout, rules about internet service, wireless broadband and other digital technologies would affect the broader radio landscape, which itself is no longer confined to the broadcast airwaves.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) has long been an active player in communications law and policy. In a statement, he urged caution with a Communications Act update. “Changes should not be made simply for change’s sake, but rather based on clear and documented need,” he said. “I urge my colleagues to proceed in a bipartisan manner and to hold numerous hearings in order to generate the record an undertaking this substantial will require.”

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The Egyptian government is trying to prevent supporters of ousted president Morsi from taking to the airwaves in Cairo. To accomplish that the Egyptian Radio Television Union is “loading” the FM dial with stations on every available frequency playing religious music or readings of the Quran, according to Ahram Online.

Pro-Morsi protestors were set to launch an unlicensed station called “Here is Rabaa,” named in reference to the sit-in protest at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo’s Nasser City.

This tactic is tantamount to jamming the station, since the goal is to prevent it from being received clearly, rather than broadcast other programming of value. If the station is still broadcasting it is likely receivable within the confines of the tent camp that’s gone up around the sit-in. Due to the nature of broadcast signal propagation, it would be difficult, but not impossible, to jam the Rabaa station so close to its transmitter. However, it is also likely that the station is not easily received more than a kilometer or so from the transmitter, which is probably the primary goal of the ERTU jamming.

The ERTU is Egypt’s government supported public broadcaster, and controls all FM radio frequencies in the country. Its chairman told Ahram that the organization refused to sell any licenses at a recent auction out of fear that they would be “wrongly exploited.”

A Reuters story dated July 8 reported that Egyptian Republican Guards were stationed at state radio and TV stations. It is unclear whether or not those guards are still present, or if there has been any direct military intervention in broadcasts.

Radio is clearly an important medium for information and propaganda in Egypt, and it is often is in regions of conflict. Just like Egypt’s delicate fledgling democracy, it appears that media democracy in Egypt is also fragile. The two go hand-in-hand.

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Here’s your Monday round-up of stories we collected over the weekend.

• Radio Free Asia reports that the Cambodian government is banning the broadcast of foreign radio programs on local stations. Prime Minister Hun sen says the move is to keep foreigners from campaigning for candidates. The US Government lodged a protest with Cambodian authorities. (via SWLing Post).
• Former program director of Chicago public station WBEZ Jim Nayder passed away Friday. Nayder also produced NPR’s Annoying Music Show.
• Cable news pioneer CNN shut down its CNN Radio unit abruptly last Thursday, informing staff that same day that their last day would be Friday. The service had been online only for about a year, since Dial Global dropped it in favor of NBC News Radio.

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The US Office of Inspector General has put out a report that I’ll bet has the Department of Homeland Security cringing. It chronicles the epic fail of a scheme to build an interoperable radio communications system for the DHS and its network of 22 sub-federal agencies. The target was a common channel usable by the security agency’s  approximately 123,000 field users.

Alas:

DHS did not provide effective oversight to ensure that its components achieved Department-wide interoperable radio communications. It did not establish an effective governing structure that had the authority and responsibility to oversee its goal of achieving Department-wide interoperability. Without a governing structure, DHS had limited interoperability policies and procedures, and component personnel did not have interoperable radio communications. As a result, only 1 of 479 radio users tested could access and communicate using the specified common channel. Further, of the 382 radios tested, only 20 percent (78) contained all the correct program settings for the common channel. Until DHS develops an effective governing structure and makes a concerted effort to attain Department-wide interoperability, overall progress will remain limited.

Reason why DHS staff didn’t use the channel? 72 percent did not know about it and 18 percent were aware of the service but “could not find it in their radios.”

But cheer up, the project only cost $430 million. The rest of the audit here. Hat tip: Benton Foundation.

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