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And the time is exactly 8.01, which means it's time for Off the Hook.
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Good evening to everybody, this is Off the Hook, Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Tuesday night.
And it's been pretty busy over the last few days.
I've been traveling all over the place.
I was up in Boston last weekend, visiting fine people at the loft.
You know, those guys that can take down the net in 20 minutes?
Well, yes, there were a few beers passed around, but we didn't do anything like that.
At least, not that I know of.
And we had a lot of other fun things going on, let's just put it that way.
It's really great to see people come together from all around the country and trade ideas and share information.
And just sort of bask in the ridiculousness of it all.
The things that are going on down in D.C. with cyber terror and the threat of the future.
And how that threat seems to be us.
Oh well, I guess you can't have everything.
And then yesterday I went down to Washington, D.C.
And I did that so that I could see the final day of testimony at the trial.
At the Clinton trial.
And you'd be amazed how easy it is to get down there.
You just hop on a train and walk in the building.
Nobody was there, nobody was waiting around to see the trial.
There was a small line, but we're talking like 15 minutes to get in.
And usually they limit you to 15 minutes once you get into the place.
You can't stick around, you have to leave because more people are waiting to get in.
But people were getting bored so fast.
This was Clinton's lawyer giving the final statement, the closing arguments.
The second time in history, in the history of the United States,
the second time only that closing testimony on behalf of a president has been given.
Because that's only the second time there's been an impeachment trial.
And there's hardly anybody there watching.
Everyone's bored, everyone's falling asleep.
And I don't mean just the people up in the gallery, the spectators.
I'm talking about senators.
Senators were nodding off, stretching, doing all kinds of things that you don't see on C-SPAN.
Because they don't show that. They only show the person speaking.
But I saw all kinds of things.
Unfortunately, you're not allowed to bring a camera in there because then I'd have some evidence of this.
Ted Kennedy, well, he sleeps with his mouth open.
That's kind of an interesting little revelation there.
There are a bunch of other senators.
Unfortunately, I don't recognize them without the little thing underneath their head saying who they are on TV.
And that doesn't happen in real life.
So I just saw a bunch of old white guys just kind of like leaning back, nodding off,
staring at all different things except the person speaking,
getting up, walking around, visiting with each other, various things like that.
And of course, what you have to realize is that during an impeachment trial,
you're not allowed to speak.
That's on the penalty of prison. You can't speak.
You're not allowed to talk. And they were speaking.
They were talking. They were passing candies back and forth.
They were doing all kinds of things.
It was really something to witness.
Yeah, they were opening up the pamphlets when they were supposed to and feigning attention.
But you didn't really – you looked at the crowd there.
You looked at the people on the floor, and it was like you were back in high school.
And you're listening to some social studies teacher talk about the history of Rome or something,
and you're just totally bored, and you're just staring out the window and waiting for the bell to ring.
And it's the U.S. Senate.
He said that people, 100 of them that are elected to pay attention to the most important things going on in the world,
and they're bored, they're fidgeting. They want it to end.
And as soon as it did end, boy, you should have seen it.
They say, I move to have a recess.
And they don't even get the words out, because everyone's standing up by the time somebody even suggests taking a break.
And they're all out the door.
It's really something. In a way, it's kind of gratifying.
You realize, hey, they're human. They're human beings. They're just like us.
They don't care at all about anything.
They just want to get the day over with and go home and watch TV.
Gee, what's wrong with that?
Well, the thing is, these guys, they're all millionaires.
You know that? All the people in the Senate, they're millionaires.
That's got to affect your judgment just a tad when it comes to dealing with things like poverty and the poor and prisons and equal rights and things like that.
And that's the other thing. There isn't a single black person down there.
They're all white. All the people on the floor of the Senate are white,
except for the people, I guess, helping them out in various ways, but people in power.
I mean, I think that's kind of crazy.
You have the House of Representatives, and I learned this on Pacifica by listening to the coverage.
There are people of all different races, creeds, and colors in the House of Representatives.
Maybe not a really high percentage, but there are representatives.
But in the Senate, it all goes away.
And this is the body that really decides things.
This is the higher body of lawmaking here.
And yeah, you're there, you're in the gallery looking down on them,
and that's where the true power is among these white millionaires.
It really makes you proud to be an American.
But, you know, it was kind of cool.
It was kind of cool actually walking in and seeing the place,
because, hell, you know, you're not supposed to see things like that.
I mean, it's rare that they allow you the right,
the right to actually see your government in action.
And one thing that I noticed as soon as I went in there was how small the room was.
You know, you see it on TV, and it's this vast chamber, endless, no walls.
This goes on forever.
God himself would have plenty of room in that place.
But then when you actually go there, we're talking high school auditorium here.
You know, it's like there's nothing.
It's just a small room, and the desks, the desks they put these guys in.
I mean, I couldn't sit at one of those things.
They have these tiny cramp, and you have a senator on either side of you too.
I couldn't tolerate that.
There's like one drawer and not enough space to do anything.
Chairs look uncomfortable.
No wonder these people are in misery.
Get them some armchairs, you know, something to swivel on.
Then maybe you'll see some laws passed that aren't so crabby, so resentful.
It was interesting though.
There were all kinds of things.
The thing, you know, if you paid attention to the guy speaking, of course you would fall asleep
because that's generally what trials are, you know, boring.
But if you paid attention to the other things going on in the room,
then actually it was pretty interesting.
You know, you could see the guy sitting in the corner with three telephones.
Just three telephones in the corner, and he's just sitting there,
and his only purpose, obviously, is to answer one of those phones if it rings
because it's going to make a hell of a lot of noise, and everybody will be distracted.
Boy, do I wish I had one of those phone numbers.
No real reason as to what those phones are for or why they're there, but there they are, you know.
Then you have all these other people like crouched on the floor whose purpose God only knows.
They're basically so cramped together that there isn't space to give them a desk.
So they kind of have to like crouch between desks,
and I don't know if they're Secret Service people or reporters that just don't have very good connections
or some other role that I just haven't thought of yet.
Then there are the cameras.
There's cameras all over the place.
I guess most of them are C-SPAN,
but I noticed there was one surveillance-looking camera that was just up there in the middle of the room,
and it was just pointing in one direction.
That was the only one.
It was kind of weird.
Why would a surveillance camera only point towards one part of the Senate floor?
So obviously I wasn't able to walk around and explore and figure things out more.
I also wasn't able to get down onto the floor to see what was underneath the gallery,
but I wasn't really expecting to.
There are all kinds of other little tidbits that you might notice if you go in there,
and you can go in there any time, of course.
You don't have to just go in there to trial.
It just happened to be the most impressive time to go.
When the Chief Justice stands up, and he stands up quite a bit.
You don't see this on TV either.
Apparently he's got some kind of back problem,
but he stands up every 10 minutes or so and does these elaborate stretching exercises.
It's kind of neat to watch.
It's like having a Jane Fonda video going on in the background while some boring lawyer is talking.
So he's up there stretching and twirling and all kinds of things.
There's this guy next to him whose only purpose, apparently,
is to make sure that the guy doesn't fall on his ass
because he's there waiting for him to sit back down and holding the chair
because it's a chair on wheels,
and making sure that when he sits down, all goes well.
And I saw him perform that function a number of times,
and he did it quite well.
He did it very well, in fact.
So those were the things I noticed,
apart from people just nodding off and wandering around.
The amazing thing was that we were able to stay there
much longer than the 15 minutes we were allocated.
In fact, we were able to stay there almost two hours.
And the reason for that was because, yeah, there were more people going in,
but people were getting bored faster than the people were coming in,
so there were always people leaving the gallery,
and that's where the new people would go,
and we just kind of stayed in the corner
and pretended to be riveted to the action so nobody would ask us to leave.
And we finally did leave when there was a break,
because we wanted to get back to life and all that kind of thing.
But it's definitely something I recommend, not impeachment trials,
but just going down there and seeing the government in action,
because you might be surprised.
You might be surprised by how personal it is,
how human these people really are.
And then when you realize that,
and you see the kinds of things that are coming out of Washington, D.C.,
you might just say,
Boy, these people are misguided for a reason, you know?
It's humbling and it's scary at the same time.
But it's history, history in the making.
Isaac, you're here.
Yes, I am.
How are you doing?
I'm okay, yourself?
I'm pretty good.
I had a lot of fun the last few days, traveling all over the place, you know,
seeing a bit of a contrast.
It's a loft up in Boston, you know, a bunch of hackers hanging out,
telling old stories, plotting new schemes,
and going down to Washington, D.C., and seeing the Senate in action.
A bunch of old hacks.
I wouldn't even call them hacks.
I mean, I think you've got to earn that title.
That's true.
They've earned a title, all right, but I can't really say it in the air.
But it was fun.
You know, I spent more time, I think,
at the metal detectors getting into the place
than anything else.
Almost as much time there as I did in the gallery itself.
And, you know, it's my own fault.
I mean, I should have really prepared for this.
I should have not gone down there with so much stuff.
I mean, they were laughing at me.
They really were.
Everybody was.
But especially the Capitol Police,
because they'd never seen anybody with so much metal, you know.
It's something that just happened.
You know, I had my raincoat, so in my raincoat I have like 5,000 pockets.
And I don't even know what's in all those pockets.
I haven't been in a few of them in many months.
So I was finding things that I thought I had lost.
And we're talking, you know,
dozens and dozens and dozens of keys on many different key rings
that I was constantly pulling out of different places.
Change. Every bit of change.
And, you know, what I do is I gather change throughout the week.
There's like, you know, several fistfuls of change in my pocket.
It comes in very handy.
It comes in very handy for, you know, parking meters and things like that.
So I had to dump all of that.
I filled up, you know, those little bowls they give you to fill up to put your beeper and things in.
I filled two of those up with all the things that are in my pocket.
And I only had two, so nobody else could use them while I was there.
So there's a bit of resentment there from the other spectators.
They made me put my cellular phones, my camera, and my beeper
through the little thing on rubber, you know, that goes through the x-ray.
And they never did that before.
You know, I was a little concerned about that.
Usually they just, you hand it to them and they look at it and say,
yeah, that's a beeper, and they let it go through.
But they weren't taking any chances here.
And, you know, after all of that, after I went through everything in my pocket,
there was still something that was setting it off, and nobody could figure out what it was.
And finally, finally, through process of elimination,
do you know a pack of Trident gum sets off those damn machines?
Apparently the foil is enough for them to think that you're trying something.
And, you know, I was wondering, none of this happens when you get on airplanes.
You know, they don't care about Trident gum.
They don't care about things like that.
You know, change even you can go through.
Well, sensitivity is a little different.
Yeah, but, you know, I think sensitivity should be a little more for something
that's going up in the sky, you know, and could blow up than going into a Senate chamber.
I mean, I'm sure they might think.
But, you know, I could have done all kinds of mischievous things.
I was thinking sitting up there in the gallery, you know.
Paper airplanes.
Now, that would have been something.
Oh, you didn't think of that one?
I was thinking more along the lines of spitballs.
Oh, okay.
You know, aim right for the Chief Justice's head there.
That would cause a stir.
More stir than the guy, you know, yelling the other day.
But we were debating this.
Would the Secret Service actually see you doing it?
Are the cameras focused on you?
Would they be able to find the perpetrator?
Well, better yet, would they actually jump on the person to protect him?
I don't know. I don't know.
Those are the kinds of thoughts that go through your head when you're bored in the Senate.
I'm sure they're thinking of things like that, too.
I'm sure the Senators are playing all kinds of games.
You know the Chief Justice chews gum?
He does.
You don't see that on TV.
You know what brand?
No.
I was waiting for them to blow a bubble or something.
I think that would have been cool.
But, okay, I thought of, while I was there, I thought of this as the perfect security hole that they have in the Senate gallery.
I even asked the cops this.
I said, do the Senators have to go through the metal detectors?
They said, no, of course not.
So all you have to do, and this is not considered advice to the terrorist groups out there or any other person plotting mischief or damage to the nation.
Run for a Senate seat?
If you are a terrorist and you can gain popularity and actually win a Senate seat, then you could go in there with whatever it is you want.
You can strap yourself with dynamite and just walk through because they're not going to check you.
And then there you are on the Senate floor, and all the explosives, they've made it to the Senate floor because the Senator is the bomb.
Wow.
That could make a good book title.
In case Stephen King or somebody is out there writing this down, I've already copyrighted the idea.
So you are going to have to go through me if you intend to write a book like this.
Bernie S., you're with us in Philadelphia.
I am.
How are you doing?
I passed through Philadelphia on the train.
Thanks for saying hi.
Well, I said hi, but apparently you couldn't hear me.
So how are things with you these days?
Not bad, not bad.
I'm anxiously waiting for the rest of my federal probation to expire.
I've got about three more months left.
And that will be nice.
That will be nice.
That will be great.
You'll be a free man in a free nation.
I don't know what's going on over there, but it will be nice.
Bernie, are you back with us?
Yes, I'm sorry.
I was being harassed by a waitress.
You know, they do that all over the place.
A few days ago, I sat in on the COPA case, the Child Online Pornography Act,
where the ACLU was suing the Justice Department about a new federal criminal statute
very reminiscent of the Communications Decency Act from 1996, I guess that was, 1995.
But this law was slightly differently worded in that it would make it a felony
to put up anything on a website that could be accessible by minors,
which is, you know, not an issue.
It seems very possible.
It would be any information on the website that would be considered harmful to minors
as opposed to, in the Communications Decency Act, anything that was just considered indecent.
So they're just changing the words around a little bit.
But fortunately, the ACLU prevailed, and Judge Reed struck this new federal law down.
Whether the Justice Department is going to appeal this to the Supreme Court or not remains to be seen.
So the First Amendment won another round in the never-ending battle.
Bravo.
Yeah, it is a never-ending battle.
Another victory of sorts is the fact that after years of fighting,
it appears that someone in the FCC has a clue,
and they've actually officially gone on the record as proposing licensing micro-broadcasting.
Now, there's both good and bad in this.
The good, of course, is that at last thousands of voices have the opportunity to be heard.
The bad is, of course, that they aren't doing this for nothing,
and there's a minimum charge of, I believe, $2,500.
Now, we're talking about radio stations with power between 1 watt and 1,000 watts.
1,000 watts, of course, that's approaching real radio stations,
and I don't know of any micro-broadcasters who broadcast anywhere near that kind of power.
Usually it's about between 20 and 60 watts we're talking about for stations like Radio Mutiny
or Steal This Radio or Free Radio Berkeley.
I'm not sure exactly how this is going to be received in other areas.
I do know NAB, National Association of Broadcasters, are a dead set against it
because, of course, it threatens their monopoly on the airwaves,
and, boy, corporations these days have a real monopoly on the airwaves.
This radio station, WBAI, is a rare exception of a station
that actually shows up in the commercial band,
commercial band being that part of the FM dial above 92.
If you go below 92, you'll find all kinds of non-commercial stations.
Unfortunately, a large number of them are increasingly being taken over
by religious groups and by national public radio.
Nothing against NPR, but they do have a tendency of taking over college stations
and turning them into classical jukeboxes.
I think there's room on the FM dial for a lot of different diversity.
A lot of it seems to be the same thing, the same old game.
There's an excellent article in today's New York Times,
if people want to run out and get it before they start slashing it
and throwing it down the street, called Fracturing the Formula,
A Hope for the Offbeat on Small FM, written by John Pareles.
I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs of this.
Commercial radio stations weren't happy when the Federal Communications Commission
announced recently that it might allow low-power radio stations up to 1,000 watts
reaching an area up to 18 miles in diameter to share the FM band.
The final decision will be made this summer or fall,
and if the proposed rules are approved,
the corporate radio chains of generic light FMs and Q92s and HIT-105s
will share the dial with very local stations,
dispensing anything from avant-garde rock to city council meetings.
The broadcasters warn that more stations sharing the band
could lead to more interference.
As if we don't have enough interference from all those bozos already.
Technical interference? I don't think so. Not these days.
You have so much space between commercial stations.
Look in New York City. Look how much space there is between every station above 92.
And there's plenty of room. Plenty of room.
And New York has got to be the most crowded spectrum there is.
What they would interfere with most is the...
This is really well written.
What they would interfere with most is the numbing predictability of professional radio.
That is definitely a true statement there.
The great divide comes at 92 on the FM dial,
with non-commercial public and college radio stations below 92,
and the big-time commercial outlets above.
Commercial radio has never seemed more organized and less invigorating.
Down below 92, there are still strange sounds and surprises,
mostly thanks to college students who see radio as a calling rather than a routine.
But drive across the United States, punching the seek button on the car radio,
and you'll hear the same hits, the same selected oldies,
even the same slogans, more music, less talk, or ten in a row.
So sad, isn't it? Very.
Bernie, has there been any reaction from the Radio Mutiny folks on this?
I talked to a couple of them.
Some of them seem to feel that this is a red herring.
This is just an FCC notice of proposed rulemaking.
For several months, there's going to be a comment period
where the public can submit, even by email, comments to the FCC
about how they feel about this, what they think is good, what they think is bad.
And later this summer or fall, as you said,
the FCC will digest all of this and come up with their conclusion about what they're going to do.
They don't have to accept any of these proposed rulemaking changes.
They may decide to adopt all of them, some of them, or none of them,
or just put out another notice of proposed rulemaking in addition to this one.
So this doesn't really mean anything is going to happen.
It's kind of like a trial balloon.
They're throwing it up there, see what's going to happen as far as comments go,
and then they're going to come to a decision, or maybe just decide not to decide,
which is what they've been doing for several years.
But I think it's a significant step, though,
when the FCC actually acknowledges the micro-broadcasting movement and does something.
It's just a proposal to legitimize it.
Absolutely.
That's a really significant step.
It's very exciting.
It's the first time that the FCC has gone on record as supporting this in any kind of detail.
Chairman William Kennard has said for the past couple of years or so
that he supports something like this, but he never went into too much detail.
Here we have specific details.
These are three specific license classes that are being proposed.
In fact, I have a paragraph from the FCC's notice of proposed rulemaking.
I just downloaded it a few minutes ago.
I could read that if you'd like.
Sure, go ahead.
This is just the introduction, but it gives you a summary of what it's about.
It says this is from the FCC.
By this notice, we are proposing to establish rules authorizing the operation of new,
low-power FM radio stations.
In particular, we are proposing to create two classes of low-power radio service,
both of which would operate in the existing FM radio band.
One, a 1,000-watt primary service, and two, a 100-watt secondary service.
We also see comment on whether to establish a third micro-radio class of low-power radio service
that would operate in the range of 1 to 10 watts on a secondary basis.
These proposals are in response to two petitions for rulemaking
and related comments indicating substantial interest in
and public support for increased citizen's access to the airwaves.
We believe that these new low-power FM stations would provide a low-cost means
of serving urban communities and neighborhoods,
as well as populations living in smaller rural towns and communities.
In creating these new classes of stations,
our goals are to address unmet needs for community-oriented radio broadcasting,
foster opportunities for new radio broadcast ownership,
and promote additional diversity in radio voices and program services.
We are proposing that low-power FM stations not be subject to certain technical rules
currently applied to other classes of radio service.
In particular, we believe that current restrictions on third-adjacent channel operations
are not needed for low-power FM stations,
and we believe it may be possible to disregard second-adjacent channel interference
for these stations as well.
We address below how we may be able to do this.
At the same time, we're also proposing new technical rules and geographic spacing requirements
to ensure that these new low-power FM stations do not cause interference
to existing full-power FM radio stations.
In adopting any rules and requirements,
we will also be wary of any provisions that would limit the development
of future terrestrial digital radio services.
That's the introduction.
That digital radio services is a proposal that I've put out that maybe in about 10 years
will be similar to HDTV, where it's going to be a digital radio broadcast.
But that's years in the future, and it's not really relevant.
Now, the third adjacent, what exactly is that referring to?
Well, if you notice, all the FM radio stations in the dial
end at some odd number, like 91.3, 91.5, 91.7.
They're odd splits, and these are megahertz.
So it's 90, like a frequency is at, like Radio Mutiny was at 91.3 in Philadelphia,
91.3 megahertz, or millions of cycles per second.
The next adjacent channel, a first adjacent, would be 91.5, 200 kilohertz,
or a fifth of a megahertz away.
The FCC has never really allocated first adjacent frequencies for radio stations
in the same market because it's just too close.
If a station's at 91.3 and the other one's at 91.5,
you're likely to get interference between the two.
So it's a second adjacent, 91.3 versus 91.7, which was the case of Radio Mutiny.
We were second adjacent from the two nearest stations,
so we really weren't causing interference.
And then it was claimed by the FCC.
They just shut the station down because they wanted to.
So second adjacent, that's what that means.
Third adjacent would be, of course, 600 kilohertz away, and plenty far.
In a metropolitan market like New York City,
it's rare to find that much space between stations that you could hear.
No, it's not possible to find that much space,
but there are definitely second adjacents.
For instance, if you look at 99.5, the next station over would be 100.3,
and that means you have 99.7, 99.9, 100.1, all of that in between.
So I guess you would have a second adjacent in there and two first adjacents.
The National Association of Broadcasters has been opposed to any of these,
and even talk of any proposals like this by the FCC.
And they voiced their displeasure recently.
I got a sentence that NAB put out recently.
They said that the—this is in the FCC's brief here.
It says the National Association of Broadcasters, National Public Radio,
and other radio broadcaster organizations, and a number of individual licensees
oppose these new changes, claiming that existing radio stations
are already serving the myriad needs and interests of their communities
and must do so in order to remain competitive,
thus making low-power radio services unnecessary.
So the National Association of Broadcasters,
which is the mouth, the organ of all commercial and some noncommercial,
like NPR stations, which haven't really been for microradio either,
are saying that this is a bad idea in effect because it would be competition.
We can't remain competitive if there's all these competing voices out there at low power.
Well, I say hooey. That's tough.
People should be able to say what they want in the air, and we'll see what happens.
Well, I think it's amazing that the NPR stations, or National Public Radio in general,
is showing its true colors at last by saying, no, we don't want other voices.
We feel that the FM dial is being served just fine.
And, you know, it's great that the people that have monopoly,
you know, a virtual monopoly on FM radio stations are saying this.
What about the people who don't have any say whatsoever?
What about the people who are being shut out,
all the college stations that are being taken over and run by professionals now,
all the people who never have access to radio?
I would have to say, you know, of all the voices you hear on this radio station,
you would never hear any of them were it not for a station that opened its doors,
that allowed people to experiment and do something different and new.
Now, New York is very fortunate to have this kind of access, but other cities don't.
Does Philadelphia have a station like this?
We used to. University of Pennsylvania had a station, WXPN,
but in the late 80s they changed their format.
They had a program director come down from New York, a guy named,
I forget the guy's name, Freer, I think his name was.
Anyway, he pretty much switched the station's format around,
so it allows very little community voice anymore on the air.
Is this the Temple University station?
No, this was University of Pennsylvania.
You may remember that about the time these program changes were being made,
the format changes being made, this station made national headlines
in that on a Sunday morning during a program called Sleepy Hollow,
several of the student DJs held a mutiny.
They locked the doors of the station, took it over,
and announced on the air that these proposed changes were wrong,
not to send money in on the next pledge drive,
because these changes were already decided.
There were a lot of changes being made.
In fact, what the station management, who were calling the shots
on these proposed changes that weren't public yet, were doing
is they were already making plans to cancel a lot of shows
that they were begging for money to support for at the same time,
but in secret they were planning on canceling them in the near future.
So these students got wind of this, and they held the station down
for about three or four hours until they,
I think somebody shut the power down on them,
and shortly after that the format changed.
So that was pretty exciting. I listened to part of that broadcast.
I have some of it on tape, actually.
That would be a great thing to put up on the web somewhere.
I'd love to hear that.
But it's especially sad when you see commercial radio tactics
taking place on non-commercial stations,
and that's what you see increasingly in these stations
that get taken over by NPR or by other religious broadcasters
or just those entities that have a whole lot of money,
and they basically move in and muscle their way to control.
Radio has turned into such a business,
the art form is almost completely evaporated.
This micro-broadcasting movement has the only hope of restoring that,
and if several thousand more stations are able to flourish as a result...
Let me read you this paragraph from the Times article,
because I think that sums it up really well.
Here come those upstart low-power stations,
no longer staying in their place on the bottom end of the FM band,
but scattered across it like shanties among the skyscrapers.
The necessary investment is modest,
hundreds of dollars or a few thousand rather than millions,
and thus the need to draw mass listenership disappears.
A radio station could be a hobby or a subscription business or a public service.
The FM band in New York City is so crowded
that low-power stations may not get much of a chance here,
but imagine the possibilities of neighborhood radio
from all the city's ethnic and cultural clusters.
There could be a record collector's station playing rarities all day long,
talk radio in Haitian Creole or Korean,
a classical guitar station and one broadcasting Chinese operas,
a station devoted to free improvisation,
or an open mic station for singers, songwriters and comedians 24 hours a day.
Now of course the big broadcasters don't want this,
they want their piece of the market solidified,
they want to maintain their vast profits.
I think it's really sick what's happened.
The FCC deregulation in the last few years
has resulted in several companies owning
multiple hundreds of radio stations throughout the country.
There are two companies now that own nearly 500 radio stations.
That's an incredible number of radio stations to control.
And think of what that control means.
It means that you can pretty much make or break any hit, any artist.
You can make a news story into a news story,
or you can evaporate a news story if you want.
You have so much control.
And plus, you make so much money.
You're making billions of dollars here.
Now I think it's not at all inappropriate
to demand as people from the FCC
that they mandate that these stations,
these companies that own several stations in one marketplace.
For instance, I'll give you an example.
Here in New York City, Hot 97 and Kiss FM,
they're owned by the same people.
That's not it. They own more stations on the dial too.
KROQ, WCBS, WINS, and I think WFAN as well,
all owned by CBS, all owned by the same people.
You think they're competing with each other, but they're not.
I don't think it's at all illogical or inappropriate
to say that the FCC should dictate these entities
that own so much, that have taken over
the wide spectrum of the dial,
and that are making so much money through the public airwaves,
should give one of those stations back to the public.
For every city where they own something like
four or five radio stations, give one back to the public.
Let it become a public radio station, a true community station.
No, don't give it to an organization,
a commercial organization or a religious group.
Give it to a community
so you can have all kinds of different programming.
And I hope that's the next move that's taken.
I hope people actually stand up and say that
because these are the public airwaves.
They belong to the people.
Part of the proposal here also is that
no existing commercial broadcasters in any market
may apply for any of these new low-power stations,
which I think is a good thing.
Yeah, and that's something we're going to have to really watch out for,
is that the same people don't take over these stations as well,
or that any one group take over a large number of stations.
It really should be...
There are some sites on the web.
I was looking at this over the last few weeks.
If you look at who owns stations back in the 40s and 50s,
you see all kinds of different groups.
You see hardware stores, church groups, community organizations,
but it wasn't one nationwide entity.
They were all localized groups,
and thus the programming you heard in every single one of them
was unique and different.
And if you hook those up to real audio,
hey, you can bring in people from out of the city,
out of the state to listen as well
and have a unique experience.
But I think the last thing we need
is to tie all the stations together
into some monogamous programming block.
We have enough of that already,
and it's time that the little guys stand up
and regain something.
So I think it's a very positive thing.
Yes, Isaac.
I rather like that idea
of having the large commercial entities
have to hand over one or two stations to public access.
It's certainly not without precedent
that cable television is actually forced to do that,
provide studio access and studio time
to individuals who are interested in producing their own show.
So I'd rather like to see that.
What exactly, Bernie,
do you have, like, prices for the different licenses
in that text there?
Well, there's no prices set in stone.
Initially, it looks like
they're just going to take the best-sounding applications,
and when you fill out an application,
you have to come up with a concept,
justify why you want the station,
what kind of stuff you're going to be broadcasting, content.
Even though the FCC has always said
that they're not going to restrict content,
they still want to know what the content is
when you apply for the license.
So go figure.
My guess is, it says here
that they'll be awarded based on, you know,
the valuation of what they feel is the best license applications,
and if there's a tie,
then they're going to have an auction.
So whenever there's an auction,
if you look at some of the other radio frequency auctions
for some of the wireless services,
some of the cost of these licenses
have gone up into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hopefully, that defeats the whole purpose of this low-value thing.
Yeah, that's very worrisome there.
If they're going to decide all ties
by some sort of auction by who has the most money,
that's not going to serve the public interest by any means.
They should at least put a cap on that.
They're going to have to...
What they did in the early days of cellular
when they awarded licenses for frequencies
was they held lotteries.
So there wasn't really mentioned any lottery
in this notice of proposed rulemaking,
but I think that's a good idea
because it does, even the playing field,
kind of waters down your chances,
but at least you know that it's not being awarded
to the highest bidder,
and generally, some of the low bidders
are the ones that might have
the most interesting things to say on the air.
Absolutely. Definitely.
Now, the thing that I'm kind of concerned about,
you mentioned 1 to 10 watts,
and then, I believe, 100 to 1,000.
What about the very important 10 to 100-watt range,
where I think every micro-broadcasting station
I've ever heard falls into?
It says 1,000-watt primary service
and 100-watt secondary service,
and they're also looking at a 1 to 10-watt service.
They didn't mention anything between 10 and 100 watts,
but again, none of this stuff is set in stone,
and if you have any good ideas
about whether you think there should be
a 50-watt license class,
and I certainly think there should be,
you can send your comments to the FCC
on their website, www.fcc.org,
and look under the micro-radio section.
And not a lot of people respond to them
when you look at the overall percentage
of the population of the country,
so every voice really counts here.
It's kind of like voting,
except you get more say
than the average voter in an election,
so I recommend to everybody
who wants more diversity on the FM band
to check out the FCC's website
and send in your comments.
That does make a big difference.
Everyone thinks that their voice won't count.
Your voice does count.
If you actually send a letter
to an elected representative,
it makes a difference.
We just had this happen this past week
with the Kevin Mitnick case.
Somebody who lives in California
sent a letter to a congressman,
I believe Waxman was a congressman,
and he took an interest.
It looks like something is going to happen.
I don't have enough information on it right now
to say exactly where this is going to head,
but all it takes is one person
writing a letter to the right person
at the right time,
and things can really change,
and there's no reason why that can't happen here.
Now, Bernie, you said that people
can send comments to the FCC.
Can they do that online?
Yes, you go onto their website,
and it gives you all the details
of the comments.
They don't really give a lot of weight
to comments that just seem to be off the cuff,
so what you should do
is download the 60-page document,
the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
The docket number is 99-25,
but if you just go into
the micro-radio section,
you'll see that's the first thing shown.
Read the 60-page
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
Read it over two or three times,
and take some notes about what you think is good,
what you think is bad,
and then put together a well-written comment.
It can be several pages long.
It doesn't have to be short,
but it shouldn't be like 100 pages.
It definitely shouldn't be...
I would say try to keep it
under 10 pages if you can.
Avoid name-calling, too.
Yes, sound professional on this stuff,
because anything that sounds unprofessional,
they're not going to give much weight to.
Just like if you write a politician,
one of your legislators,
this is a chance for you
to really sit down and express
a well-thought-out idea
or set of ideas about these proposed
rulemaking changes and submit them
to a government agency that will read them
and hopefully will
consider them when they announce
what the final rule changes are going to be, if any.
Now, I think things
are in a much better
position than they were, say, a year ago.
We have a chairman now.
FCC Chairman Bill Kennard
actually seems to understand
how things have gone horribly
wrong in the broadcasting industry
by allowing all these
corporate interests to take over
and run so many radio stations
and how there needs to be
some kind of answer
to that, how we have to
level the playing field a little bit and
allow access to these public airwaves
one form or another,
whether by
rewriting the rules as far as
how many radio stations you can own or
allowing micro-broadcasting or what, there is
definitely the sense that something is
very wrong here.
I think that's something that
we need to realize, that we have somebody there
that actually is capable of understanding this.
He made this whole thing possible.
Apparently,
he had a little mutiny of himself.
I mean, most of the
commissioners were not
really for this thing, and he
was able to twist some arms
and get enough votes
in the Federal Communications Commission,
which is a body of...
I forget how many people sit on it, but it's a low number.
It's like under ten people, I think.
He was able to twist enough arms to get this thing
get this
notice of approvals rulemaking
announced. And also,
I know from
sort of first-hand knowledge
from my dealings with
our local ACLU office,
which represented Radio Mutiny, and it's a struggle
to have a diverse voice
on the FM band here in Philadelphia.
He had spoken,
our ACLU attorney had spoken
with William Kennard, who
had told him that
his biggest concern is about
the voice of minorities being
shut out on the air.
And he's not as...
Kennard apparently is not as concerned
about these big monopolies taking over
having
hundreds of stations
in our country, maybe several in one market,
which I think is a travesty.
But Kennard is black, too, and I think
he sympathizes with people
and other minorities
that simply are just being
shut out because they don't have the money,
in many cases, to start a radio station.
So his main concern is voices
of minorities rather than
monopolistic companies
taking over more and more
stations.
The two are very intricately linked.
You have monopolies
and minorities are not going to get very much
of a voice, so obviously
you have to attack both
fronts. Also,
we're going to take some phone calls, 212-209-2900,
but I do want to take this opportunity
to
suggest that everybody do something.
Everybody do something
that I think is long overdue
in this era of corporate
takeovers and corporate mentalities,
and that is to call a spade a spade.
That is to refer to something by its rightful
name. And what I'm referring
to, and I really, really
hope that people
follow this, including
regular, normal, everyday people like us, and also
people who are in the journalistic world,
people who are in the media.
Basically, it just
makes things a lot easier to understand.
You have major networks,
major television networks,
and they're basically
... Bernie, what are the major networks?
Television or radio.
Let's just say the three. If I said the three major
networks, what would you say?
I would say ABC, NBC, and CBS.
That's right, and most people would say just that.
But what I'd like to do tonight,
right now at this moment,
is change that, change that forever and ever.
Because
there is no such thing as CBS,
there's no such thing as NBC, there's no such thing as ABC.
Those are not
real entities.
They are run by
corporations.
From now on, I would like to be able to refer
to CBS as Westinghouse,
NBC as
General Electric, and ABC
as Disney, because that is who
they are. They are not ABC, CBS, NBC.
They are simply fronts for these
corporations. When you
speak to someone and say, hey, I was
watching Disney's World News
tonight, last night,
then maybe you'll see that, hey,
this is being run by a big corporation.
It's not actually a voice of the people kind
of a thing here. It's really
corporate interests that are being represented.
Maybe that's why they didn't run a story
that was critical of Disney or something like
that. General Electric's
Nightly News was really good last night.
They mentioned how our country is going to bomb
Iraq yet again with all kinds of new
laser-guided missiles and things
that were built by General Electric.
So, I think
we need to be honest about
where things are coming from,
and that's a good first step.
Maybe people will start to realize,
hey, do we really want
our public airwaves to be run by these
organizations, or do we want it to be run by
something perhaps a little bit more neutral, a little bit
more fair, a little bit more from the people?
That's my
suggestion. Let's see if it works.
Okay. It's a great idea.
Thank you. Let's take some
phone calls. 212-209-2900.
All right.
We're going to go up to the first. Actually, I'm going to give you one more
chance, Isaac. Don't
push this on me. Well, it's because you
always mess it up. Oh, okay.
Between 1 and 5 this week, we're going to go on the
top tier here. Right in the middle.
3. You really want to go for 3?
3 is a very unlucky number.
If you insist, we'll go for 3. I'm going to screw it up big.
We'll go for 3. Good evening.
You're on the air.
Speak. Well, it's better
than the expected result.
Yeah, but it's really not...
All right. Well, it's the lesser of two evils.
Okay. You know what? The 3 lit up again, so that means
that's definitely a new person. Good evening. You're on the air.
Hello, Emmanuel. How are you doing?
Hi. Okay. Speak up, please. Sure.
Yeah. Hi. Hey, listen.
I'm glad you... Great suggestions there about
referring to the major networks
actually by the corporate
parents
and really revealing
who's really behind these stations.
Well,
what about this also?
You're familiar with this inventor
named Nikola Tesla?
Yes. Okay.
Yeah. He's made...
He died back in the
40s, and he had made some
pretty eye-opening inventions
that were never really
spoken about, documented. It's been kind of
hidden away for quite some time.
And
I think...
Anything we ought to do is look into...
That would really be enlightening
because he had done some research
on free energy and free electricity.
And I think
maybe we could get some
people who are familiar with this
inventor on, or if
people who are familiar with him would call
in and make some
objections or have any information
or literature on him, you know,
we could organize a structure, a show around
him, you know, because
you know, for example,
now they're coming out with a hydrogen
powered car. I mean,
how come we didn't have that 30 or 40
years ago? We wouldn't be choking on
the emissions and everything and all of that,
you know? So many things have been suppressed.
So, you know, it's really
incredible how so much science has been
really suppressed, and
we've just been inundated with a whole lot of nonsense
that's been fueling these corporations
like General Electric and Westinghouse
and keeping us, you know,
and poisoning the environment
and everything else. And Disney, don't forget Disney.
Oh yeah, and Disney as well.
I heard a show on BAI several weeks
ago about a guy that was
protesting Disney in Times Square and how
Disney is the great
Satan out there. You know, and
I heard a great analogy too,
just like you repeated here, where
he referred to Microsoft
as being perceived as the big evil,
but if you look at it in a greater context of things,
Microsoft is only the typeface
whereas Disney is the entire story.
I think that really
sums it up very well. Thanks for the call.
Let's try to move on to some more
calls here, and let's go
down to the lower tier.
I think I just disconnected somebody. Okay, here we go.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Good evening. Let me tell you why they were laughing at you
at that metal detector,
which I found out late one night at a
airport when I went through it several times.
And I got laughed at. This is sensitivity
control. If you fit a certain
profile, they turn it up. You can
have absolutely nothing in your pocket, and it'll go
off. Really? They look at you.
And the guy, when I was laughing,
when I went through several times after being there until
four in the morning, he showed me the controls on this
thing. And I went down to a court building
and I noticed that a lady went by
and she had tons of metal, and I went in and it went right
off. And then I had to go back in and out
again. I said, hey, how come it didn't go off this time?
He said, sensitivity control. I said, no, we
have no sensitivity control. I said, sure you
don't. They do. They all do.
And that's why they were laughing.
They just took one look at you and they turned it up.
No, that makes a lot of sense. If you ever take a
good look at me, you would turn up to sensitivity as well.
Thanks for the info.
Glad they had a good time.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Good evening. So glad. Hey, this is
Pirate Jenny, Steelers Radio. How you doing?
I'm doing fine. I haven't
seen these documents, but we got a
report at our last meeting
and there's a number of concerns.
If Bernard is still on
the phone, maybe... Bernard, are you still there?
Bernard is here. Oh, great, great.
Maybe I can run this by you and you can confirm
or deny it and we can talk about it.
One, my understanding is that
this is not, they're not talking about
not-for-profit. They're
allowing commercial
stations of the new
classification. I believe that's part
of the discussion, whether or not to allow commercial
stations, right? One of the proposals,
part of this proposal is
that they will consider
offering these new...
In fact, let's see if I can find it here. I remember reading
it about an hour ago. It said
that they're going to consider
a class where
it's only
non-commercial. So they haven't
ruled out making it a completely non-commercial
class yet, but that's where
your comments to the FCC can really
help. That's what I was going to say.
I think it's critical that this be
non-commercial, because one of our concerns is
that the net result of this can be
create yet another level
of commercial radio, albeit
lower power.
We know what happens there, and we
know that in any situation of an auction, we know
who's going to win out. So that's one
concern. The other concern involves
amnesty for existing
pirate radio stations.
My understanding is that they
specifically say there's not going to be amnesty,
meaning that existing
pirate radio stations, who are really
the energy force behind this
change, because by having thousands of stations
across the country, I mean, we just
really goaded them into having to do
something about this, that
we would at that point not be
considered for licensing as a kind of punishment.
Well, how would they be able to differentiate
you and a friend of yours who has a
different name? Well, I'm
not sure about that, but...
It seems like there would be an easy way around that.
Perhaps, but just the fact that that's
stated, I think it's very, very bad.
That's true. Because it puts you, you know,
in a kind of microscopic investigation.
And you guys are the reason why they're talking about this in the first place.
Exactly. Exactly. So I think
it's very, very
important that the people who have pioneered
this and have really invented it
are now not punished and kept
out of the game. And that should be
in the comments also.
Okay. Hey, we're out of time.
What did you say? We're out of time, unfortunately.
Thanks for calling. Isaac, you had
one final comment? Well, regarding
the commercial station,
I believe that there may probably be
some actual benefit of having maybe local
businesses perhaps do a little bit of advertising
or at least perhaps doing
some kind of donation. I mean, you know, like Jake and Earl's
Barbecue brings you, you know, somebody's
show or something. Underwriting of some sort.
Exactly. You know, something a little like that,
I mean... Well, a lot of non-commercial stations
even do that. They have underwriting
that resembles commercials more
and more. PBS stations are doing commercials.
I don't like it myself,
but sometimes just to bring back
something, it might be needed.
But again, I think that's something that should be discussed in an open forum.
It becomes a slippery slope. It does.
And it leads to things like what we have today.
And what we have right now is no time, so
we are... I think
we're going to be back next week. I'm not sure. Again,
we have a fundraiser and I don't really know what the
odds are of us being on.
But if we're not on next week,
we should be on the week after that.
Check the webpage, www.2600.com
slash offthehook, and you
will find out if we're on
next week as soon as we know.
Bernie, I want to thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you. We'll be
talking more about this micro-broadcasting issue in the future.
Isaac, thank you for coming in.
Always a pleasure. It's Emmanuel Goldstein
for Off the Hook.
Have a good night.
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I cut myself
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