Re: Anti-LPFM bill heading for dustbin?

["R.L. Caron" <k4gp@peganet.com>]

<< Since it's unlikely President Clinton would sign that legislation, it
would fall to the new Congress, after the first of the year, to pass it.  >>

True, but there are an unusual number of Democrat co-sponsors across the
several pending bills. Blanche Lambert Lincoln, John Kerrey, and Chuck Robb
among them in the Senate; Ralph Hall, Bart Stupak, Ted Strickland, and Bob
Clement in the House. That could portend a veto possibility. More likely,
with PBS weighing in, there can be enough support from both sides to get it
buried in some last-minute Omnibus bill and to pass in the dark of the night
along with dozens of other new laws we or the president may not be fond of.

I hate to see any legislation pass under such obviously deceitful
circumstances because it's definitely a perversion of the process, but it
happens all the time. Even under normal conditions, lawmakers vote on bills
they have not read ... and in the closing days of a session that nonfeasance
extends to voting for bills the contents of which they know nothing about or
might actually oppose.

In any case, my personal feeling is that 10 and 100 watt FM stations in the
final days before the implementation of 200 channels of digital satellite
radio and the impending blossoming of Web radio are OBS (obsolete before
start.) Even assuming the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act dies or is
vetoed-- LPFM can exist only in inverse relation to the available
population. Where the need exists, stations cannot. Where they are not
needed or will be detrimental to existing local services, they fit by the
dozens.

You want silly? In the nation's top 10 largest cities, a single LP-100
station (in Houston) fits. Elko, Nevada and Springerville, Arizona will get
41 each; Billings, Montana gets 25. The combined population of the three
small cities with 107 potential LPFMs? 120,000.

Even though LPFM has generated a fair amount of interest among radio
afficionados and church/school groups, I'll bet that after the novelty of
"running your own radio station" wears off a year or two down the line, the
realities of funding these enterprises of little or no listenership will
have most of the allocations lying fallow.