My high school radio station KMIH (my foremost pursuit during high school) is facing an imminent FCC ruling that will take it off the air. A commercial station based in a small Oregon town has applied to take over the frequency, and the FCC gave its approval (then took it back, but who knows what will happen).
I remember the radio station’s fearless leader complaining about FCC procedures even when I was a high school student in 1995. The FCC had denied an application to expand the station’s broadcasting power.
While I don’t know much about FCC procedures, it seems to me that these fights over broadcast bandwidth could be eliminated if society had adopted digital technology faster. We have millions of cell phones and hundreds of wi-fi hotspots in every major city, but only a handful of radio stations. We’re long overdue for broadcast media companies to give up their huge analogue bandwidth slices in favor of low consumption digital signals. Maybe it’s time for some government regulation to promote that spread.
Declan McCullagh argues that the FCC should be abolished in favor of privatized bandwidth allocation. Ernest Miller responds by wishing for re-chartering. Surely broadcast companies would privately promote technologies that allowed them to make full use of bandwidth that they owned (rather than leased / licensed bandwidth that requires a particular use: analogue broadcast). Alternatively, the FCC could charge broadcasters the true cost of the giant bandwidth slices needed for analog broadcasting, and reserve channels for non-commercial use.
The fight between KMIH and its Oregonian aggressor (a little harsh perhaps) is really a fight for resources that are currently necessary but that don’t need to be. It’s a little bit like fighting over a particular energy source when there are lots of feasible alternatives available.