Low Power Radio Bill Introduced

Rep. Slaughter (D-NY) introduced a bill Tuesday that would repeal a law confining low-power FM (LPFM) stations to rural communities and allow communities nationwide to build the 100-w stations. The legislation would 1) "charge the FCC with using every means available to protect the 600 stations currently operating against encroachment by larger stations;" 2) require the FCC to schedule opportunities for the communities to apply for licenses and study how the transition from analog to digital radio will impact LPFM broadcasters, 3) require the Commission to prohibit companies from repeating signals more than 20 times through translators, to preserve most of the available frequencies for unique local broadcasts, 4) gives low power applicants planning to broadcast at least 8 hours a day of local programming primary status over unstaffed translators that are repeating a station from far away. The bill seeks a comprehensive analysis of radio services during the transition from analog to digital broadcasting.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily]
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