For nearly seventy five years, the public interest has guided U.S. broadcast regulatory policy and along with competition, the goals of localism and diversity have long formed its foundation (Phillips, 2003). The goal of broadcast localism is that broadcasters should serve the needs of their local communities by providing the programming that promotes political participation and preserves local cultural values. Political and cultural values attached to the localism principle (Napoli, 2001) have driven policymakers to ensuring that broadcast spectrum as a public property is administered and used in the public interest. Over the decades many communications regulations have been issued for implementing this policymaking imperative and many have …show more content…
Micro radio has been considered by many as the best way for serving local communities for a simple reason - by its nature LPFM embodies diverse programming, local ownership and community affairs. Supporters of the micro radio claim that it facilitates localism and diversity in many ways. To start with, low power radio stations are considerably cheap, easy to establish and operate and therefore are affordable to local groups and individuals to launch, while high power radio stations costing over $100,000 can be operated only by large group station owners because of the costs involved (Aguilar, 1999). Also, low power radio broadcasts reaching the listeners only within a couple of miles essentially target the needs of individual communities. Its programming is focused on local news coverage, weather and music extinct on commercial radios. LPFM is believed to have the potential for supporting local and independent artists and entire genres of music which has been disappeared on airwaves as a result of radio consolidation (Schiffman, …show more content…
In response to these inquiries, in February of 1999, the Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making proposing the operation of new low power radio stations (Birnbaum, 2002). In the Notice, FCC cited three major goals as the basis for justification of creating low power radio service: 1. to create community-oriented radio broadcasting. 2. to provide an opportunity for new entrants into the broadcasting industry that would lead to diversity in radio ownership 3. and to ensure integrity of the FM spectrum (Birnbaum,