By Dave Lindorff

           It may be a time of mega-mergers and media monopolies, but the little guys just won a big one, and some major radio markets could be facing some unexpected competition as a result.
        Late last week the Federal Communications Commission, despite intense lobbying by the broadcast industry, decided to permit so-called low-power radio stations to obtain licenses to broadcast on the main FM commercial frequencies.
        This means that nationwide as many as 1,000 new stations could be licensed to broadcast at 10-100 watts. That's enough power to let them reach radios within a three mile radius.
        While that may not mean many listeners for a low-power station in rural Montana, it could encompass hundreds of thousands of potential listeners in urban markets like Philadelphia, Washington or Oakland.
        And that has big-time radio broadcasters like CBS and ABC worried. 
        The National Association of Broadcasters, the television and radio industry's lobbying and trade association in Washington,  which had argued strenuously against the licensing plan,  called it  "a sad day for radio listeners."
        The NAB claims that a proliferation of small broadcasters will create interference within their broadcast area that will make it difficult to hear mainstream stations. 
    "If our listeners cannot hear our signals, our members are out of business tomorrow," says an NAB spokesman.
        But advocates of low-power radio say that argument is bogus.
     Michael Bracy, executive director of the Low Power Radio Coalition, says that today's radio receivers are precise enough to distinguish between signals that are three steps away from the tuned-in frequency--the standard that the FCC has established for assigning low-power licenses.  (A step in radio jargon is .2 on the dial.)
     For example, he says, under the new rule if a market has a standard FM broadcaster at 99.5 on the dial, a low-power station could be assigned the 100.1 frequency--far enough away to avoid causing interference.
        The advertising industry didn't take any position on the FCC rule, and media executives said that they didn't anticipate any immediate impact on the ad industry, since the FCC's new low-power rule requires the small stations to be non-commercial.  They can't sell ad time, but they can have sponsors the way National Public Radio does.
        Even if, as the low power stations hope, the FCC later permits them to go commercial and start selling advertising, Ellen Oppenheim, senior vice president and media director at Foote, Cone & Belding, says it would be difficult for advertisers to come on board.
     "How will these small stations tell us what kind of ratings they have?" she asks.  "They'd have to come up with some way, like call-in records or something, to show that they have an engaged audience."
        Where the low-power stations could have an impact, however, is in challenging the cautious, unimaginative programming of current broadcasters.
        For some years now, low-power stations have been defying the FCC to provide audiences with music and information that the major radio networks are ignoring. 
     Radio Free Berkeley, for example, one of the most successful such small pirate broadcasters, has been providing San Francisco-area listeners with leading-edge rock and other music that traditional broadcasters ignore.  It was ordered shut down by the FCC earlier this year after complaints from big-league broadcasters in the San Francisco market.
            Another station that has been running into trouble with the FCC for years broadcasts gospel music all day in Hartford, Conn.
        Says Bracy: "I think what the radio industry really fears is that in some major urban markets a significant number of listeners might turn to a low-power station that was being more creative in its programming."
        While some urban markets like New York City are so packed with stations there is no space on the FM spectrum for low-power broadcasters, others, like Washington D.C., could support as many as four new low-power stations. 
     With a start-up cost of as little as $2000, it is expected that new stations could start operating legally by as early as the end of this year.
        Such stations could conceivably offer programming that would seriously cut into established broadcasters' ratings.
        FCC Chairman William Kennard, who has been the chief advocate for a change of policy on low-power broadcasting,  is one of those who thinks the new competition could be healthy for the industry.
        "Every day it seems we read about a bigger merger and more consolidation, all of which leads to the perception that the interests of small groups and individuals are being lost, and that important viewpoints are being shut out," he said in one published report.  "The possibility of opening up available spectrum in the FM band has sparked creativity."

-Dave Lindorff covers television and research for Media Life.