Person after person voiced unique, eloquent, and emphatic remarks of why media consolidation hasn't worked, what has been going wrong and what ideas the FCC could use to fix it.

selected comments from public at FCC localism mtg.

audio: MP3 at 1.1 mebibytes

Bonus outtake from Wednesday's edition of Free Speech Radio News.... On Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee moved forward on SB 2505, aka the McCain/Leahy Act, which would restore the technical aspects of the origainal FCC plan to license Low Power FM radio. The bi-partisan bill is being introduced by Arizona Senator John McCain and currently has 3 co-sponsors in the Senate. In December 2000, Congress passed The Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act, which cut-out thousnads of potential LPFM applicants, by enforcining scrict channel seperation requirements. FSRN reporter Vinny Lombardo looks at how one California town is hoping SB 2505 will rectify a growing controversy over the LPFM station there.

audio: MP3 at 5.5 mebibytes

Last night in Monterey, CA the Federal Communications Commision held the fourth of six public hearings on local broadcast media. Citing a scheduling conflict, FCC Chairman Michael Powell missed the proceeding. It's the second consecutive localism hearing he didn't attend. Powell created the task force on localism last year, to quell public outrage over a partisan plan to relax media ownership rules, allowing one company to own newspapers, TV, and radio stations in the same market. Vinny Lombardo reports

audio: MP3 at 3.5 mebibytes

The FCC Localism Hearing was held in Monterey CA on Wednesday July 21st. Chairman Michael Powell was AWOL. Three Commissioners attended, Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein and Republican Kathleen Abernathy.

Audio of Public comment period at FCC localism

audio: MP3 at 24.3 mebibytes (part 1)

audio: MP3 at 19.4 mebibytes (part II)

audio: MP3 at 15.8 mebibytes (part III)

3min audio of news story on FRSC on KSBW ch8 six oclock news on the same day as FCC localism hearing fairly favorable

audio: MP3 at 2.2 mebibytes

In 1998 Michael Powell, the FCC chairman, gave a speech where he described ‘waiting for the ‘Angels of the public interest’ to show up and express their opinions concerning FCC regulation issues’. He said they didn’t come. Banking again on public apathy Powell later invited us to give feedback on the FCC’s performance.

Much to his dismay, 2.3 million people petitioned to protest the FCC’s policies and relaxation of regulations.

The ‘Angels of the public interest’ who attended the poorly publicized and oddly located Monterey FCC hearing for the ‘entire western United States’ showed up last night. Powell didn’t.

[ FCC and Media Monopolists Face Hot Criticism at Monterey Hearing (Indybay coverage) ]

[ Angels in Monterey I Score one for The People! I Photos: 1 - 2 I Coverage of FCC Hearing I Public Comments I Selected Citizen Comments I DaveyD's comments I Sprouts: Broadcast Localism I FRSC news coverage on KSBW I Watsonville To Get All Hawaiian LPFM Station? ]

noticed a broken window tonight at 'boarders'

Phone Interview with Jeff Pearlstein of Media alliance and Emily of corporateswine.net as they entered the localism meeting in the Monterey confrence center. live on Free Radio Santa Cruz 101fm freakradio.org

audio: MP3 at 2.9 mebibytes