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)