Your Opinion Counts

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) & U.S. Congress wants your opinion regarding proposed rule changes.

Comments are due April 28, 2008

Thank you for taking the time to comment on these proposed rule changes that would adversely affect your Air 1 station. The time you invest in this could keep Christian radio strong. Here is some additional information about what is happening and why your opinion counts.

While the FCC is considering these rule changes, at the moment nothing is "set in stone" as they await public comment. If any of these changes were adopted, there would be significant impact on our ability to minister to you and your community. These rules would not only affect our stations but also thousands of stations around the country. These rule changes could:

Require Community Advisory Boards: One board overseeing all broadcasters in that area. Appointed individuals who may not be friendly to the Christian mission of the station.
Require Additional Staffing: Adding tens of thousands of dollars in additional monthly expense to each affected station (even including some of our smaller facilities which ultimately might force us to leave the air in some areas).
Force Many of Our Translator Stations Off The Air: This rule would give priority to many new Low Power FM stations (LPFM) rather than existing translator stations. This means many of our translators would no longer be able to carry Air 1 programming.

(snip)

>>> savechristianradio.com <<<

Ah, gotcha. In re: voice-tracking, you have a very valid point.

As to your question ...nope. Currently, a station doesn’t have to be manned 24-7; that’s what this Bravo Sierra is all about. They want to force stations to be staffed round-the-clock; which in this day and age, is really a financial burden. What we could end up with is a radio landscape at night, circa 1960’s...lotsa silence. Many operators at that time couldn’t afford to keep an engineer and talent working overnight, so they just signed off at dusk.

I agree with the point about ‘unintended consequences’, tho. While I don’t think the proposed rules change is an out and out attempt to stifle free speech, the community advisory board part would do just that. In my case, we broadcast an AM News/Talk station in southern WV. We feature Rush, Sean, Savage, Bohannon and more...in heavily Democratic and Byrd-influenced WV. Who’s to tell me what I should or shouldn’t air? After all, I’m the one who pays the bills. Not the local florist, Pastor, or Mayor that I’ll have to ‘consult’. Ugh.

from Tom Taylor’s radio-info.com newsletter (free
by subscription http://www.radio-info.com ):

BY TOM TAYLOR:
Can the NAB stop the FCC’s “localism” re-regulation?

There was some talk about that at last week’s NAB in Las Vegas, with operators urging their peers to file comments through the NAB site or otherwise, through sites like HelpRadioNow.com. That effort got some extra muscle late last week with a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin signed by more than 120 members of the House, asking him to stop and think before conducting a “radical re-regulation.” I’m told that a site related to HelpRadioNow that’s aimed at Christian radio got a huge load of traffic when K-Love and Air 1 started pushing the issue, to their listeners. So why is a Republican appointee like Martin (who worked on the Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida re-count) pursuing regulation so vigorously? A lot of folks in Vegas tell me what I’ve heard around Washington – that it’s a quid pro quo for getting the support of the Commission’s two Democrats (Michael Copps, Jonathan Adelstein) on other issues. As for whether the NAB can stop this train – I think it can, at least this year. And when we get to 2009 and a new administration, and probably a different Chairman, the landscape might look very different.

I would shut down our local Air1 station in a heart beat.
They have caused harmful interferince on the lower end of the FM band for far too long, Contacting them about there problem has not yielded any results.

My webpage pretty much sums up my frustration with Air1

http://albert-cordova.com/Air_one.htm

I really just want them to just go away.

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