Thursday, December 17, 2009

Victory for Low-Power FM Radio

Yesterday the House of Representatives passed the Local Community Radio Act (S. 592), which was sponsored by Sens. Maria Cantwell and John McCain. Its next hurdle will be facing the Senate. If it passes the Senate, the bill would allow for the creation of hundreds of new, low power FM radio stations dedicate to broadcasting community news and local perspectives to neighborhoods throughout the country. A full-Senate vote has yet to be scheduled, but it would represent the final step for the expansion of low power FM radio to become law. The passing of the bill in the House is a significant victory by media activists groups who have worked hard over the last few years to reach this point.

But, we’re not there yet. If you want to tell your senators to act now and support local radio, click here to sign the petition.

Of course, low-power FM radio isn’t the only battle the media reform movement is facing. Those in the movement are working particularly hard to ensure continued network neutrality. If you’re interested in learning more about network neutrality, specifically, in finding out where your House member stands on the issue, check out this new online tool, which allows you to map lawmakers’ views by state via a database searchable zip code.

As a reminder, network neutrality’s aim is to “preserve an Internet in which service providers cannot offer varying levels of quality depending on such variables as whether a content provider pays to be placed in a higher service tier.” There’s nothing more crucial to ensuring the continued access of information in the 21st century than this issue.

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