Broadcasters Cheer Pirate Radio Bill

[TheRelayStation]

in my opinion, this is a useless deterrent against FM pirates (the bad ones) because the FCC simply cannot collect the money from an individual citizen, they dont have the authority and until congress gives them the authority, this problem (as they claim it is) will continue despite the increase in the amount of fines levied.
red-hat once described the situation as a "whack-a-mole", that is exactly what it is.

[MDK2]

in my opinion, this is a useless deterrent against FM pirates (the bad ones) because the FCC simply cannot collect the money from an individual citizen, they dont have the authority and until congress gives them the authority, this problem (as they claim it is) will continue despite the increase in the amount of fines levied.
red-hat once described the situation as a "whack-a-mole", that is exactly what it is.

This is incredible to me. How can they levy fines but not have any power to collect them? Try not paying your credit card bill or a traffic ticket for a few months and watch what happens.

[TheRelayStation]

in my opinion, this is a useless deterrent against FM pirates (the bad ones) because the FCC simply cannot collect the money from an individual citizen, they dont have the authority and until congress gives them the authority, this problem (as they claim it is) will continue despite the increase in the amount of fines levied.
red-hat once described the situation as a "whack-a-mole", that is exactly what it is.

This is incredible to me. How can they levy fines but not have any power to collect them? Try not paying your credit card bill or a traffic ticket for a few months and watch what happens.

there was an article i read that explained why the FCC doesnt have the authority to collect levied fines and even if they did have the authority, the AG has better things and bigger fine amounts to go after and collect so maybe increasing the fine amount to $2M will get the AG motivated ?
that still doesnt mean they will be able to collect the money though.

[ThElectriCat]

As to what was mentioned about the big boys not playing by the rules either, Most commercial radio stations (especially the top dog stations in small markets) have countless FCC violations, most commonly poor EAS functionality and interference to other operations both broadcast and non-broadcast related. They will almost never directly report an FCC violation of a pirate or competitor station, as they themselves would then have to "clean up" I have seen many stations (mostly translators) which run at several times legal power, AM sites which are abhorrently in disrepair not meeting FCC regulations or even fire safety code, and a complete disregard for any other broadcasters in the market (unless of course they are owned by the same big company). 

To boot, most of the translators I have seen are sold in the community as the main market station, allowing the AM to become a more and more unreliable and poor quality signal. This is completely against the purpose of a translator, and yet, seems to illicit no negative response from the FCC or NAB.

on a second note, I wonder what would happen to a pirate operator who was caught if they had been running a sane and well controlled amount of power, with clean modulation, and monitored an EAS primary to actually participate in eas alerts and weekly tests? I am quite curious to whether the FCC could deem that pirate OPs action legally "harmful".

[TheRelayStation]

As to what was mentioned about the big boys not playing by the rules either, Most commercial radio stations (especially the top dog stations in small markets) have countless FCC violations, most commonly poor EAS functionality and interference to other operations both broadcast and non-broadcast related. They will almost never directly report an FCC violation of a pirate or competitor station, as they themselves would then have to "clean up" I have seen many stations (mostly translators) which run at several times legal power, AM sites which are abhorrently in disrepair not meeting FCC regulations or even fire safety code, and a complete disregard for any other broadcasters in the market (unless of course they are owned by the same big company). 

To boot, most of the translators I have seen are sold in the community as the main market station, allowing the AM to become a more and more unreliable and poor quality signal. This is completely against the purpose of a translator, and yet, seems to illicit no negative response from the FCC or NAB.

on a second note, I wonder what would happen to a pirate operator who was caught if they had been running a sane and well controlled amount of power, with clean modulation, and monitored an EAS primary to actually participate in eas alerts and weekly tests? I am quite curious to whether the FCC could deem that pirate OPs action legally "harmful".

it doesnt matter how clean your RF is, how abiding and how professional you are as a pirate on FM, even with documented and diagnostic proof, the bottom line to the FCC is that you do not have a license.
it will never be the legal FM station itself that will make the report of a pirate, its always the NAB or other broadcast group associations that make the reports but these reports are done mostly for a different reason, take a look at how one conglomerate company owns several FM stations in a single market as an example, i know the reasons why this is done.
captivity is everything and money is the manipulator.

[Pigmeat]

They did in Texas a couple of decades back, ElectriCat. They were the only station operating with storm damage and FEMA info for a couple of days after things hit the fan. I want to say it was in Austin? They had huge community support for their service, but the FCC did their best to run them off the air.

[BoomboxDX]

Where there is money..... etc.

I don't like being conspiratorially minded, but I see an industry (FM radio) that is worried. Worried about their future. Worried about loss of listeners. Worried about loss of revenue, including advertising revenue. Even though the numbers of radio listeners who have gravitated away to other forms of entertainment haven't yet been substantial, the writing is on the wall.

When you see massive businesses scrambling to wipe out gnats, you know that there is more to the picture than just whether someone was breaking the law.

[Josh]

There's also the danger to power when the networks are bypassed, and by networks I mean fox, abc, cbs, nbc, msnbc, cnn, etc corporate/agenda media.

[JimIO]

It's an FCC witch hunt and the fix is a Trump lawyer. 

[TheRelayStation]

Where there is money..... etc.

I don't like being conspiratorially minded, but I see an industry (FM radio) that is worried. Worried about their future. Worried about loss of listeners. Worried about loss of revenue, including advertising revenue. Even though the numbers of radio listeners who have gravitated away to other forms of entertainment haven't yet been substantial, the writing is on the wall.

When you see massive businesses scrambling to wipe out gnats, you know that there is more to the picture than just whether someone was breaking the law.

which is precisely what is happening.
the conglomerate media companies who own several FM/AM stations in captive market areas are trying to recoup their losses by offering and venturing to several other media platforms to keep the investors and lending firms happy in addition to acquiring competitive radio stations to eliminate competition and stomping out the "gnats" of low power pirates in order to keep captivity on that specific market and keep revenue loss from advertising on the decline.
now imagine if one media company owned all the FM radio stations in the NYC market.

[BoomboxDX]

There's also the danger to power when the networks are bypassed, and by networks I mean fox, abc, cbs, nbc, msnbc, cnn, etc corporate/agenda media.

Cable TV is starting to see a dip, just as FM radio is.

Not as much news about it, but when ESPN cuts staff, you know that Cable is having a few issues.

From what I've read, it seems to be mostly people cutting back on their cable packages.

[BoomboxDX]

which is precisely what is happening.
the conglomerate media companies who own several FM/AM stations in captive market areas are trying to recoup their losses by offering and venturing to several other media platforms to keep the investors and lending firms happy in addition to acquiring competitive radio stations to eliminate competition and stomping out the "gnats" of low power pirates in order to keep captivity on that specific market and keep revenue loss from advertising on the decline.
now imagine if one media company owned all the FM radio stations in the NYC market.

I hate to sound cynical, but if only one radio company owned all the FM stations in the NYC market, would any of the listeners really notice?

I think the only people who would notice would be industry types, radio enthusiasts (like us here at HFU), and policy wonks.

The average listener? I'm not sure they would either notice or care. They just want to hear their favorite music. Not saying that's awesome, but just sayin'.

[John Poet]

This bill mandates the FCC to increase enforcement, but provides them with no additional funds to pay for it....

LOL

[Josh]

There's also the danger to power when the networks are bypassed, and by networks I mean fox, abc, cbs, nbc, msnbc, cnn, etc corporate/agenda media.

Cable TV is starting to see a dip, just as FM radio is.

Not as much news about it, but when ESPN cuts staff, you know that Cable is having a few issues.

From what I've read, it seems to be mostly people cutting back on their cable packages.

Sadly, most I know who are cutting the cable are simply going netflix, and netflix is programming of the same sort as the dinosaur networks.

[redhat]

I don't know why people watch TV anyway.  There is very little out there I actually want to watch, and almost none of it prime time.

+-RH