WFHB FireHouse Broadcasting

My final workshop for today, and one that was a bit hard to follow. I'll do my best to flesh out these raw notes once I get back to B-town.

Pete Tridish, Prometheus Radio Project
Carol Pierson, NFCB
Melodie Virtue, Garvey Schubert & Barer

FCC
FCC commissioners changing – in effect only two of them right now
New FCC chairman might not care much about broadcasting
No translator windows or LPFM windows opening anytime soon

Congress
Change in decisionmakers in Congressional committees dealing with LPFM
CPB funding for FY 2009 $400 million, PTFP $20 million, digital conversion $35 million
NFCB seeking $307 million in stimulus funds for community radio

Broadband
$7.2 billion in funding for broadband buildout
Community radio stations could become local internet service providers – three windows opening very soon, details lacking but it will move fast when it happens

Copyright
For webstreaming - CPB reaches agreement with SoundExchange on blanket licenses for NFCB stations, CPB now pays cost but will require reporting from stations – we will need to electronically submit Artist and Title of all music played (I didn’t fully understand this discussion but it seems to mean that soon we will need to dump paper music logs and enter that info into a specific program that formats the info for submission to SoundExchange while using another program to monitor the number of online listeners at the time each song was played.)

Digital Transition
HD Radio not working so well – signal reach not as good, not penetrating into buildings as well, very few receivers out there

Indecency
Nothing happening; no FCC rulings while several appeals are in process; license renewals frozen

Emergency Preparedness
EAS: possible new system/protocols from FEMA will require new equipment

Localism
Rules may soon loosen, dropping the requirement for 24/7 staffing

Hey FHBers, Chad here again reporting from the 2009 NFCB conference in Portland.