Felix Guattari has noted the central institutional paradox of the contemporary media firmament in North America. He contrasts the trend "towards hyper-concentrated systems controlled by the apparatus of state, of monopolies, of big political machines" with moves "toward miniaturized systems that create the real possibility of a collective appropriation of the media." The latter provide control over the means of mass communication to those to whom it has been specifically denied by the former. (Guattari, 1993:85) The diversity of forms miniaturized communicative appropriation has assumed in recent decades is remarkable, but only one has even come close to challenging the legal basis of corporate dominance over public systems of mass culture in the U.S., micropower radio. While the travails of Black Liberation Radio and Free Radio Berkeley are becoming increasingly well-known it is useful to look at the experiences with low-power radio in other countries to compare the FCCs arguments, actions, and attitudes to those of its regulatory counterparts.
One case of particular relevance to the U.S. situation is that of Canada. In what follows I will describe the historical role unlicensed and low-power radio has played in Canada and how the current community radio sector there is in part the result of a series of low-power experiments in various parts of the country. I will argue that the central differences between the experiences of the U.S. and Canada have been the kinds of political pressure applied by grassroots and institutional radio interest groups in both countries to relevant government institutions and the role of each country's regulatory agency in alternately attacking or helping to shape a community radio sector. In the U.S. pressure from institutional interest groups has resulted in a convenient tactical alliance which has helped to enact a ban on all radio broadcasting under 100 watts, with a few convenient exceptions. In Canada grassroots political activities have resulted in a steadily expanding community radio sector. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in particular has responded to public pressure and lobbying by drafting a series of carefully-crafted policy accommodations for certain specific interests. The overall policy regime evolved slowly as various issues were inserted into the policymaking mechanism by these interests. Ultimately I will show that, as with most regimes of broadcast regulation, these accommodations have had numerous and often contradictory consequences, and that several key lessons can be drawn from the Canadian experience, both inspirational and cautionary.
A History of Unattended Development
There is little ambiguity about the fact that community radio in Canada began in small isolated aboriginal communities in the far north of the country and that the first efforts were mostly homemade, unlicensed operations using whatever equipment was at hand. These efforts usually relied on "trail radio" equipment scavenged from government operatives in the RCMP or the Department of Indian Affairs. Residents needed a way to communicate with those out on hunts or on the traplines in order to mitigate the seriousness of possible emergencies and found that the equipment brought in by bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, and law enforcement personnel was ideally suited to these and other needs. (Salter, 1981; Valentine, 1995:35) The earliest known experiment was started in Pond Inlet, Northwest Territories in 1964 where DIA equipment was set up as a small two-way radio system used for sending messages between communities, broadcasting news, important public information, and music. According to one report, "when people realized they could use radio equipment to talk with friends and relatives in neighboring settlements, they scrounged record players, rebuilt the ham radio equipment to operate with 10 watts power on the amateur band and started their own station" (Salter, 1981:19-20). The station operated for several years before its signal was discovered accidentally by two pilots flying into Montreal, prompting the CRTC to request they normalize their activities under existing broadcast regulations. (Roth, 1993:317) The station has since become a prototypical example of northern radio in small isolated communities who use their limited available means to accomplish their desired ends.
Another early low-power experiment was called Radio Kenomadiwin, created in 1969 by a group of university students acting under the auspices of the "Company for Young Canadians" who tried to initiate a mobile radio station in conjunction with a group of Ojibway who lived in the Longlac region of Ontario. The goal was to teach the basics of radio production to the aboriginal participants "with the express purpose of documenting a series of scandals in government administration of native affairs" (Salter, 1980:89-90). Contained in a van which travelled between six communities and hooking up to available antennas, Kenomadiwin was intended "to include programming that was local in origin and available in the native language" (ibid.:90). In addition, "it would broadcast local events including meetings, interviews, debates, and talent shows" (ibid.:91). While the effort ultimately took a form somewhat contrary to its original motivations, Radio Kenomadiwin marked an important precedent for others to follow; one of the staff involved in the project was later involved in the creation of Co-op Radio in Vancouver in 1973, one of the first urban community radio stations in Canada. The most important result of these developments was the necessary practical and policy precedents which allowed the development of future community-based radio experiments in southern cities and towns.
The foundations of the current policy regime were laid with the inception of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "Accelerated Coverage Plan" (ACP) which aimed to provide direct CBC services via satellite to any community with more than 500 residents. The CBCs pursuit of its coverage policies began with the creation of a Northern Service in 1958 and continued as it implemented the ACP in 1973; both efforts were designed to enhance official government policies aimed at assimilating the aboriginal population into mainstream Canadian society. The Northern Service broadcast the same programming received in the south and was often made accessible to people who had either no interest in or active hostility towards it. As the CBC presence in the north increased so did local use of transmitters and donations of other equipment, and as part of the ACP, the CBC allowed local communities not only to operate and maintain these Low-Power Radio Transmitters (LPRTs), but also "to decide which CBC radio programs [would] be aired. By simply throwing a switch, local broadcasters [could] communicate directly with an entire community" (Rupert, 1983:56). This was a level of access and participation denied to the rest of the country.
As a result of these efforts organizations representing aboriginal communities and their LPRT sites to the government began to form. These organizations were in part a reaction to the explicitly assimilationist intentions of the government, but were also in part funded by the government. So, for example, when the ACP was approved and implemented without any consultation with northern aboriginals and without any possibility of programming by or for their communities, the government also created the "Native Communication Program" aimed at funding the nascent societies forming in various parts of the country, organizations whose sponsorship was in part a reaction against the direct interests of the government, a contradiction that continues. (Valaskakis, 1992:70-2) Today aboriginal radio and communication societies are numerous and diverse, some representing one community, some representing thirty, some printing newspapers as well as producing radio and television programs in varying amounts of Inuktituk, Ojibway, Cree, Micmac, English, French, and some local languages and dialects. Currently there are over three hundred aboriginal communities using LPRTs and other community access radio stations in Northern Canada and these are represented by over a dozen regional communication societies which, while suffering from dramatic budget cuts made early in the 1990s, still manage to produce programming, provide much-needed communication services, and distribute information in a variety of media (Stiles, 1985). Most stations survive through volunteer labor and small staffs operating with small budgets and many depend on revenues from radio bingo and paid messages or song dedications for survival, while receiving small amounts of government funding through the regional communication societies (Smith and Bingham, 1992:187).
More recently a number of stations have been established on reserves in southern Ontario and Quebec many of which also began as unlicensed low-power experiments. The activity has been greatest on reserves which in sum form a large part of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy including the reserve communities of Akwesasne, Kanesatake, Kahnawake, Tynedinaga, and Six Nations. The first station to be established on a southern reserve was CKON, and the current 250 watt station grew in part from an earlier 20 watt operation called "Akwesasne Freedom Radio" which was designed to demystify media technology and to draw in those community members interested in longer-term radio projects. CKON began broadcasting on the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ontario, in 1982 and the station's supporters have since refused to seek licensing by the CRTC or the FCC, but are instead governed by a proclamation by the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation. This arrangement is acknowledged, but not influenced by the CRTC, while the FCC has refused to recognize the station altogether (Wilkinson, 1988:38; Keith, 1995:88). The stations at CKHQ at Kanesatake and CKRK at Kahnawake also began as low-power stations, between about five watts and 50 watts respectively, although CKRK now operates at 250 watts (Roth, 1993:319). CKRZ at Six Nations also began as an unlicensed low-power operation and continued to operate without sanction from the authorities for several years before exterior circumstances forced it to apply to the CRTC for official status (Fairchild, 1997). About eight other stations are either broadcasting or in development at other Iroquois or Ojibway reserves throughout southern Ontario (ibid.).
The independence of these stations stems from the resolve of their members not to sacrifice the sovereignty and self-determination granted in numerous but mostly ignored treaties between the British Crown and their ancestors. To the CRTC's credit they have not tried to force these stations out of existence nor have they tried to enforce any regulations which are clearly inappropriate to these communities, although they often insist on some involvement in what many reserve residents feel are sovereign airwaves. The current aboriginal radio infrastructure stands as testament to what Roth has called "the history of appropriating airwaves" for uses which are unimaginable to centralized administrative and funding organizations. (Roth, 1993:317)
Actually-existing Low-power Radio
The central argument made by the FCC against low-power radio is that such operations would inevitably cause interference with existing broadcasters and while the evidence supporting this argument is limited at best, as Alexander Cockburn notes, "in it's role as the rich folks' cop the F.C.C. has been soliciting complaints from licensed broadcasters to buttress its specious claims about interference" (Cockburn, 1995:263). Perhaps the most compelling evidence to contradict the protestations of the FCC is the fact that "low-power" radio stations exist all across the U.S. and Canada and not just in small isolated communities. In addition to the hundreds of LPRTs in northern Canada, broadcasting operations that would be considered illegal in the U.S. due to insufficient wattage operate even on the most crowded radio dials on the continent, including those in southern Quebec, Ontario, and even Metropolitan Toronto.
For example, CHRY 105.5 FM operating from the campus of York University, is a fifty-watt station set in the far northwest corner of Metropolitan Toronto. The campus and the station are set in the much-maligned "Jane-Finch" corridor, a low to middle-income neighborhood named for the intersection of Jane Street and Finch Avenue which is one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Canada. The station's signal only reaches about eight miles or so and as a result its programming is largely reflective of the community it which it is situated, including programs by and for the West Indian and Asian communities in the area. Another low-power station in Toronto is CKRG 800 AM on the campus of York University's francophone Glendon College which specializes in French-language programming. The most important point to keep in mind here is that the Canadian broadcasting regime does not apply blanket prohibitions on types of radio broadcasting based on arbitrary considerations like their radiating power, but takes into account the social context and function of a particular radio station, a story to be picked up shortly.
As part of his court case Free Radio Berkeley founder Stephen Dunifer argued that low-power broadcasting in Canada could act as a model for licensing related efforts in the U.S. The Commission countered by arguing that since there are far fewer Canadian radio stations using more or less the same number of frequencies, interference is not a consideration, an argument that is not entirely accurate or in some cases even relevant. The obvious fact ignored by the FCC is that Canadian regulators have long had to account for the huge number of U.S. radio stations whose signals have extensive reach into Canada and which have constrained domestic development for decades. This is not a reciprocal concern for U.S. stations because of long-standing international agreements which guarantee the U.S. control of the vast majority of continental and regional "clear-channel" frequencies. In fact, in cities like Windsor, which is just across the river from Detroit, as well as Montreal and Toronto, the radio and television bands are actually more crowded than those of comparably-sized U.S. cities precisely because of allowances made for U.S. broadcasters. Yet despite this imposed reality, in Windsor, Toronto, and Montreal the CRTC has found room for several radio stations of fifty watts and under including CKHQ, CKRK, CFRU at the University of Guelph (near Toronto), and CJAM at the University of Windsor (Wilkinson, 1988:18).
Perhaps most surprisingly, a large number of low-power AM broadcasters exist all across the U.S. as well, but these are the correct kind of low power broadcasters, the kind which "offer travelers news and information on attractions and parking and weather at airports, along highways, and in parks all across the country" (Scully, 1993:35). Further than this, the number of applications by local governments for these kinds of services have increased dramatically in recent years and the AM band has even been increased in size recently to accommodate these local information services and new commercial stations as well. (ibid.) No consideration has yet been given to competing possibilities as the imagined realm of the "public interest" isn't nearly as flexible as the FCC's logic. What should be clear is that claims by the FCC that low-power radio operations would cause unacceptable interference with existing broadcasters remain at best unsubstantiated, selectively applied, and in some cases entirely irrelevant.
The Politics of Policy
Community radio policy in Canada was designed to simultaneously accommodate and control community radio and the series of policy decisions regarding the form which began in the early 1970s has left a mixed legacy. In comparison with the complete policy vacuum in the U.S., however, the situation is drastically more beneficial for the form in general. There are two issues which are particularly important for the purposes of comparison: the character and extent of political pressure applied by advocates of "community radio" in both countries and the reaction to this public pressure by each country's respective regulatory agency.
In the U.S. organized political pressure on the FCC regarding community radio did not come from grassroots activists, but from an institutional alliance between National Public Radio (NPR) and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB). Laboring under the impression that the available slots on the FM band were rapidly disappearing, the NPR/NFCB alliance began to push for what they called the "professionalization" of public and community radio. As Barlow notes, in the 1980s both organizations convinced "the FCC to limit the number of 10-watt low-power noncommercial FM broadcast operations in favor of their high-powered and better-financed counterparts" (Barlow, 1988:99). Further than this, however, NPR and the NFCB presented the following recommendations to the FCC: 1) stations of less than 100 watts will be required to move to the commercial spectrum, if any room is available. If not they will be allowed to stay in the noncommercial band only if they can prove that they will not interfere with any other stations. 2) Low-power stations will no longer be protected from interference, in effect losing all practical spectrum-use rights. 3) Low-power stations must operate at least 36 hours a week and at least five hours a day. 4) Stations broadcasting less than twelve hours a day will be required to share their frequencies in agreements created and enforced by the FCC (Fornatale and Mills, 1983:181). As has been noted elsewhere, the FCC has gone well beyond even these strident provisions. The most unexpected consequence of the attempted consolidation of noncommercial radio in the U.S. has been the micropower radio movement itself, in part a result of the NFCB/CPB alliance. A movement was created comprised of precisely those operations whose existence the alliance aimed to prohibit, founded by those whose interests this same alliance repeatedly claimed to serve.
Most interesting is the adoption by the FCC in the Dunifer case of the core concept which propped up the arguments used by the public radio alliance: spectrum scarcity. In 1980 representatives of NPR and the NFCB argued that since FM frequencies were scarce, the limited space in the noncommercial portion of the FM band should not be taken up by "unprofessional" operations with the kind of limited range and (implicitly) limited appeal of low-power radio. But spectrum scarcity, where it can be said to exist at all, is not a natural condition, but an imposed one, created by the spectrum management and use policies of the FCC, not by the activities of 10 watt broadcasters. More specifically, it has been the deregulatory policies the FCC has followed since 1980 which have put the most pressure on remaining frequencies. Deregulation has resulted in the drastic over-licensing of the FM band and a subsequent and predictable wave of bankruptcies, convenient facts for those who are now building continental networks by scooping-up a large number of stations at bargain-basement prices from overextended entrepreneurs trying to get out of a business in which monstrous "economies of scale" predominate (Bagdikian, 1992; Andrews, 1992). The most important fact to understand in relation to the arguments of spectrum scarcity adopted by the NPR/NFCB alliance is that as deregulation began in earnest in 1980 the reaction of those claiming to represent community radio did not fight the policy or offer any practical alternatives, but instead made numerous accommodations with the FCC and in the end became major beneficiaries of a disastrous policy. It is clear that the legal inadmissibility of low-power radio is not due to any potential interference problems that might arise nor is it due to a crowded spectrum, but to the self-interest of those who are most able to divide the spectrum up between themselves and influence policymakers to transform this self-interest into law.
In Canada political pressure on the CRTC was most effectively applied by grassroots aboriginal groups, francophones both inside and outside of Quebec, and student radio groups. The CRTC responded by drafting a carefully-designed regulatory policy over the period of two decades which has both enhanced and protected community radio while simultaneously institutionalizing the form and incorporating it into the national broadcasting infrastructure. As a result the form has been largely immune from the encroachment or usurpation by hostile entities because the regulations clearly set out an unambiguous and enforceable definition of the structure and mandate of community radio while allowing these policy definitions to remain uniquely flexible and adaptable to the social function and context of particular stations, thus remaining relevant to the three founding streams of the form (CRTC, 1985; 1992). Most importantly, despite the CRTCs general reluctance to vigorously monitor and enhance community participation in some areas, the broadcast regulator has made a good faith attempt to deal with those representing public access radio in a constructive manner and has not enacted a series of arbitrary and unduly restrictive rules designed to constrain the development of community radio in the numerous diverse contexts in which it was created.
More precariously, community radio stations now have numerous mundane regulatory responsibilities to fulfill and difficult programming can still shake a station to its foundations. For example, the conditions of license for all stations, commercial, community, or public, require adherence to a detailed programming agreement with the CRTC called the "Promise of Performance" which applies for the duration of the license. Any significant change of programming also requires a change in the conditions of the license. While this affords marginal stations some protection from their own enforced obsolescence at the hands of wealthier and more ambitious commercial stations bent on incorporating marginal cultural forms, it also prevents bold new programming statements from being made between license renewals. While the CRTC remains a mostly reactive organization, in that they respond to specific criticisms rather than seeking them out, there always remains the implicit and arbitrary threat to the viability of a license. It is the classic trade-off of broadcast regulation: in order to exist you must eventually acknowledge total regulatory authority. But since community stations are usually unaided and mostly marginalized by the same central authorities who also hold their licenses, despite having to fulfill programming obligations similar to those of pampered commercial stations, regulatory authority can often be as much of a burden as a protection.
The Canadian experience with unlicensed and low-power radio shows demonstrates both the promise and the peril of the form. On the one hand true public access community radio has been legitimized by the state and despite the chronic financial difficulties of many stations, the form is legal, clearly defined, and firmly established in every region and city in the country. The main lesson for U.S. activists to take away from these developments is that nothing is as important as a clear and practical working definition to set the terms through which community radio can find its voice and govern its everyday operations. This definition doesn't necessarily have to be sanctioned by the state nor must it be enshrined in law, but it must exist and it must sooner or later come to define the agreed-upon limits of the form. The kind of collective definition found in Canada has allowed for change based on consensus, not force and this in turn has built solidarity between stations. All stations who have accepted the general definition of community radio are now implicitly allied with one another. If one station is attacked all stations are attacked and what happens to one can happen to all; thus the possible range of responses is wider and stronger. With this in mind it becomes less difficult to imagine a series of low-power storefront radio operations across the U.S. whose only responsibilities are to register for the use of regional frequencies set aside for community access and to reflect and record the needs and desires of their participants, listeners, or detractors.
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Credit: Radio Free Canada - illustration by Stephen Schwartz
