Glenn Reynolds has an excellent column on what continues to be wrong with the FCC and radio regulation, and how the FCC should be working to deregulate and streamline accessibility to the airwaves for microbroadcasters.

I've not been paying much attention to the whole FCC regulation/ownership thing, as I don't have a TV or cable and don't much care about either. Too, I've never really been a radio listener (it's almost exclusively cassettes in the car) but for a while, after 9/11, I was listening to my local NPR affiliate, KPCC. A few months ago I realized I'd stopped tuning in. Not a conscious decision. It just kind of happened. Why? Because despite the fact that there are some good shows on it (Larry Mantle and Kitty Felde spring to mind), so much of it was just unctuous, self-congratulatory twaddle, and it annoys me.

Give the power of broadcasting as much to the geeks in garages as to those on the Fed's handout list in Washington and horrific monsters like Clear Channel.

You know what indie stations rock? KXLU, KUCI, things like that. Stations that aren't selling you shit programming, nor a bunch of hectoring lunatics, nor a bunch of a smarmy, self-absorbed connoisseurs of Important Information.