From WNYKRC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week, Congress and the FCC crept closer to what many sees the cure for unhealthy consolidation in radio broadcasting, low-power FM.

I say crept because they started on the road to LPPP five years ago, and they're not there yet.

In January of 2000, the FCC authorized the service, offering thousands of would-be broadcasters in schools and churches and many erstwhile radio pirates a chance to serve their communities.

Low-power FM was this close

until the National Association of Broadcasters

and National Public Radio

ascended Capitol Hill with test results showing

that the low-power signal would interfere

with existing FM stations.

Then Congress put on the brakes

and paired the service down to just a few hundred stations.

Here's how FCC Chairman Bill Kinnard reacted five years ago.

Well, I'm very disappointed and frankly surprised that an organization like NPR, which has done so much to promote opportunities for Americans to be heard on the airwaves,

would join with commercial special interest

in trying to kill this promising new service.

Flash forward five years, and it turns out that the current conservative FCC chairman,

Michael Powell, felt the same way about LPP as the liberal Bill Kennard.

We need it.

Powell said this at an FCC forum Tuesday.

I've been told on the phone this morning that Senator McCain will drop the LPP

bill this morning, which will provide new opportunities. So we're off to a fast start in the new

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