Berkeley Liberation Radio hit its 10th anniversary of unlicensed radio broadcasting this month, continuing low-budget, free format activist radio in the Oakland/Berkeley area, 104.1FM, and a new streaming website at www.berkeleyliberationradio.net.

The current LPFM bill which will force the FCC to license significant numbers of Low Power FM stations on unused FM frequencies is languishing in Congress. Even if passed, other draconian FCC rules will keep pioneers like Berkeley Liberation Radio, Pirate Cat Radio in SF, and Free Radio Santa Cruz in "illegal" status, broadcasting underground.

The LPFM stations fight an industry oligopoly that limits big money stations to reading occasional wire news and presenting a "twin bottleneck" oligopoly of about 5 record companies and 10 radio conglomerates dominating radio. This results in a same basic 5,000 songs - all commercially popular and most over 10 years old - regurgitated over an over again across overlapping radio "formats". The left, non-commercial dial is virtually bought out by the tightly scripted Corporation For Public Broadcasting government-funded NPR outlets, basically spewing out Centrist news information skewed towards the propaganda interests of the Federal Government and corporate industry conglomerates.

Microradio allows diverse and creative amateur broadcasters to offer unique and diverse programming, including unfiltered local activist news and local, independent music of interest in a more interactive format.

Berkeley Liberation Radio has a 10th Anniversary benefit Friday, July 31st., 6PM until late, with local hip hop musicians and BLR DJs. The collective needs a little bit of money to continue its operations, which are difficulty due to limited resources and continued FCC undermining. BLR DJs also want to meet and interact with its listening public, and is open to providing DJ opportunities to those who want to broadcast. The benefit is at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Berkeley, 1924 Cedar St. Be there!!!