Today marked the beginning of the end of local radio, especially in the commercial sector. A station now only need to leave a toll free telephone number to make a mark on their community. While I agree that there are some stations that are facing financial burdens as a direct result of maintaining a "brick and mortar" main studio, I do feel that REC's proposed solution was a reasonable compromise.
Under REC's proposed "middle" solution, stations would not be required to keep a main studio that would be accessible by the general public but instead must maintain a local presence within the service contour of the station and that station has some form of local program origination requirement (even if it is in the spare bedroom of the owner's residence). Management personnel must be physically located within the main studio area of the station and must be accessible through a geographic (non toll-free) telephone number.
Pai's version of local radio has destroyed virtually all accountability that a broadcaster entrusted to use the scarce resource of broadcast spectrum is obligated to. I feel that there is (unfortunately) more to come.
