After the Congress and the FCC spent years struggling to create more information sources at the local level, proposals are on the table to allow a collapse of these new choices down to just a handful. Low power TV and low power radio are not going to make up for what has been lost. People point to the rise of cable, of DBS, and of the Internet as justification for changing these rules. Cable has certainly added more channels, but cable does not offer a local news service in the vast majority of communities across the country. We have a local cable news service in Boston, but its the exception not the rule for cable.
Cable offers a national media service.
The same thing for satellite. Next we have the Internet. The Internet is certainly growing and someday may offer a service that replaces what local broadcast news offers to a community. But it doesn't today. It won't next month or next year.