March 29 - A reader in Denver wonders what radio outlet she might approach about getting a show on the air for the city's Russian immigrants. The show they're proposing would be in Russian, with Russian-language advertising, targeted to the approximately 35,000 Russian-speaking people in the Denver area. Forget about taking this idea to Jacor, Chancellor, Tribune or Jefferson-Pilot, the Denver radio honchos. The answer lies with the Federal Communications Commission. This is exactly the sort of use a new local radio service is intended for.

The FCC would like to allow religious groups, students, neighborhood groups and other community organizations to have access to a new cluster of very local, low-power radio signals. FCC Chairman Bill Kennard is moving ahead with the plan, with support from consumer activist groups, including the Media Access Project in Washington, D.C. Whining on the opposing side, of course, are the big radio companies. Established broadcasters, via their powerful lobbying group, the National Association of Broadcasters, are furious at the prospect of the government granting an array of new licenses to folks across the country for low-power signals.

They contend granting the low-power radio signals to local groups would have a disastrous impact on existing stations, creating interference around the dial and cutting into the available advertising dollars for minority and other radio stations. In a clever argument, the broadcasters also raise the possibility that low-power signals might be put to use by racist or white supremacist groups. Not that that's what really worries them. FCC Chairman Kennard has said there's room on the airwaves for everyone. He believes changing technology and the massive consolidation of the radio business mean it's time for new rules. The big broadcasters are struggling to hold onto their franchises; the limit, essentially, is whatever the Justice Department's antitrust division will allow.

They can see what's coming: Not only will everyone have a Web page, a record company and a right to broadcast via their computer, but local groups who would rather discuss current events in Russian are going to have their own radio stations. All-Russian radio, all the time. And why not, along with the local high school stamp club?

The old-fashioned stations will always be the biggest game in town. But, like the TV networks bedeviled by little networks devoted to golf, food or history, big radio companies are going to find tiny niche programmers springing up all around them. The tiny upstarts won't threaten the existence of the big guys. They'll draw only tiny audiences devoted to specific, obscure, but, to them, important, topics. They wonÕt hurt the big companies in the Arbitrons, but they will end the era of complete dominance by a handful of broadcasters. Under the FCC's proposals, thousands of licensed, low-tech and low-power stations could be created, serving all sorts of minority interests.

For now, Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., the chairman of the House Commerce telecommunications subcommittee, is doing the work of the broadcast lobbyists, sounding the alarm about the potential dangers of low-power radio.

On the other side is Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the Media Access Project who says "pirate radio is a problem, a felony, but Kennard wants to legitimatize some of what has been going on through self-help in micro-radio" by granting low-power licenses. The FCC is open to public comment on the subject through the summer.