Radio Survivor

John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge has a great interview with Ken Freedman, station manager of WFMU-FM in Jersey City, New Jersey. WFMU is a trailblazing radio station which was in the forefront of both the free form and dot.com eras. The dialogue is a terrific read, because it encapsulates all the dilemmas facing Internet radio right now.

“The way the Internet is built right now, there’s a catch 22, which is that the more people who use it [online streaming radio], the less well it works,” Freedman says. “And that’s just not the case with FM, or broadcast television, or cable. But, the Internet doesn’t have to be like that, but I don’t see much realistic hope for changing that.”

The economics on broadband streaming are “just terrible,” Freedman adds, “which is very frustrating to me because that’s where all the market is going. And at this point now, my radio station WFMU has twice as many people listening online as we do over FM, whereas it was only two years ago that we had finally crossed that barrier, where we had more people listening on the Internet than we had listening over FM. Now, two years later it’s twice as many.” (more…)

Richard Wolinsky

Pacifica radio is running its semi-regular Local Station Board elections. If you subscribe to a Pacifica station, you should be getting a ballot soon for listener or staff candidates for your signal’s respective board.

Here at Pacifica outlet KPFA-FM in Berkeley, to which I donate money, there are two big slates running: SaveKPFA and Independents for Community Radio. I’m not endorsing anyone this year. In fact, I’m not a fan of these elections, which I think are a waste of Pacifica’s resources.

But I am a fan of Richard Wolinsky, whose “Cover-to-Cover” book author interview  programs on KPFA are just terrific. Richard has an interesting essay that responds to the endless call for KPFA to go all or mostly volunteer. It’s definitely worth a read, since it narrates the station’s history since 1975:

KPFA today starts with its paid producers, engineers, and board operators, people whom you barely hear on the air but are doing their jobs quietly and professionally. Competent board ops: What a novelty in 1975. You were lucky if, when you dropped off your tape, the announcer didn’t completely mangle what was heard on the air. The simple transition…show to PSA to station ID to theme cart to tape…sounds simple, right? Guess again. The good board-ops stayed a few months, then got jobs and left. The bad ones usually just stopped showing up, often without notice. Remove the paid board ops and the sound quality drops precipitously. Remove the behind the scenes people and force the on-air hosts to do the production work, and you’ll lose half the hosts. Stop paying them, and they’re all gone because they have to earn a living. Their replacements? Again, once a week or once a month, the best of the rest gone the moment a real job in radio opens up.

Read the rest here.

International Radio Festival Banner for East Village Radio

With webcasting we all have the opportunity to sample radio stations from all over the globe, but it isn’t every day that there’s a chance to listen to a curated selection of international stations. The organizers of the International Radio Festival hand-picked more than 30 radio stations for inclusion in their festival taking place September 5 through 11th in Zurich, Switzerland.

During the festival, representatives from stations as far-flung as India, Paris, Moscow and New York City will be presenting programming over the Swiss terrestrial airwaves, online, and on cable throughout Switzerland. Among the 30 or so participating stations are three from North America: Canadian campus-community radio station CJLO AM (Concordia University, Montreal), online-only community radio station East Village Radio (New York City), and commercial radio station Wild 94.9 FM (San Francisco).

A few of the other stations slated to appear at the festival include Ghetto Radio (Nairobi), 102 FM (Tel Aviv), MotorFM (Berlin), and Obo & Hobos (Moscow). There will also be a keynote panel discussion about the state of radio internationally, music performances, and other events.

Bonnie Simmons from the KSAN days. That's Tom Donahue on the right, Thom Ohair on the left.

Truly great news for community radio music lovers, long time music  deejay legend and totally awesome human being Bonnie Simmons has been inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame!

Here is her Hall of Fame entry:

Bonnie Simmons – A pioneer in free-form radio, Simmons was instrumental to the success of KSAN during its Jive 95 heyday. She also worked locally at KFOG, Live 105 (KITS), KOFY-FM, Double 99 (KDBK) and KUSF, and currently hosts a weekly show on KPFA.

Radio Survivor was a huge supporter of this move, of course, and is very grateful to the Hall of Fame as well as to the many people who voted for Bonnie.

And get this: KPFA founder Lewis Hill has been elected too, not a moment too soon since he died 53 years ago.

Other winners include news guys Stan Bunger and Dave McQueen, influential radio columnist Ben Fong-Torres, and KGO pioneer Evangeline Baker.

Radio Valencia Studio in San Francisco

Back in June I shared the news that new community radio station Radio Valencia was in the works in San Francisco. After several months of hard work, Radio Valencia is now officially webcasting. Live shows began yesterday at 5pm with a program hosted by DJ Dirty Needles.

Promising a mix of music and talk programming from on-site DJs and hosts handling their shows from remote locations, Radio Valencia has a line-up of 24 programs so far. When there’s no live DJ, automation kicks in, but thus far it’s a stylish mix of sounds that would do any left-of-center college or community radio station proud. It doesn’t hurt that musician TradeMark Gunderson (of Evolution Control Committee) is controlling the 24,000 track library that the automated system draws from.

To get the full skinny on the opening days of Radio Valencia, take a look at the post I just did on Spinning Indie as part of my Radio Station Field Trip series.

On July 22, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued a revised version of their Broadcasting and Regulatory Policy (PDF) as it applies to campus and community radio in Canada. Amid all of the policy changes (and a nice promise of funding), which for the most part are meant to simplify the ways that the CRTC looks at and regulates stations; there were also some interesting tidbits about the ways in which the Canadian government seeks to promote diversity and local artists on its airwaves.

The CRTC requires radio stations to play a certain percentage of spoken word programming, special interest music, music of Canadian origin, and asks that campus stations limit the number of “hit” songs that they play. The weekly percentages of material from each category vary by type of station and have changed over the years based on evolving needs of radio stations and revisions to the CRTC’s definitions of the different musical categories and sub-categories.

I was fascinated to see that the latest policy included references to experimental music and a discussion of where turntablism fit into that category. The CRTC even conducted an investigation into turntablism, with their Turntablism and Audio Art Study 2009 outlining not only the history of turntablism, but also delving into the challenges of attempting to categorize turntablism, DJ mixing, and audio art. According to the study:

“Turntablism and audio art are becoming more common forms of expression on  community and campus stations. Turntablism refers to the use of turntables as musical instruments, essentially to alter and manipulate the sound of recorded music. Audio art refers to the arrangement of excerpts of musical selections, fragments of recorded speech, and ‘found sounds’ in unusual and original ways…”

Stemming in part from this report, the July 22 policy change introduced a new experimental music sub-category of music for Canadian broadcasters, with its definition as follows:

“The unconventional and non-traditional uses of instruments and sound equipment to create new sounds and an orchestration of these sounds. This includes audio-art, turntablism, musique actuelle, electro acoustic and sound ecology. While it may involve the use of previously recorded sounds to create new sounds and orchestrations, it does not include spinning or beat mixing where the alterations of previously recorded tracks are limited to mixes between two or more pieces or samples.”

They further found that if a turntablist or sound artist is Canadian, then the piece of experimental music will also meet the requirement for music of Canadian origin (known as the MAPL designation). More details about these programming requirements are outlined in the previous Campus Radio Policy document from 2000 and in the related policy document Revised Content Categories and Sub-Categories for Radio.

It’s encouraging to see that Canada works to encourage musical diversity on radio and I would imagine that the Canadian broadcast system is unlikely to see the ever-shrinking playlists that have become so commonplace in the United States. Yet at the same time, the complexities in categorizing music and determining what constitutes a piece of Canadian music under the MAPL system must be time-consuming projects for radio stations. I’d be interested to hear if DJs and stations (particularly those on college campuses) feel that these policies help to support their missions to expose unheard music and local artists, or if they feel that the rules hamper their creative freedom.

Board at FCC FREE Radio

For the past year we’ve been chronicling the evolution of FCC FREE Radio in San Francisco. Starting out as renegade LPFM community radio broadcasters in 2009, they went Internet-only in May 2010 and are now embarking on a mission of becoming a broader-based Internet radio station and content provider.

When I visited a few weeks back, General Manager John Miller hinted at a deal that was in the works that might be a stepping stone for a much larger audience for FCC FREE Radio.

Well, it turns out that today marks the beginning of the station’s new gig as a content provider for SFStation.com, an online city guide focused on events and attractions in San Francisco. Through its partnership with FCC FREE Radio, SF Station now features a weekly hour-long Internet radio show called SF Station Radio that is made up of music selections and calendar listings for that week. Hosted by a SF Station staff member, SF Station Radio is recorded at FCC FREE Radio’s studio and airs live on Wednesdays from Noon to 1pm. It is also archived on the SF Station website for a week. This week’s episode highlights indie-oriented featured events happening in San Francisco in the next 7 days, as well as music from artists taking part in the Outside Lands music festival.

In addition to facilitating this weekly radio show, FCC Free Radio is also highlighted as the official radio station for the SF Station website, with a link to its “24-hour Program Stream” provided from the SF Station Radio page.

With many websites seeking out audio content, this is an interesting partnership and a creative way to blend two community resources. In a similar vein, the San Francisco Bay Guardian launched its own web radio show in April. Their show (which airs several times a week) features Johnny Angel Wendell and San Francisco Bay Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond discussing topics ranging from California politics, to the state of news to local controversies such as whether pet stores should be banned in San Francisco.

Every year scores of community and public radio stations apply for funding from the Department of Commerce’s Public Telecommunications Facilities Program. The venue funds a host of capital expenses that many of these stations can’t afford otherwise. The cash goes to upgrading transmission towers, funding shelters for transmitters, and buying new control room equipment, console furniture, auxiliary power gear, air conditioners to protect servers from hot weather—all that good stuff and more.

So, of course, there’s got to be a politician somewhere who thinks this good deed ought not to go unpunished. His name is Representative Charlie Wilson (D-OH), and Wilson actually thinks he’s going to reduce the deficit by killing this fund.

No kidding. Yes way. He’s for real submitted a bill to kill PTFP. Here’s Wilson’s statement on the issue.

TRIMMING THE FAT

1. Wilson is the LEAD SPONSOR of an upcoming bill to eliminate the Public Telecommunications Facilities Grant Program. In FY 2010, this program received $18M in federal funds. Once all television signals were converted to digital in June 2009, this grant program was no longer needed as it pertained to analog service facilities. President Obama zeroed out this program in his FY2011 budget proposal, but it is unlikely that Congress will pass a budget resolution this year which could result in the program continuing to be funded. Congressman Wilson is proactively making sure that a defunct program will not receive funding or become a place holder for other funding.

Eighteen million whole bucks! Woah. There you go. That’s going to cut down the national debt, like, not at all.

Ending PTFP, however, will hurt a boatload of community stations that really need this money to keep up their infrastructures. It appears from Wilson’s statement that he hasn’t even actually looked at the program and noticed that it funds radio stations, which did not go through the government’s DTV transition program.

Apparently there’s talk that the radio end of PTFP could be funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Please. The CPB hasn’t got any money for this. It’s too busy helping fund the Public Broadcasting System so that PBS can distribute a three hour worshipful TV documentary about Ronald Reagan’s former Secretary of State George Schultz, funded by his pals.

The National Federation of Community Broadcasters is fighting to keep PTFP alive. Go to NFCB’s site and help them.

KALX Studio

I’ve visited more than 23 radio stations all over the world, from tiny store-front operations like East Village Radio in New York City to small town community radio stations to a big corporate commercial station and everything in between.

Not only am I passionate about what goes on in the DJ booth, but I’m also obsessed with the artifacts of radio, especially at college stations. What is hanging on the walls? What weird objects are lurking on shelves? What types of conversations between DJs have taken place over the decades on the covers of LPs?

At KFJC, where I DJ, there’s an ever-changing collection of items rotating through the make-shift gallery in the lobby. There could be the latest find from the station’s monthly highway clean-up gig (animal skulls, a prosthetic arm) propped up on the KFJC tiki bar. Or the walls may be graced with found objects, like a note from a kid, newspaper clippings from decades ago, and fan letters.

Skull watches over WBAR's office

As I wrote a few months ago in my post, Top 5 Things Found at Every College Radio Station, I’m particularly obsessed with ubiquitous items, like musty old couches and sticker-covered cabinets. Surprisingly, there are some even weirder objects that keep showing up on my visits, like skulls.

With that, here is a listing of skull-like items that I’ve seen in my travels:

1. Skull keeping its eye on DJs in the booth at UC Berkeley’s KALX.

2. Paper mache skull and crossbones loitering in a locked office at Barnard College station WBAR

3. Skull and cross-boned cat logo on T-shirts, banners, stickers, windows and wall art at Pirate Cat Radio in San Francisco

4. Deer skull at Foothill College station KFJC

Are there any skulls haunting the halls of your favorite radio station?

Although I still haven’t sleuthed out the origins of “Oscar Grant Radio,” the mobile radio station that offered up a voice for citizens on the streets of Oakland following the Johannes Mehserle verdict on Thursday, today I learned about another station that was live on the street in order to both discourage violence and offer a public forum for those frustrated with the decision in the killing of Oscar Grant on a BART platform.

Christian AM radio station KFAX (1100 am) broadcast the show “Issues After Dark” from in front of a Christian bookstore at Franklin and 17th Street in downtown Oakland in the hours following the verdict. According to a report on KGO-TV (which can be viewed online), as the night wore on, the hosts of the radio show appealed to violent protesters and looters, even encouraging some of them to reconsider their actions. A few of the looters actually brought some of the stolen items to DJs, who planned to return them to the store from which they were taken.  KFAX will hold another live remote broadcast on the day that Mehserle is sentenced. DJ Dion Evans stated in the piece,

“‘I know we influenced people last night because there were people who came out there angry with agendas and because they came to 17th and Franklin where we were, they never made it anywhere else,’ said Evans.

People still broke windows and looted stores, like the Foot Locker on Broadway, but the radio hosts said they were happy it wasn’t worse and point out they even confronted the looters…

‘The funny thing about the difference that we made was that it didn’t require that much effort. It just required people to get off the sidelines,’ said radio host Charles Cole.”

To me, this is a great example of how local, terrestrial radio still plays a vital role for communities. When tensions run high, radio really can help connect people together and allow voices to be heard. It’s an incredible testament that these DJs actually helped to stop looters in their tracks and an important reminder that Thursday night’s protests in Oakland were full of peaceful and productive participants, despite media reports to the contrary.