KRRC Image from Reed Magazine

Reed College’s tiny radio station KRRC struggled to be heard over the Portland, Oregon airwaves and now its terrestrial days may be over. Last week paperwork was filed to transfer the class D license for KRRC to Common Frequency, a non-profit devoted to community and grassroots radio. There’s a silver lining to this story, as the donation of this license to Common Frequency may actually save a tiny slice of the terrestrial dial in Portland since Reed had initially planned to simply dispose of the license.

Late last year KRRC’s license holder (The Reed Institute) turned the KRRC 97.9FM class D license back to the FCC. According to FCC records, the license was cancelled and the call sign was deleted on November 29, 2011 “per Licensee’s request.” Terrestrial broadcasts ceased on November 30, 2011 and the station moved to an online-only format. A story back in October in Reed’s student publication, The Quest, delves further into KRRC’s move off FM and stated that finances were a big factor. In response to that news, a number of concerned alumni began talking about fundraising options for KRRC back in December. Reed’s Director of Student Activities and KRRC advisor Kristin Holmberg explained that the move off FM was precipitated by KRRC losing its frequency to a commercial radio group. She said,

“Two years ago, we learned that a Cumulus station had bought our frequency.  Since we were getting bumped, we spent a long time looking for a new frequency in town.  Our dial was full and bigger stations wouldn’t consent to let us settle between them.  It was clear that we would eventually have to shut down.

In the meantime, student interest in radio was lagging.  It’s hard to have a totally student run station without a professional station manager involved.  It’s also expensive to run a broadcast station.

There had already been some student interest in going to a web broadcast format.  It’s much easier to operate and doesn’t require adherence to a large number of very technical FCC regulations. We wouldn’t have to pay lawyers to help us navigate the system as well. When we laid out all the issues, it was a pretty easy decision for the students to tell me they wanted to drop our FCC license.”

Although this sounded quite definitive at the time, Reed had a change of heart. Over the winter break, a Petition for Reconsideration was filed with the FCC by the Reed Institute. The FCC granted the Petition for Reconsideration on January 25, 2012 and the license was reinstated on the same day. On February 2, an application for the assignment of license to Common Frequency was accepted for filing by the FCC. Today, the FCC accepted for filing the Reed Institute’s request to take KRRC silent “while searching for possible channel relocation” in light of Cumulus’ plans to move commercial station KNRQ onto KRRC’s frequency.

According to Common Frequency’s Program and Technical Director Todd Urick,

“Recently KRRC’s frequency was reallocated by the FCC to a commercial broadcaster moving into Portland.  Because Reed had a secondary-service ‘Class D’ low power radio license–a type of campus broadcast license phased-out by the FCC in the late 70s–it needed to yield to any commercial broadcaster wanting to use that channel.  In the absence of any other open radio channels in Portland–coupled with broadcast coverage limited to campus (8 watts) and persistent legal and engineering expenses associated with the channel–Reed has discontinued broadcasting to concentrate on online streaming.”

In similar cases, other universities have simply turned their class D licenses back in to the FCC, as was the case with both the Paul Smith’s College station WPSA and the Central College station KCUI back in December, 2011. With the scarcity of available frequencies on the terrestrial dial, it’s always surprising and sad to me to hear of potentially usable licenses being turned back to the FCC. With that in mind, Urick explained that Common Frequency was interested in helping to preserve Reed College’s channel for community use in Portland. He explained that,

“Common Frequency…has agreed to pursue any ditch attempts to invest engineering and legal resources to search for possible solutions for the defunct radio channel.  The central Portland area has no viable open channels primarily due to the proliferation of licensed translators, translator applications, and commercial stations changing their communities of license into the Portland market.  For the slim possibility that any option is found for purchasing a translator or moving the channel outside of central Portland, Common Frequency intends to provide that channel back to the local community for student and community usage.”

Regarding the transfer of the license to Common Frequency, Holmberg added,”It seems like a nice thing for us to do since we weren’t using it.” She said that the online-only station is still a work in progress, saying, “…we’re not up and running yet! But hope to be soon!” Urick also told me that he’s spoken with Reed students about various options for resuming terrestrial broadcasts on campus.

With a history dating back to 1955, student radio at Reed has existed in a number of forms, with various call sign changes and frequency changes over the years. Some amazing photos documenting the station’s past, including a picture of alumnus Dr. Demento, can be found in a Reed digital archive.

Dr. Demento (image from www.drdemento.com)

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the Dr. Demento show began in 1970 on Los Angeles freeform station KPPC as a “rarities” show.

By 1974 the popular radio program, which specializes in a mix of music and comedy, moved into syndication all over the country.

Hosted by former college radio DJ (at the Reed College station), music historian, and record executive Barret Hansen (aka Dr. Demento); the show has celebrated not only novelty recordings, but also rare musical and comedic gems.

When I was a kid my sister and I used to spend hours and hours listening to the Dr. Demento show, cracking up over the silly comedic songs that were aimed at just our level of maturity.

The program’s bread and butter is both novelty songs like “Fish Heads” and full-on parodies of popular hits by Weird Al Yankovic. To this day, I am always reminded of “Another One Rides the Bus” when I hear “Another One Bites the Dust” and I smile when thinking of Weird Al’s “Eat It” (and its accompanying video) which pokes fun of the Michael Jackson hit “Beat it.”

But, probably more important for me, is that the Dr. Demento show was the first show that inspired me to “play DJ.” My sister and I would not only listen to the show together, but we would also pretend to do radio shows modelled after Dr. Demento using my portable tape recorder.

Somehow the personality of Dr. Demento invited us into that radio world and gave us the idea that radio might be fun. Although my actual radio shows bear zero resemblance to the antics of Dr. Demento, his program still holds a place in my heart for showing me the joyful aspects of radio. And, clearly, Dr. Demento is still having a ball with the show. A scan of some of his recent playlists reveals that he’s been keeping things interesting by doing theme-based shows, including a whole set of vegetable songs last week and a bunch of “I Want” songs on his January 10th program.

You can listen to archives of the Dr. Demento show online, catch it on a handful of terrestrial stations, or purchase any number of Dr. Demento collections or oddities on his website.

P.S. Another Dr. Demento-esque show worth checking out is the Uncle Al Show on Sundays from noon to 3pm Pacific time on KFJC 89.7 FM (yes, the station where I DJ too). Like Dr. Demento, he plays a selection of comedy, novelty songs, and retro music from the “Hippy’s Graveyard.”

It was there in 1909 that an engineer, Charles “Doc” Herrold, broadcast his first voice transmissions. He began regular broadcasts in 1912, and his station became KQW, which evolved into KCBS…

Herrold, said [San Jose State University Professor Mike] Adams, used a spark cap, and his audio was crude. He was a pioneer in broadcasting entertainment, said Adams, but he had no financial support and was bypassed by inventors of the superior vacuum tube. Herrold’s station lasted until the United States shut down radio stations during World War I. He obtained a license for station KQW in 1921, but lost control of the station, which relocated to San Francisco in 1934 and became KCBS in 1949. Oh. Well, then: Happy 60th Anniversary, KCBS!

Another way that radio honors its history is with groups like the National Radio Hall of Fame. Voting is now open for 2009 nominees, including radio pioneer Dr. Demento.

And, finally, an article on CNNMoney.com posits that services like Pandora (an Internet service that selects music for you based on music that you already like) may be the future of radio. The piece quotes Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren:

“There’s a huge frustration among listeners that radio doesn’t play music they like,” Westergren says. “Once you use personalized radio, why would you go back to a station that is programmed for you and half a million other people?”

Well, yes…you probably wouldn’t. But, if you listen to non-commercial stations with lengthy playlists and DJ-curated shows, you might be disappointed by a random, computer-generated DJ-less playlist. The article continues:

However, not everyone sees it that way. “Traditional radio forces you to listen to new things,” says Bob Lefsetz, author of the influential music industry blog the Lefsetz Letter. “Pandora’s recommendations are ridiculously tame.” The New Yorker’s pop music critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, agrees: “I wish it were more adventurous.”

Agreed. And the future of radio is still TBD…