I reached out to Dr. Michael Nevradakis about the radio program Radio Dialogos ... He is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, College professor, Editor & Writer at Orthos Logos News and a DJ. IN 2010 he broadcast what was probably the only Greek radio program in all of Texas. He started out with a program on the graveyard shift and incredibly from there he grew the program onto multiple media platforms and syndicated it on to AM, FM and shortwave stations around the globe.
Nevradakis did a fabulous presentation at The International Perspective on a Radio Centenary in Hilversum, Holland in 2019. You can watch that HERE. The story is fantastic, so I do recommend you hear it from him directly. In our interview he was very forthcoming and honest so I've taken a very light hand in my editing. I will be writing a separate piece on WCSQ, the LPFM radio station he founded in 2013.
1. Can you tell me a little about when you started Hellenic Radio at KVRX in 2010?
There were a couple of reasons why I decided to start Austin Hellenic Radio, although I can't really say that I had a specific plan in mind when I first had the idea for the program. I was entering the second year of my Ph.D. program in Media Studies at the University of Texas, and I was seeking a fun but enriching diversion from the monotony of doctoral student life, with all of the intense reading and research we were expected to do. I had previously been involved as an on-air host and as program director and, for a time, interim co-general manager with WUSB 90.1 FM, the student-run radio station of Stony Brook University in New York, where I completed my bachelors and masters degrees. Therefore, radio seemed like a natural choice, as I certainly had the "itch" inside of me to get involved with it again. The KVRX studios were in the building neighboring the one which housed my department on campus, so it really couldn't have worked out any better in that regard.
The second reason was that, by 2010, Greece was garnering a large amount of negative publicity in the media, due to the economic crisis that was unfolding there. Much of this media coverage was laden with blatant stereotypes about the country and its people, and there seemed to be no push-back whatsoever, either at an official level from the Greek authorities and their various embassies and consulates around the world, or from Greek organizations, including those based in the U.S. In other words, the coverage was very one-sided, both in terms of how Greece and its people and culture were being portrayed, as well as in terms of what the "solution" to the crisis would be: harsh austerity measures, the brunt of which would be borne by ordinary people. By then, I had already done a lot of reading about the involvement of global institutions such as the IMF in other countries around the world, primarily in places like Latin America, Africa, and southeast Asia, and I knew what the likely outcome of IMF involvement in Greece would be, and that the various promises being heard that these austerity measures would "return Greece to growth within one year" were total rubbish. Therefore, I decided, in my own small and not very significant way, to provide an alternative: a radio program focusing on all things Greek, but with an emphasis on interviews presenting a wide range of "alternative" perspectives -- perspectives which in many cases were far from radical, but which nevertheless were shut out of the mainstream discourse about Greece and its economic situation. Along with these interviews, I also wished to present other positive aspects of the Greek culture and the Greek people, to counteract this ongoing stream of negative and stereotypical coverage.
Finally, while there was a fairly significant Greek-American community in Austin and the surrounding region, including a lot of students of Greek descent at the University of Texas, there was no Greek radio program in the area or, to my knowledge, anywhere in the state of Texas. I was very familiar with radio programs targeting the Greek-American community in places like New York City, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, etc., and thought it would be nice to provide a similar service in the Austin region.
2. Personally, I was fascinated by the financial crisis in Greece. I know this was a hot news topic in 2010. How did you cover that event?
Primarily, it was through interviews. I had (and still have) a lot to say about the topic, but I thought it would lend both me and the radio program greater credibility to cover the issue through a presentation of the voices and perspectives of others: economists, analysts, and scholars who had the background, the credentials, and the knowledge to speak authoritatively about the Greek economic situation, while sharing with the audience the types of perspectives that were being systematically excluded from the homogeneous mainstream media coverage of the issue. Indeed, even within Greece, the media coverage of the issue was similarly one-sided if not more so -- differing perspectives were rarely, if ever, given much attention or credence. Therefore, I sought to invite such individuals to Austin Hellenic Radio, and later to Dialogos Radio, for interviews. I wanted to demonstrate that there were differing voices and differing proposals as to what should be done in Greece to respond to the crisis, at a time where much of what was being heard was a Thatcher-esque "TINA" ("There is no alternative"), a defeatist and absolutist perspective which, perhaps from sheer repetition alone, really began to take hold in the psyche of many Greeks and Greek-Americans as well.
3. Before that you had been the Program Director at WUSB at Stony Brook and hosted a few different radio programs there. How did you first get involved there?
I first got involved with WUSB in 2003, in an off-air capacity, as the station's longtime general manager, Norm Prusslin, was a professor of mine and my supervisor, for the on-campus job I had been hired for within the Department of Student Union and Activities. He was, and remains, one of the best educators and mentors I've ever had the opportunity to work with, and exuded a quiet passion for all things media, but radio in particular. Already being a "radio buff," and having become acclimated to the campus environment following my first year of studies, radio seemed like a natural choice for me. In 2004, I formally took the radio station's training course for new volunteers and, as luck would have it, upon completion of this training course, I immediately had the opportunity to apply for the vacant position of Program Director. At the time, student involvement in the radio station was particularly low, and there were no other candidates for the position. I went for it, and ended up holding the position for a year and a half, until I completed my bachelors degree.
Very briefly, I hosted a program called "Alternate Reality," once per week during the overnight shift, focusing on 80s new wave and similar styles of music. The responsibilities of doing that while also being PD and, of course, being a student as well, in addition to my involvement in other student organizations, was too much though, so I temporarily stepped back from the radio program. However, I soon began to co-host a program, "In Focus," with one of my good friends there. It was mostly spoken word... sometimes we'd interview campus personalities, from students to university administrators... at other times we'd just chat ourselves about campus issues, current events, or weird and peculiar things going on in the world. It was really a lot of fun and we had a good radio chemistry between us. The highlight of this program was a five hour live election night special that we organized, on Election Day 2004, where we interviewed everyone from Amy Goodman to the university president to third-party candidates for office.
In some small way, my involvement with In Focus was a prelude for what I'd end up doing later with Austin Hellenic Radio and with Dialogos Radio.
4. You sent edited recordings of your program to WUSB your former station. Effectively self-syndicating. This is very rare in college radio. How did you accomplish this?
One of the nice things about being involved with college radio was that there was a lot of freedom in what we could do. Whenever I had an idea, I was able to immediately act on it. At some point, the idea occurred to me that, since I still maintained ties with individuals back at WUSB, including the station's new general manager, and being that WUSB's signal covers a region (Long Island) with a large Greek-American community, that I could offer my programming to them. WUSB did air some syndicated programs, and while there were some other "ethnic" radio programs on their schedule, ranging from Chinese to Salsa to Polka, there hadn't been a Greek program on the station's schedule since, perhaps, the 1990s. On Long Island, the only Greek radio program at the time was based out of another college radio station, in Nassau County, whose signal did not cover the much larger, in terms of land area, Suffolk County, where Stony Brook was located. Therefore, it made sense to offer my program to them on a number of perspectives.
What I had not anticipated initially was that getting my program ready to air in Long Island would logistically be a bit more difficult than just sending them a recording of my KVRX broadcast. I was required to air KVRX announcements, promos, station IDs, public service announcements that were really only relevant to a Texas audience, etc. What I ended up doing was editing all that content out of the recordings and, in some cases, re-recording the spoken bits of my broadcast at home and sending what was, essentially, a new program to WUSB. It was worth it though, as the addition of the WUSB broadcast (which I named "Long Island Hellenic Radio") really raised the overall profile of my program. For instance, in November 2011, Alpha TV, one of Greece's national television broadcasters, ran a short feature on my program -- surprisingly, as my perspective on the issues was certainly different from theirs.
Since I was originally from New York, when I went back home during winter break in late 2011-early 2012, I actually went back to the WUSB studio and did a few live versions of "Long Island Hellenic Radio" as well, which did not air on KVRX. It was a lot of fun to return to the old studio after several years away and to remember "old times," as it were.
Here is something else that is little-known about the program: during its first "season," it was, in fact, also broadcast in New York City, by a local Greek radio station. However, this station broadcast using the "SCA" technology -- this refers to the secondary 67 and 92 khz "subcarriers" of the main FM audio signal, and these subcarriers could only be received using a special receiver. At the time, many "ethnic" broadcasters rented out these subcarriers and essentially ran 24/7 radio services on them, albeit with a degraded sound quality compared to regular FM. There were 2-3 such stations at the time catering to the Greek-American community in the New York City area, and they had a fair amount of listeners -- the subcarrier receivers were often sold in Greek shops, and many of them would also have any one of these stations playing within their premises, via these receivers. I did not produce a separate syndicated version for them though like I later did for "Long Island Hellenic Radio." Instead, they simply rebroadcast my live program via the KVRX online stream. It got quite a bit of attention though from the NYC-area Greek community -- some of my parents' friends even heard me and told my parents about it! [More HERE on NYC area SCA subcarrier stations]
The more momentum Austin Hellenic Radio was gaining, the more I really wanted this venture to be an experiment in independent radio. I wanted to try out different things to expand the coverage of my program, being that it was unrealistic to expect a very large audience to discover and to tune in to a one hour program, once a week, on a station on the non-commercial dial. I began podcasting early, when podcasting was not nearly as big as it is today. I developed an Android app, and found a roundabout way to also get the program accessible on iPhones. I archived the recordings of my program and made them streamable online. All of this was self-taught on my end, so it was an educational and enriching experience for me as well. Figuring out a way to syndicate was, therefore, part of this overall process of experimentation.
5. How did you first get involved in radio? I notice you attended Hunter College High school. Were you involved at WHCS there?
Unfortunately, for such a supposedly "gifted" and "specialized" school, Hunter College High School was low on resources and was low on such opportunities. WHCS, I would imagine, was based at Hunter College, but Hunter College High School was (and is) located in a separate building, not terribly near the main Hunter College campus. Indeed, the only time I recall having to go to the Hunter College campus was for one semester of swimming class (we used their pool) and for the Hunter College High School entrance exam, when I was still in the 6th grade. Our graduation ceremony also took place there. There were some students who, in their junior or senior year, enrolled in freshman-level college courses at Hunter College, but that was pretty much the extent of the connection between our two campuses. Hunter College High School had its own student media outlets, but a radio station was unfortunately not among them.
However, by the time I was in high school, the "radio bug" had nevertheless managed to take hold, flowing naturally from my early interest in television in terms of a broadcast technology, and my early interest in electronics and gadgets in general. I became an avid radio listener at around this time, and became fascinated with the Greek radio landscape on my family visits back to the "old country" -- as in the 1990s in particular, Greece had a chaotic radio landscape. In 1997, I developed a rudimentary Geocities website where I attempted, despite an utter lack of relevant online (or even offline) resources at the time, to map out the Greek radio landscape. The site itself gained momentum, moved to Xoom in 1998 and to its own domain name and server in 1999, and I began to be contacted by European DXers (people who have a hobby of receiving and cataloging distant radio signals), primarily from northern countries such as Holland, Sweden, and Finland, who would often "receive" FM signals from Greece, through an atmospheric phenomenon known as "e-skip." All of these experiences greatly contributed to my deepening involvement with radio.
The move to Greece also meant that the program would lack the "local" programming elements that it had when it was hosted live from the KVRX studios and was part of their FM schedule. Being that the program was also being distributed to WUSB, it made sense at this time to "rebrand" the program. I chose the name "Dialogos," a transliteration of the Greek word for "dialogue," as it reflected the program's emphasis on interviews, and its juxtaposition vis-a-vis the "monologos" (monologue) of the mainstream media's coverage of Greece and the Greek economic crisis at that time.
Producing the show was a bit of a challenge. Initially I self-recorded the program, but the audio quality was not optimal. Later, I attained access to a studio in Greece where I would do my recordings, and quality significantly improved, even if it was quite a trek from the part of Athens where I lived. One drawback was losing the live element of the program: I enjoyed being "on the spot" with an open mic in front of me and actually found that my brain would occasionally "lock up" when I was preparing my recordings, perhaps due to the subconscious understanding that I could always re-record or otherwise edit out my mistakes, before broadcasting. It's easier, I find, to be spontaneous in front of a live microphone, as compared to sitting in an empty studio where I'm simply recording something to be aired later.
Interviews also began to be pre-recorded. They would be conducted "live" in the sense that I would contact people and interview them via Skype or phone. However, that interview would then be recorded, and that recording would be inserted into the overall recording of the upcoming broadcast that I was preparing. In a sense, this increased my flexibility as far as scheduling interviews, as I did not have to find someone who would be available at a specific date and time when I would be live on the air. But it added to my workload in terms of editing these recordings and getting them ready to broadcast. Nevertheless, it was worthwhile.
Other than that, the other significant change that began soon after my arrival in Greece was the conversion of what was now Dialogos Radio to a bilingual radio program. Up until then, I had produced and hosted the program exclusively in English, largely targeting a Greek-American audience. There were, by this time, some listeners suggesting that the program launch a Greek version, to expand the potential audience. Indeed, there were many who felt like a program like mine was desperately needed in Greece, or at least in the Greek language, so that more people in Greece could listen to it and to my interviews. My Greek, especially spoken, was far from perfect: I speak with an accent and make some mistakes even if my overall vocabulary and understanding of the grammar is good. But I went for it, even if it added still more to my overall workload. I'd essentially take the same programming elements, such as the music I aired on each broadcast, and produce a separate Greek-language recording. For the interviews, if I interviewed someone who spoke both Greek and English, I'd try to essentially do two interviews with them, which would mean more work in the short term for me (and double the commitment from the interviewee) but which would absolve me from the need to translate. However, with many interviewees, this was simply not possible, because they didn't speak Greek or they didn't speak English. In those instances, I'd have to go through a complicated, multi-step process: I would play back and transcribe the original interview, translate the document, and then would prepare a voiceover, which, in order to be done properly, required a second voice. I'd often be able to find someone, but not always. It was challenging, but again, it was worthwhile. I really wanted these interviews to reach the largest possible audience, within my limited means and resources.
Those were essentially the main differences between Austin Hellenic Radio and Dialogos Radio. The overall philosophy remained the same, though. I did, at times, experiment with some new programming features, such as adding mini-specials dedicated to, say, a specific musician or composer, or segments where I'd collect and air positive news from Greece. But the main core of both Austin Hellenic Radio and Dialogos Radio (in both its English and Greek editions) was the weekly interview, and it remained this way until towards the end of the program's run.
7. You later were able to syndicate that program to 2MM in Australia, CKDU in Nova Scotia, WCRX in Chicago, WRCT in Pittsburgh, WXDR in New Orleans, WRFN in Nashville... and I think 5 more stations in Greece. How big did the network get and how did you manage this huge expansion logistically?
Yes. Having gotten the ball rolling with WUSB, and being that I was already producing a ready-made, self-contained program, it appeared to me that it would be easy to begin offering it to other stations for possible distribution. There were some listeners who began to suggest that I make my program available to other stations, so I began to explore that possibility. At the time, I was still maintaining my Greek media website (www.media.net.gr) and had recently prepared a detailed catalog of Greek diaspora radio stations and programs, in places like the U.S., Canada, Australia, and even South Africa. I used this database as a starting point, offering my program to Greek radio stations broadcasting 24/7 in places like Adelaide, Sydney, Johannesburg, and Toronto. The same website also contained an extensive catalog of radio stations in Greece, and I began to identify possible stations in major cities and towns throughout the country whose programming format appeared to be a good fit with my content. Getting my program on the air in Greece though was not an easy task: everything in the country is politicized to a greater or lesser extent, and for most radio stations, programming decisions are filtered through that lens. Nevertheless, at different times, I was able to get the program aired by stations in Thessaloniki (Greece's second-largest city), in Crete, and elsewhere.
A third approach was to identify communities in the United States, Canada, and other countries where there were significant, or fairly significant, Greek diaspora communities. The second step in this process would then be to identify local broadcasters, FM and MW stations and primarily those that were non-commercial, to offer my program to, free of charge. Through this process, I was able to get Dialogos Radio carried by stations in such places as Chicago, Nashville, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh. As I also created a special section on the program's website, offering my program to stations for syndication, every so often I'd get a station contacting me to express interest. A university radio station in, of all places, Joplin, Missouri, [KXMS]was one such example.
Overall, distribution was not too difficult. For most stations, I simply set up a shared folder on Dropbox, in which I'd drop my new programs each week. Indeed, some stations were sophisticated enough to set up their automation systems to play that specific file (I'd use the same filename each week) or whatever file was in that specific folder, each week, making things much easier on both their end and my own. Some stations were not quite this sophisticated though, and for those stations, I'd have to go through a different process, from sending them, by email, a direct download link, to setting up a "secret" webpage with an HTML5 streaming application, that they'd simply play my recorded program right from their studio computer. Another station wanted the files sent via Wetransfer. I had to keep track of these things, and the more stations that ended up in my "network," the more complex this process became and the easier it was to make mistakes, especially as I was largely operating on my own. For the most part though, the process was pretty flawless, but it was increasingly time-consuming. The primary reason was that different stations had different requirements in terms of airtime or even content. While the "main" version of my recorded show was 59 minutes (and later 58 minutes, and still later, 55 minutes), there were stations that wanted a 58 minute version, a 55 minute version, a 50 minute version, or versions without music and copyrighted material -- just spoken word and copyright-free content. Also, some stations would only air the Greek-language or English-language versions, which meant that they'd air the same show two weeks in a row, or I'd send them repeats during the "off" week -- which was something else that I had to keep track of alongside everything else. One station wanted the show divided into four segments no longer than 14 minutes each. Another wanted two segments of exactly 25 minutes. I often had to get very creative when editing, to meet these requirements.
Ultimately, the network grew to more than 25 stations in four continents: North America, Europe, Australia, and Africa. For a while, Dialogos Radio was even carried by a shortwave broadcaster known as "Global 24 Radio." I believe their transmitter was somewhere in Florida or the Caribbean. [It was Okeechobee, FL] The affiliation with Global 24 coincided with the shutdown of Greek public broadcaster ERT in Greece in 2013, which included the shutdown of the "Voice of Greece," which was ERT's overseas service. During this period, with Dialogos Radio airing on Global 24, it was the only Greek-produced shortwave program, probably in the world. There were some Greek shortwave services produced by other external services, such as the Russian or Bulgarian national broadcasters, but there was no Greek-produced Greek radio broadcast on shortwave during that 2013-2014 period where ERT was defunct, to my knowledge. As with many other things, it got a bit of attention. For instance, DXers in various parts of the world, even within Greece, contacted me to let me know that they heard my program on Global 24. The listener in Greece even sent me a recording, and I sent him a QSL card (a reception confirmation card that many DXers collect) in return, the first and only one that I've ever made as far as I can recall. I was even able to hear my own program in my apartment in Athens one night, by holding up a portable shortwave radio in just the right position near the ceiling. It really was quite fascinating.
8. You interviewed some very accomplished intellectuals and notable people like Henry Giroux, Dimitri Nanopoulos, Francis Boyle and even Noam Chomsky. Was there anyone on your interview list who made a lasting impression on you?
Chomsky was definitely one of the most notable, in part because of the name recognition and in part because of how I managed to secure the interview in the first place. In early 2012, Chomsky had referred to Greece in interviews that he had given to other outlets, and the idea occurred to me that I could try contacting him for an interview that would focus primarily on this thoughts regarding the Greek economic crisis, drawing upon his scholarly experience to do so. I reached out to him at his MIT email address, and initially I did not receive a response. A couple of weeks later I sent a follow-up request, and this time around, one of his assistants responded and informed me that Chomsky would be willing to do the interview, but because he was in such demand, the interview had to be scheduled six months in advance and could be no longer than 20 minutes in length. This was in April 2012, so we were talking about scheduling an interview in October 2012. In April 2012, I was still in Austin, Texas, but by that point I had received the Fulbright scholarship and knew that I'd be in Greece in October 2012. So I had to imagine what my workload would be like in October, when I'd be likely to be available, and to take the time difference into account, but in the end, the interview was scheduled and it took place -- indeed, Chomsky ended it at exactly 20 minutes. I translated the interview into Greek and quite a few media outlets in Greece picked up on it, getting Dialogos Radio a bit of attention. Also, I published an article in the Huffington Post at the time that was based on that interview, and it circulated around quite a bit as well.
Another interview that made an impression on me in terms of the reception it received was with the former "economic hit man" John Perkins. Even more so than the Chomsky interview, I received multiple requests from people all around the world to redistribute and to translate this interview. It was, from what I remember, translated into Italian and French and some other languages. Moreover, I published the interview in Truthout, and as of a few years ago, when you could still track the number of social media shares via the social media widgets used on websites, it had something like 33,000 shares on Facebook alone.
Francis Boyle, whom I've interviewed twice, also made a significant impression on me -- in particular, the second interview that I conducted with him, which concerned the "Prespa Agreement" which established the official name of Greece's northern neighbor as "North Macedonia." This was an immensely unpopular agreement amongst the Greek public, but the Greek establishment, the Greek media, and the foreign press corps based in Greece all loved it for their own reasons and branded anyone airing opposing views or dissenting views about it as a "nationalist," as a "conspiracy theorist," and other such epithets, all to be used as a "scarlet letter" of sorts against such individuals. This was certainly the case with me, even though there were, and are, numerous legitimate reasons, from an international law, an international relations, and a foreign policy perspective, why this is a problematic agreement. Francis Boyle, with his decades of expertise in international law, did a thorough job of explaining how, from an international law perspective, this agreement was problematic or perhaps even invalid. When I aired and later published this interview, I became the recipient of all sorts of invective, some of which came from the agreement's supporters and promoters in Greece. Interestingly enough, however, most of it actually came from so-called "patriots" in Greece, the ones whom I was supposedly "allied" with by virtue of the fact that I was even airing such an interview in the first place instead of participating in the unilateral media praise of this agreement. These "patriots" found inventive ways to attack me, such as the fact that Boyle referred to Greece's northern neighbor simply as "Macedonia." Like it or not, though, that's what the country was recognized as by the United States for two decades prior to the Prespa agreement, and therefore, this was not a political statement on Boyle's part; it simply reflected reality and was much more straightforward than constantly saying "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (the country's UN-recognized name prior to the Prespa agreement) or its abbreviation, "FYROM," during the interview. Apparently this fact seemed to escape these people, however, and they chose to attack the messenger (me).
It was not the first time I had such a reaction to an interview, and from seemingly unexpected sources, and it was a contributing factor in me deciding to change the "format" and presentation style of Dialogos Radio in 2019 and ultimately to cease production in 2020. I could have kept going indefinitely, but it was becoming more and more time-consuming, I had finished my studies and was working and had less time available to me, and the last thing I needed in my life is receiving attacks from all sides just for presenting other people's perspectives and opinions.
Beyond that, while every interview is significant in its own way, there were definitely some interviews that have stood out to me, over time, for various reasons which often have little or nothing to do with the name recognition or visibility of the interviewee. I'll share a few examples. While I was still in Austin, for instance, I was contacted by a young Greek-American musician in the Austin area, who had been born in Ohio and now lived in Austin, and who had formed a band, with several non-Greek musicians, which performed "rembetika," which is essentially the Greek equivalent of Greek blues and was the music of Greece's working poor (including those who had emigrated to other countries) in the early 20th century. As you can imagine, this was not something that I was expecting to discover in Austin, Texas of all places. His band, known as "The Souliotes," came in to the KVRX studio and did a live performance and interview, which was also partially captured on video which, in turn, made it to the Alpha TV feature on Austin Hellenic Radio as well. Some of the songs that the band performed were then included in an album that they released. The whole experience was so unique and unusual in a number of ways that it's stood out to me.
Another experience that really stood out to me involved another interview that took place in Austin, with another individual that I was not expecting I'd come across there: a lovely middle-aged woman by the name of Niky Xylouri, who was the cousin of one of Greece's famous traditional musicians from the island of Crete, Nikos Xylouris, who died young, in the 1970s. I traveled to her house, in the sprawling suburbia of Austin, and interviewed her there. She also selected the 10 songs of Nikos Xylouris which meant the most to her personally, and I included those in the broadcast that I produced, while she discussed these songs during the interview. This was a very special and meaningful experience and to my knowledge, an interview and broadcast that was one of a kind.
Austin is also the home of SXSW (South by Southwest), a vast music, film, and technology extravaganza which takes place, under normal circumstances, each year in March and effectively shuts down the city from sheer crowds and traffic alone during that period. SXSW would always coincide with Spring Break at the University of Texas, and with many students away during that week, there were extra timeslots that were up for grabs on the station's schedule. It occurred to me that I could look through the official schedule of SXSW, and also to scour the local venue listings, to see which bands, musicians, filmmakers, etc. from Greece, or of Greek descent, would be performing as part of either the official SXSW lineup, or in "unofficial" shows that would also take place in Austin concurrently, drawing a lot of traffic as well. I did the research, and came across some really interesting artists and musicians, from the Greek punk rock band "Barb Wire Dolls," to a Greek-Danish musician that was part of a band known as "Choir of Young Believers," to Greek-American folk music artist Haroula Rose. I had a lot of fun with those interviews, as among other things, they really broke the "format" of Austin Hellenic Radio. While I mostly covered topics such as politics and economics in my interviews, I would sometimes depart from those topics, and those topics were a nice respite from what was often bleak economic news. In many ways, those were the types of interviews I enjoyed the most... it was not all politics all the time with me.
Following along those lines, I had the opportunity, one year for my Christmas special where I'd move away from political or economic topics, to interview a Greek-American comedian by the name of Yiannis Pappas, who had developed a character known as Mr. Panos, a chauvinistic and nationalistic Greek-American dad with some very... interesting philosophies. Pappas opened up his interview with me in character, improving as Mr. Panos for several minutes before we began the actual Q&A. It was a lot of fun and remains entertaining to listen to up to the present time.
9. Do you have any advice to College radio DJs that might want to expand into syndication, podcasting, webcasting or print media as you did?
Radio is a great hobby but a terrible profession, unfortunately. Podcasting is appealing, but very few people are going to be able to earn enough visibility, even if they are good at what they do, to actually make a living off of it. But if anything, this should encourage more people to get into podcasting and radio in particular. Without the pressure of having to please a boss or a board of directors or the advertisers and sponsors, you are free to get creative with your work. You can learn a lot of skills that will be beneficial in other aspects of your life, have a nice ongoing hobby, and perhaps even turn it into a side hustle, or more. I definitely plan on getting back into radio and podcasting in some form, as soon as possible. The "itch" will always be there, as well as the demand for quality, creative, or flat-out fun audio content. And perhaps, as major corporations increasingly begin to disinvest from the traditional radio business, as some have already begun to do, that might open the door for some enthusiastic and talented people to return to radio broadcasting.
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