Star Wars on NPR Playhouse

This was a licensed part of the franchise, adapted by Brian Daley, directed by John Madden and with the cooperation of George Lucas. Lucas for his part actually donated the rights to NPR and allowed the use of sound effects and music directly from the three original films.

If you tuned in you might have noticed that some very familiar voices reprized their original roles. Mark Hamill was Luke Skywalker, Anthony Daniels was C-3PO, but Harrison Ford didn't play Han Solo, and let's not discuss Princess Leia.

The series had thirteen-parts clocking in at a total of  6.5 hours... creating as much content than the original 3 movies combined. Attention sticklers: for the record, the lengths of the original 3 films are Star Wars (2:16), Empire Strikes Back (2:07) and Return of the Jedi (2:16) that does clock in at 3:39... but some of that is credits. can we agree that it's comperable and move on?

1. A Wind To Shake The Stars
2. Points Of Origin
3. Black Knight, White Princess, And Pawns
4. While Giants Mark Time
5. Jedi That Was, Jedi To Be
6. The Millennium Falcon Deal
7. The Han Solo Solution
8. Death Star's Transit
9. Rogues, Rebels And Robots
10. The Luke Skywalker Initiative
11. The Jedi Nexus
12. The Case For Rebellion
13. Force And Counter Force

 The first episode was produced and broadcast in 1981 National Public Radio on NPR Playhouse. It's was a bit of a hit, and two more radio dramatizations were produced of The Empire Strikes Back (1983) and Return of the Jedi (1996) completing the iconic first three films. NPR has not serialized any of the less iconic sequels and prequels. But I've refused to see them myself on general principle.

The Vocal Fry Debate is Sexist

You should hear Bob Garfield of NPR talk about vocal fry.  He loathes vocal fry. It's also called up talk, up speak, "creaky voice" or Valley speak. These aren't all the same thing and they get conflated. Vocal fry is specifically the rumble your voice produces when you for it lower in your register. The popular use of the term dates back to 2011 after a linguistic study of 34 college students at Long Island University. But I've found it in text books going back to at least 1970. So lets mince some words...

Garfield calls vocal fry obnoxious and annoying. That matters because Garfield is, at least ostensibly, a legitimate journalist and commentator. He's formerly a writer for Advertising Age, a frequent contributor to All Things Considered and consultant to ABC, CBS, CNBC, and PBS. Currently he is the co-host of the On the Media program at NPR. More here and here.

On the January 2nd podcast "Get Your Creak On" from the program Lexicon Valley Garfield let it rip. He said vocal fry appears almost exclusively among young women. It's defenders claim that kind of criticism is sexist. Some defenders go deflect and claim that men do it as well. More here.  Self consciously, NPR even did their own podcast commenting on Garfield's comments in yet another podcast. You can hear that here. Naomi Wolf even weighed in and encouraged young women to "give up the vocal fry and reclaim your strong female voice." More here.

This podcast "Talking White Female" did a decent job interpreting the issue. It's true that women are encouraged and sometimes even trained to lower their voice to project authority and confidence. That problem is obviously sexist. It is forcing the voice lower, that causes vocal fry. The podcast Stuff You Should Know covered the topic as well. [LINK]

But whether you notice it or not, like it or dislike it, hear it on TV and in film or not.. you do not generally hear it in broadcasting unless the topic itself is vocal fry. but Ira Glass covered the topic back on January 23rd. More here. The irony is that Ira Glass also has vocal fry... and you didn't notice that until just now. Which means you've been hearing it on NPR for three decades already.

WHQR Program Guide January 1985

I recently came into possession of a small stack of 1980s program guides. This is a full scan of the January 1985 issue of the 91.3 WHQR Program Guide. It's chock full of retro ads, and historical information.

WHQR signed on in 1984 finally bringing NPR to the North Carolina Coast. The distant signal from WUNC didn't reach even across that flat terrain. So this program guide comes form it's early years. From the get go the station carries book end NPR programs like Morning Edition, Prairie Home Companion, and All Things Considered. But it also was chock full of Jazz: DJs like Henry Farber, Leo Teachout, Bernard Granger, Rob Robinson, Larry Thomas and others spun jazz discs all night. Some of these Jazz DJs, like Leo Teachout were instrumental in fundraising to make the station possible.

Today the station has a string of repeaters to fill in every crag, cranny and crevice on the Carolina coast with their signal: 92.7 W224CX, 94.1 W231AB, 96.7 W244DH, and 98.9 W255BZ. But today those same jazz DJs like Leo and their programs have been purged from the station in favor of more syndicated programming and satellite-fed classical music. The station has become an NPR zombie.

DOWNLOAD IT

HERE

Thank you Ira Glass. 



Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

The Trouble with WCQS

About a week ago I read an article in the Citizen Times Newspaper [LINK] about the troubles at 88.1 WCQS in Asheville, North Carolina.  Western North Carolina Public radio used to be branded as "NPR News, Classical Music and More."  Earlier this year, their new executive director, Jody Evans effectively got rid of the "and More."   WCQS became what Alan Bernard at Poormojo News Wire calls an "NPR Zombie." Their local programming was all but wiped out. Being a radio network this removed local and regional programming from not just one station but from all of it's affiliates and repeaters: W298AY, WFQS, W269AY, W237AR, W234AS, W218AB, W209AD, and W209AE.

Enter Fred Flaxman. Mr. Flaxman, is a former public radio and television executive who retired in the area. Previous to the troubles, he had volunteered to serve on the station’s community advisory board. That's how he discovered they hadn't bothered to have one for over a decade. That happens to be a violation of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act.

After some urging, a programming board was formed, but Ms. Evans mostly ignored them. Then this year, made some radical changes cutting local programs like “Conversations,” “Byline” and “Evening Rounds.” She didnt' even both to tell them until after she did it. Flaxman and thirty others banded together and filed a petition with the FCC to deny their license renewal. This is a rare event, the only recent similar petition I can think of was pointed at KPFT following a big board shake up. So I reached out to Fred for some more details, and he was kind enough to oblige me.

JF: I'm familiar from your bio that you helped found WETA, and were also at WTTW after that. Could you tell me how you got started in radio? I'd venture to guess you didn't start at WETA.

FF: My first work in radio was for a campus station at the University of Michigan and as a paid script writer for WUOM-FM, Ann Arbor, writing what the announcers said for live concert broadcasts. I majored in journalism there and worked in public relations and as a newspaper reporter and magazine writer/editor before joining WETA-TV, Washington, D.C., as special assistant to the general manager. In that capacity I wrote the proposals that brought in the funding to put WETA-FM on the air, and then became its founding manager.

JF: Having worked in both public television and public radio do you feel you have a preference for any reason?

FF: Yes, I prefer radio because it is a more personal medium. It doesn't take lots of people and money to get things done. Television is more creativity by committee. Basically, I'm a writer, which is even more personally creative than radio.

JF: Did you have any connection to WCQS, previous to this?

FF: They did broadcast six of my "Compact Discoveries" programs as specials, shortly after I moved here six years ago. They have not broadcast any of my programs since. You can find out everything you might want to know about "Compact Discoveries" programs at www.compactdiscoveries.com. You can even stream the programs on demand via links to PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. You'll also read there what professional public broadcasters and listeners have to say about these programs.

JF:  Ideally what should have WCQS been doing with their programming?

FF: Before making any major changes, they should have asked the advice of their Community Advisory Board and conducted surveys of their members and listeners to get their input.

JF: How do you feel about the syndicated NPR programs that make up their schedule now?

FF: NPR is a tremendously valuable service, but the future of local public radio stations lies in their service to their own local and regional communities. This is because satellite and Internet radio makes it possible to receive NPR programming without tuning into a local station.

JF: I have read that you helped found WETA-FM, when you look at that station today how do you feel about their programming in respects to their listeners in DC?

FF: I listen to them on my Internet radio and they seem to be doing an excellent job of serving the classical music listeners of their area. WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., serves the area's audiences for public affairs, news, and talk programming. I advocated that kind of split of responsibilities when I put WETA-FM on the air in 1970, but couldn't get WETA to agree to it. I'm glad it finally happened for the benefit of the Washington, D.C., radio audience.

JF:  In your vision, what is the ideal way for a public radio station to be programmed?

FF: It should be programmed with input from the public via a Community Advisory Board, surveys, letters, e-mails, phone calls, independent producers, etc. It should not be programmed in a dictatorial manner without such input, as has been the case here with WCQS.

JF:  Are there any stations left still working from that play book?

FF: I hope so!

JF:  Do you have any immediate plans in radio land?

FF: I love retirement and just doing what I want every day. That includes making radio programs out of my love for classical music. I sure don't want to be involved in management any more, and absolutely hate fighting with a local public radio station. But I know we could have a terrific station in Asheville if we only had management that was responsive to our great community! That is why I have joined with others who feel the same way to file the Petition to Deny with the FCC.

NPR's Scott Simon: How to Tell a Story

He makes a really cogent point Whether delivering the news, sharing a parable or telling a fish tale a story; it's still a story.  The art of story telling is ancient, and it's importance is all too easily forgotten. Even the smoothest, most mellifluous radio voice still needs to tell a good story.  Content isn't everything, just almost.

Sex and Broadcasting

I've been reading the book Sex And Broadcasting by Lorenzo W. Milam. It's dated, published in 1975 before many changes in law, and many other changes in technology. But the concepts are all there and a lot of history. On page 229 he lists off "Sympathetic Broadcasters."  It's a list of community stations that he felt were of a free-form, highly local in nature. I noticed immediately that many of these stations were no more. Todays post is an update to that 36 year old list, and it makes for a sad story. You can buy one here.

The list is broken into categories, the first of these is On-the-Air. These are Community radio stations already in service as of 1975. Many of these still exist in more-or-less the condition they were in at the time of that writing: KAOS, KBOO, KOPN, KPFT, WPFW, WAIF KPFK, WDNA, KUNM, KPOO, WREK, WORT, WBAI, WRFG, WYEP, KDIC, KKUP, WAMH. Others have become what Alan Bernard at Poormojo News Wire calls an "NPR Zombie." Those stations include: KPBX, WYBC, KTOO, and WYSO. 1340 WYBC-AM became a simulcast of NPR zombie WSHU only a couple days ago serving as a reminder that this process continues. But, WYSO is a better example of how a station normally makes the change. They began broadcasting All Things Considered in 1972. It picked up Morning Edition in the late 1980s. By 2002 there was almost nothing left. The community that built the station had lost the station. More here.

For the record, I listen to NPR. I like a lot of the programs. But it's important to note that it's not local programming. There is a difference. Most of the below is bad news. Remembering those caveats, here's what really changed:

KERS 88.9 Sacramento, CA. It began in 1970 as advertised above. In 1979, KERS became KXPR and fully embraces NPR-zombiehood.Today it's a full fledged Public Radio network including KXJZ, KUOP, KXJS and KXSR. More here.

KDKB-AM 93.3 /KDKB-FM 1510 Phoenix, AZ - This legendary free form rock station ended the simulcast in 1978 with the AM side flipping to Oldies. By 1980 they were a rigid classic rock station. Today 93.3 is still a rock station today but not free form in any sense of the word. Today they even have 80's themed weekends. More here.

KBBF 89.1 Santa Rosa, CA- In 2009 they swapped their city of license with 98.7 KSXY for a cash payment thus "relocating" to Calistoga. They are still owned by Bilingual Broadcasting Foundation. An audit by the CPB found “egregious” violations back in February.  Station Manager  Jesus Lozano, a convicted drug offender has been  accused of embezzling.  He resigned when the news went public and they elected a new board in March. They filed for a a silent STA only a few days ago following a lightning strike. More here, here, and here.

KBDY 89.9 St. Louis, MO - It was a 20 watt station on the North side first licensed in 1972. It was cited repeatedly for exceeding power restrictions. This allowed 89.9 WLCA at Lewis & Clark Community College to challenge their license. They had a STA to return at 6 watts but that seems to have fizzled before 1980. 

KRAB 107.7 Seattle, WA - Founded by the author of Sex and Broadcasting, Lorenzo Wilson Milam. He helped found KRAB and more than a dozen other radio stations around the country. KRAB was virtually insolvent from the get go. They attempted to share-time with KNHC and didn't work it out. The owners, the Jack Straw Foundation sold the license to a commercial broadcaster and started 90.7 KSER which signed on in 1991 and is still alive today. More here.

WAFR 90.3 Durham, NC - In 1973 they were written up in Ebony magazine with a 5-page photo spread. Today 90.3 is vacant, allowing the presence of WNAA on 90.1 and WDCC on 90.5. WAFR signed on in 1971 with 3,00 watts and went off air in 1975 when CPB yanked it's funding.

KSAN 94.9 San Francisco, CA - This legendary free form rock station operated from 1968 until 1980. Station founder and visionary died from a heart attack in 1975. KSAN flipped to country music. KSAN is still a big classic rocker. A frequency swap moved the KSAN calls to 107.7. More here including a documentary film and here.

WBCN 104.1 Boston , MA - The station went off the FM airwaves on August 12, 2009 and became an automated HD-2 stream on 98.5 WBZ. Originally a classical station, they became a free-form rocker in 1968. The original airstaff included Steven Segal, one of Tom Donahue's minions. slowly it degraded into an AOR format. In 1979, the station was purchased by Hemisphire Broadcasting who ousted the old hippies. this begat a general strike and most were re-hired but the playlist continued to get more regimented. In 1994 they flipped to alternative rock. Today it's a Hot AC station WMBX.

WGTB 90.1 Georgetown, DC. - In 1979, Georgetown donated the WGTB license to the University of Washington DC. In 1997 UDC sold it to C-SPAN for $25 million dollars. After the sale, the station relaunched as WROX, via campus AM carrier current. It later changes calls to WGTB since it didn't matter anyway. It has faltered several times and gone dark. it had a notable resurrection in 1996 and finally relaunched as a webcast in 2001. More here.

WTBS 88.1 Boston, MA - They became WMBR on May 24, 1979, selling it's old callsign to Ted Turner for 50 grand.They spent the money getting a more powerful transmitter. Programming is still loose and local.  More here.

KCHU 90.9 Dallas, TX -  This station was also founded in part by Lorenzo Milam. The station signed on in August of 1975. After just a year-and-a-half their cobbled hardware began to fail and without a steady source of income they were doomed. The station was silent by 1980. Criswell Bible Institute mounted a legal challenge, and eventually they swapped frequencies with Criswell winning the more powerful 90.9 stick. After continued internal disputes Lorenzo turned the station license over to a group called ACORN, who founded 89.3 KNON, a station that in some ways continues the mission. More here.

WFAC 91.5 Columbus, OH - They were a 10 watt station in 1975. Today it's WHKC owned by Christian Broadcasting Services, 15,00 watts of Air 1. The transition from point A to point B involved NAB,the UAW, the FCC and new legal precedents.  I'll dedicate a whole post to them later.

EARPLAY

I bought an oddball double LP labeled "Earplay Vol 5" at a record store in Biddeford Maine. It was only a dollar and had some water stains. I almost skipped it; mold being the worst enemy of any personal library. (see dirty sleeve above) For this I risked it. I'd only heard of earplay. I never thought I'd get to hear it. These LPs were not in general circulation. The instruction was printed on the back cover of the gate-fold:

"Cleared for any number of radio broadcasts—only by non-commercially licensed radio in the U.S.A. —only between September 1 1972 and August 31, 1975. No copies of thsi record may be made. Record must be returned to EARPLAY September 1 1975. Acceptance of this record commits the station to conditions enumerated above."

EARPLAY was a project of Karl Schmidt at WHA, and the longest-running series of radio drama anthologies on NPR. I'm not making that up. NPR stands by that claim. Source here. Oficially it ran from 1972 into the 1990s. That claim is dubious. It started with a $150,000 grant. They started with 10-minute dramas and worked up to 4-hour features. It wasn't just a radio drama revival program. They had big name novelists and playwrights writing their scripts: Edward Albee, David Mamet, Friedrich Durrenmatt, Tom Stoppard, Donald Barthelme, Arthur Kopit, Archibald Macleish and many others.

But that multi-decade claim is misleading. Earplay certainly began in 1972, and certainly at WHA. Some sources put the end of Earplay in 1981. In 1981 NPR started overlapping Earplay with another radio drama program called "NPR Playhouse." Playhouse did adaptations of novel and films. They did versions of Don Quioxte and even Star Wars in that era. Some came from ZBS, some from the BBC, WHA WGBH and the Radio Theatre of Chicago. And in 1981, it was being carried on 200 stations. The funding came from the CPB not NPR. That's an important difference. As the program shunted into the NPR fold, NPR Playhouse even drew episodes from the Earplay catalog. To reiterate, even the Radio Gold Index puts Earplay as running only until about 1982 with the last couple discs being comprised of 1940s catalog material from the BBC. The Radio Gold Index has a decent EARPLAY discography here.

As Jack W. Mitchell put it in the book Listener Supported "Although critically successful, Earplay did not attract audiences and did not revive radio drama."  It was inadvertently killed by a funding dispute.  In an interview Tom Lopez, President of ZBS  exlained how it went down

"The thing is that they put forward a proposal. That is Earplay, NPR. The proposal was that they would have 3 centres producing radio drama. One doing classical, one doing popular, one doing serious drama,  I believe.  And it was starting off with 1.1. million and then it would increase to about 2 million. We looked at this proposal and were horrified. We said 'If this thing happens, we're screwed. Nobody else in this country will ever see any kind of money for producing radio drama'.  And so we put up a stink...The National Endowment listened to us, CPB wouldn't listen to us.  And the National Endowment agreed and that year didn't fund Earplay at all. They got zero. And they collapsed."

The Al Jazeera Network

Al Jazeera has been trying to make real American inroads for almost five years now. last week I read an article in the Hartford Advocate that three non-commercial stations in connecticut were considering carrying Al Jazeera (AJE) news. This list included WPKN, WESU and WHUS. the network is owned and funded by the emir of Quatar and it's English language radio broadcast is already carried in at least three markets: Burlington VT, Toledo OH, Washington D.C.  All those are for TV News. For me this is pretty exciting. It brings a third big voice into a news arena that's presently totally dominated by NPR, with Pacifica playing a distant third following the BBC in it's total number of affiliates. More here.

Talks began in September and then by early December it was announced that Pacifica was adding news broadcasts from the Al Jazeera English TV news channel to Pacifica's five stations across the United States, including WPFW, KPFA, KPFK, WBAI, and KPFT. With that move, Pacifica became the second American Radio Network to air programming from AJE. The first was MHz Networks, an educational broadcaster based in Falls Church. They have carried AJE TV broadcasts since 2009.

Their pace is pretty impressive. The CBC, the government-funded network of our northern neighbors was founded in November of 1936 and barely has any presence in the United States at all. actually it's primary conduit into the US is on available on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 137.  A handful of CBC programs are carried on america radio stations. American Public Media has distributed "As It Happens" from CBC Radio One for years but few stations carry it. Only A handful of other CBC programs have crossed the 45th parallel:  Definitely Not the Opera, The Vinyl Cafe and Q I know have all recently aired inside the United States. But that's it. After 75 years their toehold remains tenuous at best. Pacifica by comparison has over 100 affiliates.

Nonetheless AJE has held onto it's toehold. In 2004 Vidéotron  applied to the the CRTC for permission to carry AJE programming. The request was met with opposition from Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including B’nai Brith Canada, the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Christian Friends of Israel. The CRTC was not intimidated and granted the license with certain restrictions. 

Pacifica first added the programming in December but they just added AJE to their morning line up.  Yesterday KPFA dropped their Morning Show and split the 2-hour time slot between Democracy Now and Al Jazeera English which is produced in Washington, D.C. That move was less political and more abotu cost-cutting but it isn't helping AJE's awkward entry into the market.

Toledo got their first peek at AJE programming in March of 2007. Buckeye Cable in Toledo picked up AJE in and received mixed reactions. Buckeye serves approximately 150,000 people in northwest Ohio. Buckeye has described the feedback as "overwhelmingly positive."

In Burlington by May of 2008 Burlington Telecom was already openly discussing dropping AJE. They had received 200 complaint letters after 2 years of carrying the network. By a 7 to 0 vote (with three abstentions), their city council urged Burlington Telecom to keep AJE in it's channel line up. It was a bold move for the a small, publicly owned fiber optic network that at the time was only 3 years old. More here.

In Washington D.C. three networks carry AJE: Comcast - Channel 275, Cox – Channel 474, and on Verison FiOS it's on Channel 457. The last of these was in beginning in July 2009, when Fios began carrying their feed 24/7 via the through the MHz Network. Strangely in our Nation's capitol this barely generated a ripple of discomfort.  Personally I'm glad to see the conflict is petering out to a murmur.

MPR Vs. Minneapolis!

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and the Minneapolis City Council are having a bit of a spat. Admirably, the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council is looking forward and making a better mass transit system to lighten the burden on their clogged roads. But like any rail or road project, there is always some contention on what path it should take in and around the city. It has actually come to the point where MPR has sued the Metropolitan Council.

The problem is that the board has approved a route for the light-rail line that would run trains right past the radio station headquarters in St. Paul. This specific train route is part of their Central Corridor Light Rail Transit project (CCLRT ). It will connect downtown St Paul and downtown Minneapolis. the track is to be 11 miles long at a cost of $941 million. Needless to say, the city has planned to shell out big bucks on this.

This is exceedigly bad for MPR. Trains are so powerful and so heavy that they conduct physical vibrations right through the ground. This isn't a big deal for some businesses. But it is a big deal with the on-air light is on. This is why in 2009 the Met Council made an agreement to take steps to reduce noise and vibrations from city trains. In fact, they signed the CCLRT Mitigation Agreement on April 8, 2009. It's a binding contract with a lot on the line for MPR. A passing subway train can measure 95 decibels, and can shake your furniture so bad that you cant read a newspaper.

What they're fighting over is a choice of vibration muffling mechanism. MPR wants the city to go with a steel spring mechanism. The committee is more focused on the budget and favors a less expensive and less effective rubber pad. There is some irony here as radio station often suffer their own NIMBY woes over tower proposed locations. But this isn't an aesthetic argument. radio is all audio. If you damage that, you damage the core of what they are. This is currently raging and I'll keep you all up to date.

Andrei Codrescu Realpolitik

Andrei Codrescu is a very unlikely radio man. He as been a commentator on All Things Considered since 1983 under producer Art Silverman. He is a poet and a writer whose work have been insidiously pervasive to us all since he first debuted in broadcasting.

He is on the air typically for only a few minutes . But it's a short stack of seconds heard by around 12 million people. As a satirist and surrealist he is all too often under rated in his veracity. But it's that underestimation that lets him through the net. In those seconds he can manage to cause a real stir. In 1995 he managed to irk the Christian Coalition. He explained the incident thusly:

"I did offend people on the radio... At some particular point about five or six years ago when Ralph Reed was the head of the Christian Coalition, he promoted a real campaign, so there were 40,000 letters sent to affiliate NPR stations complaining about my insult to the faith. Which was not an insult. I thought it was satirical, but somebody took offense."

He was chiding them about the Rapture. They said he was anti-christian, insensitive, crude.. etc. He said they were being silly. he's a satirist. that's what they do. regardless Congress even got involved briefly peaking with a bit of partisan huffing and puffing. NPR apologized for his remarks. He was warned to "stay away from eschatology."

Docket 80-90

The non-commercial FM radio band stretches from 88.1 to 91.9. This is a significant enough piece of RF real estate that exceedingly few non-com licenses have been granted outside it. In fact, I suspect that since the band was set aside, fewer than a dozen exceptions have been granted.In 1980, as the non-com band started to fill up in most major metropolitan areas there was a little pressure on the FCC and congress to make room. Their response was Docket 80-90, 94 FCC 2d 152, 48 Fed. Reg. 29496 (1983). The rule grandfathered the existing short spaced stations and reduced minimum mileage separation between new changes. It also limited new licenses to a maximum ERP of 3 KW, HAAT being 328' or 100 meters. Weaker stations = more stations crammed in. But it did not increase the spacing requirements between Class A and second- and third-adjacent channel Class B stations. Also interesting was that it allowed full-power stations to move-in on Class D stations. forcing some off air. Even though the stated purpose of the rules were to Increase the Availability of FM Broadcast Assignments.

The legislation was piece-meal, ugly and political. Politics make for poor engineering. Yet despite the encroachment on the non-coms, there are some class A, B, C and D operations still in the commercial band. Three class and A & B stations come to mind immediately
WBRU 95.5 in Providence, RI (Brown University)
WHRB 95.3 in Cambridge, MA (Harvard University)
WYBC 94.3FM in New Haven, CT (Yale University)
WPRB 103.3 in Princeton, NJ (Princeton University)

It's worth noting that there are college-owned stations with commercial licenses out there. I think KCFS, KMSM, and WHUR all fit that description. There's also stations like WOMR in Provincetown, MA on 92.1 that were originally in the NCE band (91.9 in this case) but agreed to change frequency to improve their signal in some way (avoid co-channel interference with WUMB in Boston, across Cape Cod Bay, in this case).

VOCALO at WBEW

About a year ago Chicago Public Radio 91.5 WBEZ-FM spun off one of it's repeaters into an experiment. WBEZ was a long time NPR affiliate and a source fo much public radio programming including This American Life. They took all 7,000 watts of 89.5 WBEW-FM and did something new. Everything changed, the playlist, the programs, the brand, air staff and the rest. Originally it was called "the secret radio Project." It became Vocalo.

The stick is in Chesterton, Indiana just outside Chicago. The programming seems to be a public affairs program responding to the success of KCMP in Minneapolis. As large as the public radio audience is, it is old and aging. Everyone in public radio land who has a care in the world, has a care about it's future. What's going to work in a decade? Unlike popular formats that just pander to the lowest common denominators, public radio must succeed or fail on donations. Donations succeed or fail based on their ties to their community. They describe themselves thusly:

"Vocalo.org is radio made by you. We take the material you submit (audio, text, video) and turn it into entertaining and informative broadcast material that plays on 89.5 FM in Northwest Indiana and soon Chicago and streams live on our website. Check out our What Is This section for more info."

In December of 2007, The Current described what was then a planned format like this: "

"In fact, it will have no shows at all. It will air a continuous, seamless talk-based stream completely devoted to Northwest Indiana and Chicago metropolitan area culture, issues and selected music. It is not a news station. There are no newscasts."

The idea was pretty big, or at least they talked big. But the result is mixed. There are definitely shows. They stayed fairly true to their promise not to trod on WBEW, the new station does not cross-promote WBEZ. they continue to take submitted content from their listeners. But they also promised never to run a pledge drive .. and that seems so implausible that despite a year of development and local outreach, and hundreds of listener produced programs... I'm just counting the days.

NPR in space!

In the past I've covered some of the ins and outs of syndication. In the early days it relied upon the US Postal service circulating pre-recorded programs. The recording formats varied over time starting with transcription discs eventually moving to LPs and reels. Today a few programs still circulate on CD-Rs. I have no idea why.

National Public Radio was the trail blazer here as it often is. In 1979 public radio took syndication into the space age. Their Galaxy IV satellite was launched by PanAmSat Corp. All Public Radio affiliates are now interconnected by satellite. That satellite made it possible to distribute both live and pre-recorded programs simultaneously to all their affiliates. The reels of the past were buried in the yard and AMPEX suffered a drop in the value of their stock. More here.

Today that tin can in the sky has grown into PRSS (The Public Radio Satellite System.) it's a full-fledged distribution network. Thousands of hours of programming are distributed to hundreds of public radio stations across America. The interconnected stations own their own down-link and uplink equipment but the NOC that manages the network is located in Washington D.C. at NPR headquarters on 635 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC

The satellite system uses a digital transmission format called MUSICAM. It's a specialized perceptual coding algorithm for data compression. NPR has very high standards for audio quality and standard audio compression is totally unacceptable to them. They output the signal in three formats. More here.

1. Compressed Digital
2. Linear Digital
3. Standard Analog

The hardware is very pricey at every step of the system but it's better faster and more reliable than parcel post. But the system like any other satellite is susceptible to solar interference. This is predictable much like the rising of the sun itself and can be avoided through a little planning. But on May 19th 1998 the satellite went for a little joyride. The Galaxy IV just stopped working and began to spin. The feed of All Things Considered ceased. NPR switched over to telephone relays to distribute programming over the course of the next day. Interestingly the satellite was also used for paging services so hundreds of pagers died as well.

Some stations froze and had several minutes of dead air. Feeds of All Things Considered froze.  Affiliate 90.9 WBUR, Boston, bragged that it suffered only five seconds of dead air before switching to another program. While PanAmSat had insured the Galaxy IV for about $150 million that's nothing in the face of the replacement cost. At the time of the failure they estimated that cost at about $250 million.

NERN!

No it's not the New Enlightenment Radio Network!

Actually there's a lot of acronyms today so I just picked one with a good vowel to consonant ratio. The story has 4 stages.

1. ACUBS

2. NAEB

3. NERN

4. NPR

By the mid twenties the idea of using radio to enhance the school curriculum was getting popular. ACUBS (the Association of College and University Broadcasting Stations) began in 1925 kind of loosely to promote that idea. It was they who got the non-com band sanctioned.

It became the National Association of Educational Broadcasts Tape Network (NAEB) in 1934 as an informal association of managers of university radio stations.

Their Tape Network was a way to exchange taped programming among it's member stations. They distributed programs produced by one member station to other syndicating members. This was done with actual reel-to-reel tapes. (By the early fifties transcription discs were already on the way out. ) For example, WFBE in Flint, MI produced a program called "The Old Record Box," a short 15-minute program playing primarily cylinder recordings from the early 1900s. WBOE and a number of other educational broadcasters carried the program. In 1967 they distributed 1,895 programs to its 150 affiliate stations, a total of 31,371 hours of programming.

In 1967 NAEB surveyed a study of it's 320 member stations. They actually just sent out questionnaires. Only 135 stations, responded but they determined from the responses about staffing, budgets and so forth that these statiosn were "limited by low budgets, small staffs, and a lack of both audience research and program promotion." Oh how thing have changed... The survey also determined that the average educational brodcaster has an annual budget of under $25,000.

In 1963 The NAEB Tape Network became the National Educational Radio Network (NERN.) NERN's own budget was about 60k and they were self sufficient on member fees. But NERN wasnt' the only distributor of educational programming. Broadcasting Foundation of America, the Eastern Educational Radio Network and the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System all were doing similar things. The competing distributors also competed for membership dollars. It's no susprise then that the Carnegie Commission would start head shaking. The Carnegie Commission then issued that fundamental 1967 "Report on the Future of Public Broadcasting." It recommended the creation of everythign we have in public radioland today: PBS, NPR and the CPB. In 1970 ownership of NERN is transferred to NPR. NPR continued to distribute programs moving over to 5 kHz land line system for talk programs in 1980. Then in the 1980s, NPR was the first U.S. radio network to move to satellite distribution.

The Annoying Music Show

This is a one of a kind music program brought to us by our good buddies at WBEZ and syndicated via NPR. More here.

They dont play novelty songs, dont play the meowing cats xmas album. It's not like Dr. Demento. It's all about the culturally banal music that surrounds us. Bad funeral soloists, dead serious but atrocious polka covers of 1980s new wave hits. It's music that commits cultural sacrilege against our forebearers.

The Annoying Music Show presents the most awful music ever recorded and is now heard on National Public Radio stations across the U.S. Its flagship station is Chicago Public Radio.
Host and producer Jim Nayder vows that no annoying music is tested on animals just on WBEZ listeners.

How annoying is it? I mean it's actually aired in a major metropolitain area on a big flagship public radio affiliate. Well they play Jerry Lewis on purpose and that's proof enough for me. the insidiously annoying program has persisted long enough to produce 4 CDs of pain-producing music. Click here if you dare.

Hospital radio goes Public

Radio stations were founded by unexpected organizations in many unexpected places. Here's one that grew and prospered. In this case the owner, Albany Medical Center was the source of the call letters WAMC. The WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network, and it's Performing Arts Studio, a venue in Albany all have their genus in the same place.

In 1955 Albany Medical Center received a small grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to broadcast two-way radio conferences among physicians. This clearly gave them the radio bug as the pilot program of six hospitals grew to 24 in less than 2 years. By 1958 they'd started their own FM radio station WAMC on 90.3 FM as a classical music outlet.

Albany Medical Center continued on as a ACGME accredited medical school. Its influence on programming was clearest in the early days when brodcasts included health information and lectures from visiting professors. But in 1962, a hint of their later politicking they carried first live hearing from Washington, D.C. on programming practices.

In 1970 when the NPR was founded in 1970, WAMC became one of their first 90 charter stations. but things were growing quickly, the hospitcal could not contain everythign that WAMC was bustling to become. In 1981, financial pressure peaked and the hospital divested the station. The FCC license was transferred to a non-profit, tax-exempt entity, WAMC, Inc. It's five incorporators included then CEO Alan S. Chartock, the State University of New York and New York State government.

WAMC has grown into a network of fourteen stations serving portions of seven New England and Middle Atlantic States. They have been an aggressive station that's expanded their network for 2 decades, highlights including the 1989 purchase of WBBS in 1989 (now WAMQ) and in 1995 WAMC outbid SUNY Plattsburgh for 91.9 WCFE (now WCEL) Coverage Map here.

Soon they'll be on 99.3 in Oneonta I hear. Sadly this will kill the local repeater of the somewhat obscure WDHI oldies Network. But as many radiomen will tell you, in this buisness it's grow or die. A lesson you should take into this falls NCE auction.

WOMEN OF RADIO WEEK PT 5

Susan Stamberg, was the first woman to regularly anchor a national nightly news program. That is pretty damn impressive.
This New York City native os one of the pioneers of radio and National Public Radio.

She joinedNPR 1971, previous to that, she served as producer, program director and general manager of WAMU in Washington, D.C., http://www.wamu.org/

Starting in 1972, Stamberg served as co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered. Her run there lasted for 14 years, after which she moved over to NPR’s Weekend Edition. She started hosting on it's Sunday premiere in January of 1987 and on through October 1989. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame. other recognitions include the Armstrong and duPont Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ohio State University's Golden Anniversary Director's Award, the Distinguished Broadcaster Award from the American Women in Radio and Television.

Stamberg is the author of two books, and co-editor of a third. TALK: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things chronicles her two decades with NPR. Her first book, Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED Book, was published in 1982 by Pantheon. Stamberg also co-edited The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road, published in 1992

As a host, her conversational style and intelligence Her thousands of interviews include conversations with Nancy Reagan, Annie Liebowitz, Rosa Parks and James Baldwin. In May of this year, in an interesting ouroboros she offered some advice to the Katie Couric, first woman selected to anchor the national nightly news, solo, for a major TV network. Here

Can you have too much NPR?

I am in Greensboro, NC today and no fewer then 3 dial positions carry essentially the same NPR talk programming during the week. At 5:15 today I jumped from 88.5 WFDD, to 90.1 WNAA to WUNC 91.5 and each was carrying the exact same program. WFDD and WUNC were even in relatively good synch. WNAA seemed to be about a half-second ahead of them creating an amusing hiccup effect. Were these stations all owned (or members) of the same network this could be sensible. They are not. Many of us have encountered similar problems but this may be the most blatant.

WUNC has the largest coverage area of the three centered over Chapel Hill, part of the Raleigh market reaching its 100k watts from Wilson to Fayetteville, to Greensboro and north into Danville VA. ...clearly the dominant player for the region

WFDD has the second largest coverage area; centered over Lexington reaching past Greensboro to the East, but petering out before Raleigh to the east and almost making Hickory to the west. It is completely enveloped by WUNC, making its matching NPR programming completely redundant. Then WNAA is the smallest by far; centered over Greensboro they are entirely constrained to the market. They too are offering completely redundant matching NPR programs. sigh.  These are what the Poor Mojo Newswire calls an NPR-Zombie.

The most unique outlet for the market is 90.9 WQFS. In the last hour, they have played (that I recognize) the Yeah yeah yeahs, The Bee Gees, Test Icicles, Philly locals Man Man, Chuck Berry and even the Yonder Mountain String band.


This market is also home to LP stations 103.1 WFEC, 103.1 WUAG, 106.1 WEJM, WBYJ 97.9, and WEOM 103.1. WUAG is a 16 watt college station a genuine Class D license that existed prior to the LP glut . What kills me is that they have only 1 first adjacent conflict and nothing on the second. If they sat down 10 years ago and planned out a directional broadcast to the SW to protect 103.3 WAKG in Danville, VA they would be a real player in that market now. Instead they languish buried on the same frequency as two other LPs both of which have more wattage.

Just out of range from my hotel is 90.5 WSNC. Its southern coverage is hampered by frequency-mate WUSC in Columbia. But with only WFAE on their first adjacent 60 miles away they too probably could turn up the juice and serve more of the market.

WDET drops music programming

We've seen it before. The local public station drops the music programming and goes talk. The ratings often jump, but it is a sad day for all. WDET is dead.

A message on wdet.org states that the station’s music programming “posed challenges for station fund raising and audience growth.” A euphemism for "the old people don't like it, and they have the money." At the NON-COMMvention 2004 in Philly the "graying of AAA" was a hot topic. An exodus of non-com AAA stations flipping to News/Talk has been predicted by more than one radio pundit. Ever the cynic, I question this as the right choice. Register for the Non-comvention 2006 here.

I for one, see some of them eventually coming back to the music. While Triple A fears its aging audience, flipping to N/T is not the solution. The median audience for NPR talk is aging too. While ditching Triple A may yield better donations in the near-term, there is an inevitable problem twenty years down the line as these listeners... die off. Both formats are an endangered species. Was that a surprise? (pdf in header) I quote:

"The median age of an NPR listener is 48 and, while commercial radio stations have been very slow to recognize the potential of the over-35 audience, NPR regularly introduces that audience to new artists and music. While the NPR audience has grown, it has also aged. The average listener keeps getting older every year -- now up to 47 years old. That means NPR is not attracting younger listeners even though more people are tuning in." More here.

In particular WDET is flipping News/talk in the same market at the already established WUOM. So now they directly compete or the same "graying" audience. AND the Canadian public station CBE. Ultimately I see this as a long hard road for all of them. More here.