We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Radio
Year: 1985
Ladies Love Cool James Todd Smith was still a teenager when he wrote and recorded Radio, which came out just a couple of months before he turned 18.
Given that it was the first Def Jam release and given how influential Rubin’s minimalist production style turned out to be, Radio is also a landmark album, a turning point for 1980’s hip-hop.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #941: LL Cool J – “I Can’t Live Without My Radio”
I’m probably opening myself up for non-stopping ribbing by admitting to this, but I listen to country music radio. At least I did until KZLA — who have always called themselves “America’s most listened to country station” — abruptly became “Movin 93.9” last Thursday.
I listened to KZLA’s morning show on my way to work Thursday morning but when I got back in my car to head home that evening I was shocked to hear “Mambo #5” coming out of my speakers. My first thought was that it was on the wrong station, however a quick glance and the pretty purple LCD screen told me that I was still on 93.9. Something was wrong. Very wrong. I promptly turned the volume down and called my husband on my cellphone. When I got home, I checked the headlines online only to find that it was even a surprise to the station air staff.
[Read more…] about What Happens When Your Radio Station Switches Formats
In my lifetime, I’ve bonded with a lot of DJs. It is my nature, I think, to glom onto a voice. I probably shouldn’t admit this as it implies I’m a target for cult-dom, but what the heck? In my lifetime, of course, the nature of radio has been such that DJs are very much hear today, gone tomorrow. Their ability to rally a community is sketchy at best — did Rick Dees every really command respect? Howard Stern was/is as polarizing as he was addictive.
Because radio isn’t a national medium in the same way as network television, our relationships with with radio are largely local — this is, perhaps, why I reject the argument that blogs and services like iTunes fail to rally the larger community the way radio once did. Maybe we all listened to the same Top 40 songs, but does that necessarily a community make? No, it simply showed that when a lack of choice exists, consumers will either tune in without much enthusiasm or tune out, sometimes while the music is blaring.
According to today’s LA Times the RIAA is suing XM over it’s new device which allows subscribers to record up to 50 hours of XM broadcast on a portable player. It’s sort of like TiVo for radio, but it’s also the digital equivalent of what many of us did as kids back in the pre-digital era.
You’d think that the battle against taping music off of the radio would have been settled long ago but, as we all know, content is so much more valuable once it’s been digitized. Apparently all pre-existing licensing and copyright law must be abandoned in an effort to save content from pirates consumers who simply want to time-shift and consume content on their own schedule.
A recent article in the LA Times asked the question: where have all of Howard Stern’s listeners gone? As Howard himself complained to Entertainment Weekly, not enough have followed him to Sirius, and as the early ratings have shown, many didn’t stick around to listen to Adam Carolla or David Lee Roth.
I can’t speak for the 9,999,999 listeners who didn’t go to Sirius, but as a Stern detractor who became a listener who became a fan over the past decade, I can tell you why I didn’t go to Sirius and why I’m probably not helping Adam Carolla’s ratings.
Indie 103.1, broadcasting somewhere on the Southern California coastline, is a radio station that is an absolute blast of fresh airwaves. It is one of the few radio stations out there that seems to take it as a mission to surprise its listeners.
Which is exactly what happened this morning, when I heard something which has bugged me for the rest of the day.
WFMU is not a normal radio station.
A normal radio station would have pulled the plug on its transmitter after the college it was affiliated with went bankrupt. Instead, WFMU’s staff and listeners banded together to buy the station’s broadcast license from Upsala College back in 1995. Not only did the station survive the transition, it eventually raised enough money from its listeners to buy its own broadcast facility in Jersey City.
A normal radio station would have given in, or given up, when the RIAA began demanding that web broadcasters pay hefty royalties far exceeding what terrestrial broadcast stations pay. Instead, WFMU fought back and used the opportunity to lobby record labels for exemptions from the new fees.
A normal non-commercial radio station drives listeners away with frequent pledge drives that are designed to elicit as much guilt as possible. Instead, WFMU has only one pledge drive a year, and it actually draws listeners in with entertaining and unique programming (like the annual Yo La Tengo all request show scheduled for Tuesday March 7th, at 8pm EST – make a donation and Yo La Tengo will play your request live).
Normal public radio stations receive funding from corporate sponsors and go as far as they can to bend the financing rules imposed on public radio. WFMU accepts no corporate sponsorship or underwriting of any kind. The station is totally listener sponsored. As a result, there’s absolutely no conflict between what listeners might want to hear and what sponsors might find inappropriate.
In a world of right wing talk and satellite hype, WFMU is one of the few broadcast stations keeping traditional radio relevant. Ironically, they’re doing it with the help of the Internets.
WFMU began streaming its signal online in 1997. It was a costly and risky move for a station that had just gained it’s independence, and all of the financial obligations that went along with that independence. The bet paid off, however, and Internet listeners now make up a substantial portion of the station’s listening audience, contributing enough during the annual marathon to keep the station afloat.
More recently, WFMU has expanded it’s programming to include podcasts and web-only programs that bypass the arbitrary content limitations imposed by the FCC.
I’m frequently astounded that a small, listener supported station from Jersey seems to have a better grasp on new technology and its implications than any of the major media corporations. All of this innovation comes at a price, of course. Bandwidth and servers aren’t cheap — hence the annual Marathon.
If you’ve never listened to WFMU before, consider this your invitation to tune-in. You might also think about making a small donation to a very worth cause (tax deductible, of course). Consider how much of your hard earned cash you’ve given to the mega-media corporations in the past year. And what have they done for you lately (besides canceling “Arrested Development”)?