What: Community Cable Public Access TV Channels And  Radio  stations	Why: We need competition.	How: Educate Organize	Who: YOU  (150-300 volunteer DJ/News/Talk hosts =300 different views/cultures.
See our plans in our application to the FCC for a Low Power FM broadcast license!

I THINK I’m right, but I KNOW I’m wrong.

Whether you love or loathe classical music, you should hope for the success of community radio.

The pressure to get classical music off the tax-subsidized channels has increased, as it should! Classical music should not be tax subsidized:

1)It violates the founding ideals of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because,

2)Classical music survives just fine in the same commercial market the Rest Of Us have to endure.

Everyone has a right to be who they want to be, first causing no harm to others. But that hour of Tchaikovsky is the hour of town hall and local talent that didn’t happen. Just as carbon-monoxide replaces the oxygen in the blood when you are trapped in a garage with a running car, so can domination of the monopoly tax-subsidized channels cause a poisoning of our culture.

Instead of shutting off the car (classical), community radio would open the garage door for a breath of fresh air.

"From its beginnings in 1967, the mission of public [broadcasting] has been to … reflect the diversity of the American public. The Carnegie Commission Report, which led Congress to pass the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, argued that public [broadcasting] programming ‘can help us see America whole, in all its diversity,’ serve as ‘a forum for controversy and debate,’ and ‘provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard.’" [Pg 139 "By Invitation Only: How the Media Limit Political Debate"]

BUT; Classical Music has never had a significant problem being heard in a commercial setting.

The Arbitrons show that there are 50 current commercial classical stations, many in rural areas where it is assumed that there is not enough people or culture to support commercial classical. They succeed in spite of competition from the tax-subsidized classical stations that would be analogous to the Discovery Channel competing against PBS …

WGMS in Washington DC regularly clocks a "four share" (four percent of surveyed listeners) and is the 6th most popular station in a market of 42 commercial radio stations. WGMS has to compete with nine noncommercial stations that are not even listed in the Arbitrons. Eighteen of the commercial stations in Washington survive on less than a one share. The records show this is the norm.

Furthermore, Classical Music has the wealthiest audience. WCLV in Cleveland OH claims that its Commercial Classical audience is "298% times as likely as the average American to have an income over $100,000" and "216% as likely to own $10,000+ in stocks". The WCVL listener is twice as likely to be an executive as the Cleveland market’s overall listeners. Does this sound like the bunch of folks who need your tax dollars to "provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard"?

The disgruntled could take the European way and storm the gates of the Bastille; let the imprisoned variety of human culture and ideas out of WCVE’s tower … or we could "Build It and They Will Come" in the American tradition.

We will build the alternative; let off the pressure and let WCVE ‘public’ radio executives be who they want to be.

The Low Power Radio Service proposal at the Federal Communication Commission will open new frequencies for civic organizations and prevent their takover by huge unrepresentative institutions .. if you act. Call your congressman to support the LPRS, call your city council, talk to your Clubs, and create/support the new stations.

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More Info: Contact Radio Free Richmond Project at Wrfr@aol.com or 649-WRFR

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Published 1999 in Television & Entertainment Magazine (Richmond, Virginia)

Radio Free Richmond
seeks to be a light unto those who are not illuminated by existing commercial, religious or public radio stations.

We will play the News Views Jazz and Blues techno and free-form other radio stations would rather not use.

In this way we will contribute to a stable and just society where everyone can become who they want to be. 

We seek to enable the weakest links in our society to become strong  so that no-one can thrive on the pain and weakness of others.

Get on the air before 2000: 

 

More information on LPFM

 

Effort to defend our ability to hear WDCE 90.1FM as well as any new LPFM stations.

The Fall 2000 "Murrow's Hope" newsletter is the Video SlideShow and Audio File (playing now on AT&T and Comcast Cable Public Access channels)... or you can read the script here.

 

Read more details on the LPRS in Spring'99 Newsletter "Murrow's Hope"

 

Subscribe to eMurrow's Hope

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WHAT IS LPFM?
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LPFM stands for "Low Power FM". LPFM is essentially the re-legalization of small affordable radio stations for new entrants to create competition to serve audiences ignored by larger stations.

The Big Broadcasters have had the rules bent for decades to make room for their 40,000 and 100,000 watt stations to squeeze onto the dial and spew horrible morning shows and repeat the same music over and over and over ... 
for DECADES!

Now a few thousand churches, educational and community civic groups want to get the same deal and make space on the FM dial to build affordable radio stations to bring those stories, values, culture and music that the big religious, NPR and commercial networks can't be bothered with. 
Your stories, values, culture and music.

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) received 13,000 requests for a slot to 
build a station in 1997.

Thousands of "pirate" radio stations have taken to the air for $1000 each or less. 

The FCC received over 3000 formal comments in the Low Power FM hearings, more than any other issue in FCC history!!

And so the FCC created the "Low Power FM" broadcast service. Designed to be affordable (less than a new car) and protected from the big boys (only new and only new local ownership can apply for one).

LPFM has BROAD public support, half of the LPFM applicants are (often) conservative churches, half are educational organizations or radical change organizations. 

And the Big Broadcasters know this and can't stand the competition. The Big Broadcasters are trying to cut costs, cut jobs by running all their radio stations by remote control. They don't want to have to hire back that staff because some 98 watt LPFM weakling is doing a better job on local music, culture and news than they can remotely. 

And so here we are at the tail end of a Senate Session. They were due to adjourn last week. 
Many Senators want to go home and campaign for reelection.

The Big Broadcasters are working hard to get our Senators all lined up to kill LOCAL COMMUNITY AND CHURCH radio 
that would increase their expenses because they would have to compete with us for your heart and soul.

The Big Broadcasters hope that President Clinton will not follow through on his promise to veto 
any bill that harms Low Power FM.

We need to provide Clinton with the support he needs to veto anti-LPFM legislation no matter what.
 
 

ALSO: remind Clinton that you don't appreciate NPR President Kevin Klose going against his own NPR membership stations in opposing Low Power FM, using tax money to kick thousands of church and educational LPFM radio stations off the air.
 
 

NPR affiliate Brasher, "I felt a little like a citizen might feel if he woke up one morning to find that a new president had been elected, but nobody told him there was an election. Frankly, I really doubt that the position taken by the officers, and I understand, this Board, represents the true feelings of the men and women who work in National Public Radio and in our stations.!"  (Speaking to the NPR board about President Kevin Klose's apparently renegade attack on LPFM.)