FCC Steps Up Pressure on Boulder Pirates

A short blog post from Monk, formerly the brains behind the first iteration of Boulder Free Radio KBFR, reports that two separate unlicensed stations in Boulder, CO were recently “shut down” by the FCC. A new KBFR with new a new crew behind it has been operating in Boulder since sometime last year. Monk has no other details on these recent shut downs.

So I set about investigating what might be going on, since Boulder has been the site of free radio innovation for quite some time. I’ve not been able to find any news reports on any bust, but a check of the FCC’s most recent enforcement actions turns up four virtually identical Notices of Unlicensed Operation (NOUO) dated May 8. Three were issued to individuals and one was issued simply to “Boulder Free Radio, Boulder, CO.” There’s no indication in the NOUOs that the FCC talked to anyone associated with the station or gained access to a transmitter. Unusually, there aren’t even any street addresses listed. Likely this means that agents didn’t mail the notices, but left them at the door.

This evening I received email confirmation from Boulder Free Radio that there was another FCC visit to a transmitter location last Friday, May 29, and that they’re off the air. They’re planning to stay off the air for the time being while they assess the situation. However, their web radio stream continues to broadcast (on the internet only, of course).

The current KBFR is operating according to a similar gameplan as the original station, using the tactic of separating the studio and transmitter using an internet audio stream as the studio-to-transmitter-link (STL). If the transmitter is visited they pack up shop there and move to a new location without the studio or the on-air talent being affected. This method ostensibly allows the station to have a sizable staff of DJs without having to divulge to them the location of the transmitter, or expose the DJs to liability for the unlicensed broadcast.

Indeed, with this method there really isn’t any need for the persons behind the web stream to even know the persons operating the transmitters. This method also has been employed during large protest actions, where a live webstream will originate from a convergence center or Independent Media Center which is then rebroadcast for the duration of the protest by anonymous, unrelated pirates.

Monk and the original KBFR were able to keep up this tactic for nearly five years of cat and mouse games with the unusually aggressive Denver FCC office. He finally called it a day in January, 2005. According to Monk, the FCC agent on their case

bordered on (and in talking to lawyers we know, actually crossed the line) illegal activity. He harassed private citizens at their work place (accusing them, to their bosses, of ‘breaking the law on company time’) and the aforementioned roommate of the original Monk from Five Years Ago. We’ve since learned that this ex-roomie of the original Monk actually had to hire a lawyer to protect himself from having just been the roommate of one of us. And HALF a DECADE ago. …

The reason we shut down is our fear of innocents getting blamed for things they didn’t do…

Who knows if the FCC will be that aggressive with the new KBFR, especially given that the FCC agent in question supposedly retired four years ago.

As for the second station Monk reports being shut down: I’ve found no other recent actions against unlicensed stations in Boulder in the FCC’s enforcement action list. However I have heard that another station, unrelated to Boulder Free Radio, was operating.

Missives from Deep Wireless

I wish I had the time and money to go to the Deep Wireless Festival of Radio Art and Radio Without Boundaries conference up in Toronto which wrapped up this past weekend. The Festival is “a month-long celebration of radio and transmission art including performances, installations, broadcasts, workshops, (and) a Youth Radio residency.” It’s interesting that with the meteoric decline of commercial radio there seem to be an increasing number of conferences, festivals and events celebrating forms of mostly non-commercial radio and radio art.

At least I can experience elements of Deep Wireless vicariously via blog posts from free103point9‘s Tom Roe and Transom.org.
Unfortunately I missed most of free103point9′s live stream — I hope archives are posted soon.

Tom’s blog posts include (itemized because they’re otherwise not easily linked as a group):

• Andra McCartney on soundscapes
• Chris Brookes on the need (or not) for narration, “Oh, Shut Up! Who needs a narrator anyway?”
• Radio that reflects community, which Tom says “was preaching to the converted.”
• Soundscapes of the imagination: the grey area between fact and fiction

  Radio and transmission arts is something I’ve been interested in since I started in (legitimate) radio broadcasting back in 1989, and I’m really glad to see that the internet has only increased interest and helped unite and catalyze artists, rather than discouraging them. I’ve tried to cover the subject on the radioshow here and there, and hope to do more both on the show and on this here blog.

On This Week’s Radioshow: German Experimental Radio

I’m excited this week to have as my guest Daniel Gilfillan, an associate professor of German studies and information literacy at Arizona State University, and author of the new book Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio. What’s interesting about this topic is how early German radio enthusiasts, scholars and producers sought to make that medium something more than a means for broadcasting light entertainment and, eventually, propaganda. In his book Gilfillan makes crucial connections between these early experiments and our contemporary multi-media world where we still stand in that disputed territory between producer and receiver.

This interview airs live on the mediageek radioshow this Thursday, May 21, at 9 PM Central Time on WNUR 89.FM in Chicago. You can tune in live online at wnur.org.

Before and during the program please send me your questions and comments via email (mediageek(at)gmail.com) or via Twitter, and I’ll read them on air.

The Secret to Limbaugh’s Success Is Giving It Away + Consolidation

Clear Channel, the Republican Party and Rush himself would have you believe that the key to his success in radio is due to the popularity of his idiosyncratic conservative viewpoint. But how did he get there? The same way as your friendly corner drug dealer — he gave it away for free.

This is something that folks who’ve watched the radio industry since the 90s know, and I blogged about six years ago:

Rush’s popularity rose in the early 90s at the same time that the fortunes of many radio stations was declining, especially small AM stations. At about the same time Premiere radio networks saw an opportunity and started selling these stations talk programming like Rush and Dr. Laura that was cheaper than these stations even attempting to do their own programming. For its part, Premiere could offer cheap rates to stations because they could leverage the nationwide coverage with their advertisers.

To start with, stations didn’t sign on to carrying Rush because he was so popular and entertaining. No, simply his program was long, relatively consistent and cheap, cheap, cheap.

Media blogger and former Inside Radio contributor Bill Mann reminds us all of this fact with a piece at the Huffington Post, now that Limbaugh’s back in the news as the apparent leader of the Republican party. Mann writes,

Here’s how a barter deal works: To launch the show, Limbaugh’s syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks — the same folks who syndicate wingnut du jour Glen Beck — gave Limbaugh’s three hours away — that’s right, no cash — to local radio stations, mostly in medium and smaller markets, back in the early 1990′s.

So, a local talk station got Rush’s show for zilch. In exchange, Premiere took for itself much of the local station’s available advertising time (roughly 15 minutes an hour) and packed the show with national ads it had already pre-sold.

He adds that his sources indicate that many small market stations are still paying nothing or next-to-nothing to air old Rushy.

The point that Mann doesn’t get to is the close relationship between ownership and political programming. It’s all the more relevant now while Limbaugh and his imitators keep crying wolf about the red herring of highly improbably revival of the Fairness Doctrine. I’ve always thought it unfortunate that many liberals and progressives have pinned hopes on resuscitating the Doctrine as a way to stem the tide of right-wing hate broadcasting. That’s because the Doctrine almost never worked the way they’d hope it would, mostly being used by political or commercial rivals to get at each other.

More importantly, while the rise of Limbaugh was certainly helped along by the absence of the Fairness Doctrine, the most potent force was the 1996 Telecom Act which removed the national radio ownership cap. That allowed Jacor Broadcasting to buy up an unprecedented 169 stations (sound quaint now, doesn’t it) before the ink on the Act was dry. Then a year later Jacor bought Rush’s syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks. Not long after that Jacor was acquired by Clear Channel, which would go on to own a peak of over 1200 stations.

While not every Limbaugh station was or is owned by Clear Channel, a very significant majority are, especially in major markets. While Clear Channel has made tentative steps into the liberal/progressive radio programming arena, by and large its overwhelming conservative bent has reflected the politics of its owners and founders.

Put simply: it’s the ownership, stupid.

Clever marketing (who can argue with free) taking advantage of the AM band’s poor fortunes in the early 90s combined with rapid consolidation created the Rush Limbaugh machine we know today. If Jacor and Clear Channel’s management had a liberal political bent, would Rush be the giant he is now? Hard to say, since not too many liberals head up companies like Clear Channel. But what we can’t lose sight of is the fact that liberals didn’t own Clear Channel, and the path to talk radio dominance was bought and paid for, just like payola, only technically legal.

On Thursday’s Radioshow: New LPFM Bill & Journalism Town Hall

Another new Congress, another new low-power FM bill. In what’s become a tradition since Congress voted to stunt the growth of low-power radio back in 2000, a new Local Community Radio Act has been introduced. But this time around the bill arguably has the best chance of passing yet. We’ll hear from some of the bill’s sponsors and proponents.

Then we’ll hear some excerpts from the Chicago Journalism Town Hall that brought together a diverse panel and audience to discuss the future of local journalism.

The mediageek radioshow airs live Thursday night at 9 PM CST on WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago, IL, and streaimng live online at wnur.org. The podcast will be posted this weekend.

mediatwit

I realize not everyone reads the blog from the webpage itself — some read by RSS readers. So you might have missed my Twitter feed over on the right sidebar. I started using the micro-blogging Twitter app about eight months ago, and integrated it into the site some time in the fall. I like Twitter because it’s an easy way to publish quick thoughts or links–tweets are limited to 140 characters–without having to go through the full WordPress blog interface. On top of that, there’s a critical mass of users making it good way to network and pick up some good info.

But this post isn’t just about my Twitter usage (which would make for a lame post), but rather two interesting mediageek-like uses I’ve seen.

Ragnar is the producer of the Pirates’ Week podcast, covering pirate radio–primarily shortwave–for more than three years (listen to an interview with Ragnar on the radioshow). An avid shortwave listener, Ragnar has now been posting his reception reports of pirate stations to his Twitter feed. This is a perfect use of Twitter because Ragnar posts while the station is broadcasting, along with its frequency. Pirate shortwave stations are all hit-and-run affairs. They don’t broadcast 24/7, but rather for a half-hour or hour at a time, especially when shortwave propagation conditions are good (they change with the seasons, time of day and atmospheric conditions). So listening to pirate shortwave stations is always a bit of hunt. While the chase is part of the fun, it’s still nice to have someone give you hand by letting you know when he’s found a station.

To some extent Twitter is even more up-to-the-minute than blogs, since the tweets are short and easy to post quickly, making it an ideal platform to broadcast breaking info. You can also configure Twitter to text message your phone with tweets–you can choose whose tweets do that. If you’re a hardcore pirate listener, then this might be a way to stay on top of things without being on the computer.

Boulder Free Radio is an unlicensed FM radio station that recently returned to the air in that Colorado city with a new crew, resurrecting the name and spirit of a former station that called it quits in 2005. The KBFR crew is also using Twitter to post programming info, events, and other stuff of interest to listeners.

My understanding is that the station is broadcasting nightly, with longer broadcasts on the weekends. To the best of my knowledge the station doesn’t currently maintain a website. So using a Twitter feed is a good way to keep listeners informed of when broadcasts and other events may be happening. Of course, publicity is always a risk for a pirate station, since you also possibly publicize to the FCC. But the more instantaneous nature of Twitter means that you don’t have to give much advance notice. This is an advantage when dealing with the FCC, which isn’t necessarily well suited to running out to bust pirate broadcasters like cops answering a 911 call.

Announcing broadcasts via Twitter would be especially useful for hit-and-run stations that attempt to minimize detection by the authorities by maintaining a less predictable schedule.

Twitter is also designed for two-way communication. Anyone with a free Twitter account can send public or private messages to another Twitter user as easily as posting a tweet. This could be a good way to take requests, reception reports and listener feedback without using the phone or email.

If any readers know of some interesting or innovative use of Twitter by other indy media makers — pirate or otherwise — I’d be curious to hear about them.

Limited Area Broadcasting

I’ve just spent a little chunk of time plowing through the archives of the Low Power Radio blog, which I found through my referrer logs. It promises insight on “how to set up and operate your own low power radio station.” By low power, the blogger Kev means:

Micro radio, micro power broadcasting, part 15 radio, community radio, neighborhood station, experimental broadcasting, hobby broadcasting – I love it all!

It’s primarily a pretty good compendium of annotated links that’s been going with a few posts a month since February. Indeed, I found info about many more part-15 low-power transmitters for both AM and FM than I knew were available. There’s been a community of so-called “legal” low-power broadcasters in the US for a very long time. Many enthusiasts and broadcasters have been congregating for years at a message board called “Community Radio USA”. One of the denizens of that board has his own site called HobbyBroadcasting.net HobbyBroadcaster.net, which I found while reading through the Low Power Radio Blog.

While here at the ‘geek the focus is often on unlicensed broadcasters operating with power above the part-15 limit (roughly 100 milliwatts or so), there’s much utility to be found with part-15 stations, especially in dense urban areas or similar circumstances. Since FM part-15 limits are based on field-strength it’s relatively difficult to build a station with much reach that remains truly legal — even if you pump only 10 milliwatts into a very efficient antenna several hundred feet off the ground you’ll likely be reaching further than part-15 regs allow.

However, AM limits are specified in antenna length and power (100 milliwatts), allowing much more room for creative engineering and getting more broadcast range without breaking the law. Kyle Drake’s excellent LPAM handbook is a great reference for anyone wanting to try out legal part-15 broadcasting on the AM dial.

Much of the info that the Low Power Radio blog has dug up is more historical in nature, culled from both internet and print sources, like this 1991 handbook for starting a station. While the references to equipment manufacturers and sellers may be outdated, there’s still some decent tech and historical info to glean. I’m glad that someone is compiling and sharing this stuff and I hope that the blog sticks around a while.

On this week’s radioshow: The Falsies

There is pollution in the radio environment, and there are polluters. For the last five years the Center for Media Democracy has bestowed a special award on those who pile it high and deep — the Falsies. On tomorrow night’s radioshow][/caption] I’ll be talking with Senior Researcher, Diane Farsetta, who will tell us more about this years lose…. er, winners, including the first ever recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Falsie.

Tune in live at 9 PM CST to WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago or online at wnur.org (live 128kbps stream). The show will be available at the radioshow page this weekend.

Another College Station Bids Farewell

Over at Arcane Radio Trivia, Jose Fritz laments the passing of college station WAWL on Dec. 10, formerly broadcasting from Chattanooga State Technical Community College . The college sold off its license for 91.5 FM for $1.5 million to Christian broadcaster Family Life Radio, based out of Tuscon, AZ.

$1.5 mil is a pretty big chunk of change for just one station in the 106th largest radio market in the US. I think that price conveys the relative scarcity of prime, full-power noncommercial channel space, even compared to commercial stations. It also demonstrates how the evangelical religious broadcast business is booming despite the down economy (perhaps even because of the down economy, feeding on people’s desperation).

Unfortunately, Family Life Radio’s gain is Chattanooga’s loss, as the city has a source for radio programming in touch with the local community and culture replaced with cookie-cutter, satellite-fed godcasting. What’s all the more rotten is that much of Family Life Radio’s programming is already heard on several other stations in the Chattanooga area, whether its contemporary Christian music or segments from Focus on the Family.

Chattanooga resident Paul Jackson articulates the loss in an opinion piece for the Chattanoogan:

when a 20-year non-commercial staple in this market that provides programming not offered by any other outlet (nor has any other throughout most of its existence) is simply auctioned and sold to a special interest group, could this raise a question of the importance of radio serving the interests of the community?

This is a side of deregulation and the resultant consolidation of the radio dial that often goes unnoticed. The growth market in Christian satellite-fed radio has caused the market value of noncommercial licenses to bubble in an area of broadcasting that was never intended to be subject to the so-called free market. The Clear Channelization of noncommercial radio has been slower than consolidation in commercial radio, but will only get worse as institutional owners of noncommercial college, educational and community-service stations strain under the bad economy, tempted by the opportunity for a quick buck obtained by selling off their radio licenses.

I might be more forgiving if Family Life Radio were at least going to broadcast a healthy schedule of locally-originated programming, supplemented by syndicated shows. But I see no indication that any of FLR’s station air much in the way of locally produced content — it’s the same lineup in Tuscon as in Lubbock as in Kalamazoo.

Now, Family Life Radio is still just shy of the 20-station limit that was in place before 1996, but the ability to buy a station in Chattanooga for $1.5 million indicates that this godcaster is ready to blow past that benchmark as long as it can find willing sellers. And once it does, another community will lose a local voice in favor of another homogenized godcaster from a 24/7 satellite signal.

Live on WEFT this Afternoon – 5:30 PM on 90.1 FM, Champaign-Urbana, IL

I’ll be literally phoning it in to my old haunt WEFT, 90.1 FM in Champaign-Urbana, IL, at 5:30 PM to do a special edition of the mediageek radioshow for their pledge drive. Long time readers/listeners may recall that WEFT is where the radioshow got its start and where it originated until April of this year.

WEFT station manager Mick Woolf will be in the studio there while we discuss the Tribune bankruptcy, the Obama plan for media and internet and, of course, the still relevant vitality of community radio.

If you’re in the Champaign area tune in, and please consider a donation to WEFT. If you’re elsewhere you can still tune in online.