When WAVM, a high school radio station in Maynard, MA, applied to up its power, teachers and students never expected to be crushed by the iron fist of a higher power 5 years down the road. WAVM's frequency will soon be pulled out from under the school and transferred to a religious conglomerate from California, thanks to an FCC rule which allows other organizations to bid on frequencies when they apply for power increases (read the full story here or here). The feds somehow calculated that backhanded christians would better serve the community than the school that's run the noncommercial-educational station since 1973.
But this story is nothing new. Christian broadcasters have systematically preyed upon high school stations during the license renewal and power increase processes. More common than a complete high school station overthrow is a time-share allotment, especially in the days before ipod shuffle and robo-DJ technology (when some high school stations had difficulty broadcasting the FCC-required minimum of 12 hours per day).
If you would like to join WAVM's fight to save their frequency, write to the FCC:
Peter H. Doyle
Chief, Audio Division
Media Bureau
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554
Hi,
I live in East Orange and on my clock radio especially I can get in 2 stations WFMU and then there is a Xtian station which takes up the whole rest of the FM dial. It even comes in on my tape player, I can literally tape and playback their signal bleeding through to my casette player. I can't believe that this is not intentional.
Posted by: Bartleby | October 25, 2005 at 09:40 AM
Still, my favorite Xtian station will be KQPW-LP. 24 hours of origionally produced techno with pastor reading scripture.
Posted by: Wayne | October 25, 2005 at 10:42 AM
Thanks for posting this, Liz. Can you imagine the lesson this teaches kids about getting involved with the media? Public interest my ass.
For broadcasting of a Holy nature, I've never listened to WMLK, but this nutty-looking antenna along 78 in Pennsylvania has always made it my favorite. At least they have the courtesy to stick to shortwave.
Posted by: Pete | October 25, 2005 at 02:30 PM
Sorry, that's this nutty-looking antenna.
Posted by: Pete | October 25, 2005 at 02:37 PM
The other day, WAVM posted an updated address. For some reason the Peter Doyle address is no longer where the FCC wants the correspondence. See www.wavm.org if you want more details, but the new address (listed on wavm.org) is:
Marlene Dortch
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Big thanks to anyone who writes to protest this! And big thanks to this blog for asking people to help and posting the previous FCC name and address.
Janet
A concerned Maynard resident
Posted by: Janet Beatrice | October 26, 2005 at 04:52 PM