The $550,000 Nipple
Rumors are circulating concerning indecency's imminent and valiant return to the limelight, following an extended period of hibernation. Almost all of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's pawns are in place to unleash a new line of assault against free speech: democratic and cartoon-butt-hating Commissioner Copps began his second term on the commission recently, republican Deborah Tate was sworn in as the newest member of the commission a few months ago, and republican Robert McDowell is awaiting confirmation for his recent appointment to fill the remaining empty seat on the panel. We also hear whispers of the Christian Coalition attempting to resurrect the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act. Things might get messy soon...
Commercial Radio hit with Payola Investigations
NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has moved on from squeezing hundreds of thousands of dollars out of hulking major record labels accused of engaging in pay-to-play, to reprimanding commercial radio conglomerates who received bribes with open arms. Sadly, Mr. Spitzer is under the impression that "payola hurts listeners, because under that system, money, not talent, affects what music they hear and which bands become popular." Silly Spitzer, advertisements affect the music people hear on the radio... talent hasn't factored into the airplay equation in years.
College Station Bullied by NPR Affiliate
WMUC, a small 10-watt station run by students at the University of Maryland, College Park, is in danger of disappearing thanks to a proposed power increase by 10,000-watt NPR giant WYPR in neighboring Baltimore. Although WYPR is fully aware of the repercussions that their power increase will have on WMUC, they plan to proceed with the upgrade anyway.
Undie Rock in Portland
A commercial rock station in Portland is making use of the multi-channel options available with the new high definition (HD) radio format (which, by the way, has lower fidelity than traditional analog radio): one of their sub-channels is dedicated to "Underground/Independent Rock." Although we have no idea what a commercial station might deem "independent" or "underground," we have nothing but respect for their moniker: Undie 100.
Other Radio News Headlines in brief:
- The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, the department of the UN that deals with copyright-related issues) is debating the need for international copyright laws in this wild and wooly digital era. As usual, the U.S. wants to take the fun out of things like webcasting and podcasting... Excellent coverage and analyses of these talks have been provided by Public Knowledge, EFF, and Boing Boing.
- A La Carte cable TV may be on its way.
- Satellite radio's recent woes. Broadcast radio's recent woes.
Greetings WFMU,
At WMUC www.wmucradio.com we just so happen to be fans of WFMU. While we were always aware of WFMU, we were fortunate to have an FM program director circa 1996 (Eric Speck) that was from Jersey City. Hence, many of our staff became listeners of WFMU as well as WMUC.
Thank you very much for mentioning us in your Blog. The current status of WYPR (as of Septermer 5, 2007) is that they have taken the initial steps in the installation of their new transmitter. The increase in power for WYPR will be from 10KW to 15.5 KW. Currently they are operating at a lower power to facilitate the installation of the new transmitter.
According to the 60dbu contour maps published on the FCC website, the increase of power by WYPR will not affect the licensure of WMUC however the broadcast range of WMUC will be greatly compromised. To give you an idea for comparison, WMUC operates at 10 Watts (yes 10) with an antenna height of 3 feet (yes 3) HAAT (height above average terrain). WYPR will be operating at 15,500 watts with an HAAT of 130 feet.
The current signal for WMUC has difficulty saturating the Campus of the University of Maryland while listeners in the surrounding community have difficulty maintaining a listenable signal.
The outcome effects are at this point unknown until WYPR actually "flips the switch". However, in all likelyhood WMUC will lose a majority of its already limited broadcast ability and WPYR will likely be unlistenable in our broadcast range. Leaving this senario that 88.1FM in the College Park, MD area will be an unlistenable mix of WMUC and WYPR.
In closing, WMUC 88.1FM is among the last bastions of truly freeform student operated, college radio stations in the nation and the ONLY freeform station in the Washington, DC region. WMUC has operated at 88.1FM longer than WYPR. The WMUC call sign was originally founded in 1937 as an AM Carrier Current station and is among the oldest continuously operating radio stations in the nation. Yes, that's right...this news of WYPR happens on the anniversary of our 70th year of broadcasting.
Any support you can grant to WMUC is GREATLY appreciated. We are studying our limited resources in the already crowded DC radio market. While our extremely limited financial abilities increase the difficulty and severely limit our options.
We hope you at WFMU will remain fans of WMUC as we remain fans of WFMU.
Sincerely yours,
Dominick
Electric Candle Radio Program
WMUC 88.1FM Saturday 3:00PM
www.wmucradio.com
Posted by: Dominick | September 05, 2007 at 07:05 PM