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Rolling Stone: from rock n roll to rock of ages

Here's a free version of that article:

www.yahoo.com

Why Is the Radio Full of Christian Rock? Thank This Nonprofit

The Educational Media Foundation is the country’s fastest-growing radio chain — and it's exploiting federal loopholes to buy up local radio stations and take the devil's music off the air
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

Its a great article. The thing it ignores is that the exact thing that makes EMF successful COULD be used by fans of other genres of music if they'd simply tap into the power of operating as a non-profit. There is absolutely no reason why a group of music lovers couldn't start a non-profit, raise money, and buy a radio station.

In fact, in Seattle, a very wealthy music lover started a non-profit based on the legacy of Jimi Hendrix. He funded a museum and an alternative rock radio station called KEXP. That group of friends just bought a second radio station in San Francisco, and will preach the gospel of rock music in a second city. So it CAN be done.

KEXP -- Coming Soon to the Bay Area

www.kexp.org www.kexp.org
 
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TheBigA said:
Here's a free version of that article:

www.yahoo.com

Why Is the Radio Full of Christian Rock? Thank This Nonprofit

The Educational Media Foundation is the country’s fastest-growing radio chain — and it's exploiting federal loopholes to buy up local radio stations and take the devil's music off the air
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

Its a great article. T
Click to expand...
I find the article terribly biased. It speaks of bad music taking over the airwaves without considering that what the "example station" WAAF played is horrible music to just as many people... Rolling Stone seems to expect that everyone has to like whatever flavor of rock they are favoring and nothing else.

Then they compare EMF with NPR. EMF owns and operates stations. NPR produces programming. There is no valid point of comparison. It is like comparing car dealers with auto manufacturers; same filed, different businesses entirely.

And the criticism of EMF for not playing songs that are inside the scope of an AC format is absurd. Non-religious based AC's don't play rap or hard rock or heavy country. Why should EMF's AC format be any different. This is like complaining that there are not enough Black Regional Mexican artists!

And to find a faith-based organization somehow to be highly nefarious just because it is a non-profit group is just untenable as a premise for criticism. From churches to dog shelters, non-profit organizations do lots of cause-based fund raising, from the Red Cross to the SPCA. The organizers of the entity were seeking the furthering of a cause, not personal profit; what is wrong with that?

Whether it is the United Negro College Fund or the Museum of Tolerance, many non-profits have some kind of social agenda they are based on and that is fundamental to being a non-profit.

But the most horrid part of the article is the belief by the folks at Rolling Stone that the "left end of the dial" was not set up for non-profit faith based organizations and that somehow they are invading and taking over stations that should be run by, I guess, the good folks art Pacifica instead of the evil ones at EMF.

In most of the final part of the article, Rolling Stone rants about the horrible quality of contemporary Christian music. That may be their opinion as a once-upon-a-time rock magazine, but that is all it is: opinion.

(I don't like the EMF music either. It is, to me, boring and uninspiring. But I feel the same way about hard rock... loud, boring and uninspiring. In both cases, opinion. And an opinion not shared by two very large groups of Christian and Rock music followers.)
 
DavidEduardo said:
I find the article terribly biased.
Click to expand...

Remember which publication wrote the article. You're not going to get Rolling Stone to say nice things about religious radio.

In my view, the mistake in the article is to cast EMF as a villain, and showing no alternate course of action. There is a solution, but the article doesn't offer one. If they simply look at KEXP, it becomes a much better story.
 
TheBigA said:
Remember which publication wrote the article. You're not going to get Rolling Stone to say nice things about religious radio.
Click to expand...
I get that. But they have facts wrong, such as the use of 88 to 91 MHz.

They fail to mention that a huge portion of the EMF stations are commercial band stations they have bought and converted, starting with New York, LA, Boston and Puerto Rico. And many, in today's environment, could find no other qualified buyer.

They also miss that most of those stations sold because, like half of all US stations, they did not make money and had no alternative (pun sort of intended) to selling to EMF.
TheBigA said:
In my view, the mistake in the article is to cast EMF as a villain, and showing no alternate course of action. There is a solution, but the article doesn't offer one. If they simply look at KEXP, it becomes a much better story.
Click to expand...
They certainly don't consider that many other stations are "failed" and can't exist in crowded bands brought on us, mostly, Docket 80-90.

And they give scant recognition to the fact that all of radio, 540 to 1700 and 88 to 108, has been hit by the Internet, perhaps beyond its ability to survive.
 
DavidEduardo said:
But the most horrid part of the article is the belief by the folks at Rolling Stone that the "left end of the dial" was not set up for non-profit faith based organizations and that somehow they are invading and taking over stations that should be run by, I guess, the good folks art Pacifica instead of the evil ones at EMF.
Click to expand...

The writers of the article may be aware of the battle being fought over streaming rates, where religious broadcasters are claiming that NPR stations are being charged a lower rate, even though they're both non-profit:

Religious Broadcasters Get More Time From Supreme Court To Challenge Streaming Rates.

The case is going to the supreme court.

There has been a long battle over the use of the public airwaves by religions, going back to Amy Semple McPherson. The constitutional argument might be that using a federal resource, licensed by the government by a specific religion is equal to the government establishing a religion, prohibited by the first amendment. So there's a lot going on here.
 
TheBigA said:
There has been a long battle over the use of the public airwaves by religions, going back to Amy Semple McPherson. The constitutional argument might be that using a federal resource, licensed by the government by a specific religion is equal to the government establishing a religion, prohibited by the first amendment. So there's a lot going on here.
Click to expand...
But going there is terrain filled with landmines and poisonous snakes. So many organizations that do charitable non-profit work are faith-based or founded on religious principles. Start with the Salvation Army and go to the YMCA. Or look at faith and religion based non-profit hospitals. Heck, even Alcoholics Anonymous says this in its Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference".

All of these, and all the others that are in those categories and more are in some way based on a religious organization or principle. As such, they are core to the FCC's original intent in creating a non-profit portion of the FM band. And that is why essentially any legal non-profit organization, from the anti-war Pacifica founders to the Catholic Church to student run college stations can be granted licenses in the 88 to 92 part of the dial.

There has never, as far as I know, been a protest or objection filed towards the range of entities granted non-commercial FM channel stations.
 
DavidEduardo said:
And that is why essentially any legal non-profit organization, from the anti-war Pacifica founders to the Catholic Church to student run college stations can be granted licenses in the 88 to 92 part of the dial. There has never, as far as I know, been a protest or objection filed towards the range of entities granted non-commercial FM channel stations.
Click to expand...

All of that was well and good until those stations started expanding out of that small area into the larger commercial band. There were some commercial classical operators who saw the non-com classical stations as a threat. I think we see some news/talk stations feel that way as well.
 
racketmn.com

Why Does Minnesota Have 9 Near-Identical Christian Music Radio Stations? - Racket

Ever wondered why there’s so much Christian music on the radio? There’s one simple answer: The Educational Media Foundation. The obliquely named organization, the second-largest radio chain in the nation, was the subject of an eye-opening feature in the latest issue of Rolling Stone written by...
racketmn.com racketmn.com

The obliquely named organization, the second-largest radio chain in the nation, was the subject of an eye-opening feature in the latest issue of Rolling Stone written by local multimedia journalist/musician/Soft Cult Studio cofounder Katie Thornton."

Local to the article writer interview this post started with.
 
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