WBAI announces fall schedule

[K.M. Richards]

WBAI New York Sets Fall Lineup.

Pacifica Foundation’s WBAI New York has unveiled a new fall lineup that includes a mix of progressive talk shows, music programming, and activist-driven content. The lineup includes “Earth Riot Radio,”

www.insideradio.com

The lineup includes “Earth Riot Radio,” “Groovelines,” “Caribbean Voices and Beyond,” “Naturalistic Support,” “The Abolitionist Show,” “The Sweet Spot,” and the return of “Leonard Lopate at Large.”

And the same 45 people will continue to be the core audience.

 

[TheBigA]

This new programming comes after the FCC fined WBAI for non-disclosure of sponsorship in some of its previous programs. Those programs no longer are heard:

Pacifica Agrees to Pay $25,000 for WBAI Rule Violations - Radio World

Pacifica Foundation, owner of 99.5 WBAI(FM) New York, has agreed to pay a $25,000 penalty for on-air violations related to underwriting language and non-disclosure of sponsored programming.

www.radioworld.com

 

[K.M. Richards]

Pacifica never fails to prove how unqualified they are to be a broadcast licensee.

 

[RadioGuy1864]

Pacifica never fails to prove how unqualified they are to be a broadcast licensee.

Hands down the most dis-functional station group in the country.

 

[Barry]

Ironically, WBAI's left-leaning talk/music format has remained on the air longer than those of most other stations in the market.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Ironically,

Or moronically.

 

[davideduardo]

WBAI New York Sets Fall Lineup.

Pacifica Foundation’s WBAI New York has unveiled a new fall lineup that includes a mix of progressive talk shows, music programming, and activist-driven content. The lineup includes “Earth Riot Radio,”

www.insideradio.com

And the same 45 people will continue to be the core audience.

The thing I don't understand is the Pacifica insistence in doing block programming where one show does not "flow" into another. Totally different subjects next to each other with no cross-theme appeal.

That may have worked in the 50's and 60's, but in the era of podcasts on demand, it is useless.

 

[TheBigA]

Ironically, WBAI's left-leaning talk/music format has remained on the air longer than those of most other stations in the market.

That's due to its consistent ownership by Pacifica. They bought the station in 1960. One radio station where the format has been on the air longer than WBAI is WAWZ. Pillar of Fire bought 99.1 in 1954, 6 years before WBAI.

The thing I don't understand is the Pacifica insistence in doing block programming where one show does not "flow" into another. Totally different subjects next to each other with no cross-theme appeal.

You'll find a lot of it in non-commercial educational radio. A lot of NPR stations used to break format for Prairie Home Companion or Mountain Stage. These stations use special programs to fundraise, encouraging members to support specific shows rather than the station as a whole.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

ive worked for some screwed up companies/stations run and managed by some real winners of humans and pacifica makes them look like a palatial well run taj mahal in comparison

 

[davideduardo]

You'll find a lot of it in non-commercial educational radio. A lot of NPR stations used to break format for Prairie Home Companion or Mountain Stage. These stations use special programs to fundraise, encouraging members to support specific shows rather than the station as a whole.

But today, with podcasts on demand, why would anyone try to assimilate those convoluted program schedules of the Pacifica stations and, in fact, some NPR affiliates, where it is nearly impossible to tell what the schedule is without spending an hour a week memorizing it!

 

[TheBigA]

But today, with podcasts on demand, why would anyone try to assimilate those convoluted program schedules of the Pacifica stations and, in fact, some NPR affiliates, where it is nearly impossible to tell what the schedule is without spending an hour a week memorizing it!

The thinking is that you don't care about the schedule. All you care about is your favorite show. Maybe you heard about it through social media or a podcast. And the only time you listen to traditional radio is when that show comes on. The rest of the time you're streaming.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

But today, with podcasts on demand, why would anyone try to assimilate those convoluted program schedules of the Pacifica stations and, in fact, some NPR affiliates, where it is nearly impossible to tell what the schedule is without spending an hour a week memorizing it!

since i enjoy being the outlier.... lol... we kinda sorta somewhat had a convoluted program schedule.. a car/truck repair show followed by a 100 years of music show followed by a show about alcohol/drug abuse recovery on a saturday .. the BBC WS followed by the car repair show thursday nights...... sundays we have a yacht rock show.

BUT.. its done with the audiences varied interests and needs in mind

 

[radiofan2023]

The thinking is that you don't care about the schedule. All you care about is your favorite show. Maybe you heard about it through social media or a podcast. And the only time you listen to traditional radio is when that show comes on. The rest of the time you're streaming.

As one of probably only a few people here who’s listened to WBAI, this was exactly why I listened, just for Off the Hook years ago. But I streamed it since I didn’t live near NYC at the time. I didn’t even look at the rest of the schedule.

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

That's due to its consistent ownership by Pacifica. They bought the station in 1960. One radio station where the format has been on the air longer than WBAI is WAWZ. Pillar of Fire bought 99.1 in 1954, 6 years before WBAI.



You'll find a lot of it in non-commercial educational radio. A lot of NPR stations used to break format for Prairie Home Companion or Mountain Stage. These stations use special programs to fundraise, encouraging members to support specific shows rather than the station as a whole.

Not the same format. WAWZ used to be a very old-time sounding religious FM, with old hymns and talk programs, similar to Family Radio.

The past few years it's been a Jesus rocker called Star 99.

 

[TheBigA]

Not the same format. WAWZ used to be a very old-time sounding religious FM, with old hymns and talk programs, similar to Family Radio.

The music has also changed at WBAI. It used to be a lot of classical and folk. Now it's more ethnic. Music changes as the tastes change.

 

[Mark Roberts]

But today, with podcasts on demand, why would anyone try to assimilate those convoluted program schedules of the Pacifica stations and, in fact, some NPR affiliates, where it is nearly impossible to tell what the schedule is without spending an hour a week memorizing it!

The thinking is that you don't care about the schedule. All you care about is your favorite show. Maybe you heard about it through social media or a podcast. And the only time you listen to traditional radio is when that show comes on. The rest of the time you're streaming.

This type of schedule is particularly common among community stations, many of which modeled themselves after the stations Lorenzo Milam helped put on the air. Volunteers - usually it's volunteers - come in and do their favorite things for a few hours each week and help keep the station on the air. Heaven help you if you suggest moving to a more commercial-style schedule. The wrath of the volunteers will be upon you. This has been true for decades: it happened at KUNM in Albuquerque in the 1980s when it tried to move away from block programming and a "freeform" approach to music. To this day, there are elements of block programming at KUNM and at the other NPR station in town, KANW.

KGNU in Boulder and Denver has talk and information programming in morning and afternoon drive, with music middays. KGNU even switches off the stereo pilot on FM for the talk programming. (The Denver AM station and the Boulder FM station simulcast.) And even NPR programming has discrete beginnings and endings. It's hard to imagine how it could be otherwise unless NPR were to try to become a non-commercial version of NBC's NIS or AP's The News Station. Then it wouldn't be NPR any more.

Who knows, maybe these discrete programs give people a reason to listen and actively seek out a station? Commercial radio seems to be increasingly unable to perform that task.

 

[TheBigA]

Who knows, maybe these discrete programs give people a reason to listen and actively seek out a station? Commercial radio seems to be increasingly unable to perform that task.

Maybe. I'm starting to think the radio shows are promoting the podcasts which are promoting the radio shows in a circular way. If they can get enough people to buy in, they can raise enough money to stay afloat. But the radio station isn't the main attraction, which is different from how radio used to be.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Maybe. I'm starting to think the radio shows are promoting the podcasts which are promoting the radio shows in a circular way. If they can get enough people to buy in, they can raise enough money to stay afloat. But the radio station isn't the main attraction, which is different from how radio used to be.

This morning, listening to KOA and hearing the nth iteration of iHeart's promotion of how "free never sounded so good" at the top of the hour, it made me wonder, "how is that working for you?" Advertising, I presume, but online advertising spread across a seemingly endless choice of channels encounters some what some in business call "peanut buttering" - spreading resources and, likely, revenues, so thin that you can't meet your objectives.

Perhaps the reason the landscape is so confused right now is that we're in a transition period to something that we can't see yet.

 

[TheBigA]

Perhaps the reason the landscape is so confused right now is that we're in a transition period to something that we can't see yet.

Absolutely. That applies to everything. Nothing is permanent.