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Current in Atlanta?

Long time reader, first time poster.
Curious if anyone here is familiar with The Current, from Minneapolis Public Radio http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/. I heard about it from a friend of mine, who lives in the twin cities, and i've been listening online quite a bit. This, imho, is exactly what Atlanta needs on the air. It's obvious that we like and support WABE http://blogs.ajc.com/radio-tv-talk/2012/10/30/wabe-fm-has-another-record-breaking-campaign-drive-with-nearly-1-5-million-in-pledges/. Could we support a 2nd public station? What would it take for something like this to take off here?
 
Yeah, i'd rather not have to use HD radio, i'd like something terrestrial that would actually benefit the radio culture of the city.
Are there public signals that aren't being utilized in Atlanta?
 
YaketySax said:
Yeah, i'd rather not have to use HD radio, i'd like something terrestrial that would actually benefit the radio culture of the city.
Are there public signals that aren't being utilized in Atlanta?

What would benefit the radio culture in the Atlanta market is for public radio stations to become 100 percent self-sustaining and not have to rely on federal funding. The regulations should be changed to allow very limited commercial sponsorship on NPR stations of two minutes every half hour to supplement non-commercial grants. Because there are less than a handful of viable AM stations in the Atlanta market, why couldn't a commercial AM station carry blocks of non-commercial programming in off-peak hours?
 
sagebasics said:
YaketySax said:
Yeah, i'd rather not have to use HD radio, i'd like something terrestrial that would actually benefit the radio culture of the city.
Are there public signals that aren't being utilized in Atlanta?

What would benefit the radio culture in the Atlanta market is for public radio stations to become 100 percent self-sustaining and not have to rely on federal funding. The regulations should be changed to allow very limited commercial sponsorship on NPR stations of two minutes every half hour to supplement non-commercial grants. Because there are less than a handful of viable AM stations in the Atlanta market, why couldn't a commercial AM station carry blocks of non-commercial programming in off-peak hours?

Thanks for trolling...come again.

EJM said:
YaketySax said:
Are there public signals that aren't being utilized in Atlanta?

Not to be flippant, but it depends on what you mean by "public". Atlanta is an unusual market in that it has two strong-signaled student-operated college stations (WRAS and WREK)--plus a strong-signaled "community" station (WRFG). Those three stations--plus the aforementioned WABE and WCLK--are, I think, the only non-commercial-band (i.e., 88.1-91.9) FMs that are licensed to Atlanta itself. Most of the other non-commercial FMs in the market, I believe, are rimshots and/or religious.

By contrast, the Twin Cities market has just one major student-operated college station (KUOM, aka "Radio K")--and it's a simulcast that started out on AM.

Thanks for the good info. The non-commercial bands are pretty muddled here and while i totally respect student stations (I cut my teeth at one as well) they don't provide consistent quality like a professionally run non-commercial would. The problem is finding a signal. MPR, who operates The Current, bought the signal from St. Olaf College. Apparently it was quite the controversy.
I just think there are a lot of people upset that there's no outlet for the people who loved the kind of new music and variety we got from both Dave and/or 99x. This just seems like a very good solution to that problem, it would provide a loose AAA or an "anti-format" of sorts. Something that would that reflect our contemporary society, with good ties to the local music community.
 
WABE and WPBA have never been part of GPB.
 
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