Funny story: 93.7 is my girlfriend's
favorite radio station. It's the only one she'll listen to unless I'm on somewhere. Even then, I prefer A.M. radio & am down towards Providence so the odds are slim of her tuning in there. Anyway, the point is that while you don't like 93.7, there are people who
do. You call it bovine excrement; my girlfriend calls it the only station worth listening to. She hates what they play on 94.5 (she's a rap purist & prefers the early-mid '90s & '80s), I doubt she listens to any of the classic rockers/hits/oldies/whatever stations (especially now since 2 of the Boston stations & 2 more in Providence are running Xmas music in mid-frickin'-November) unless we're in my car.
Pirate radio for me isn't good because when I'm leaving my girlfriend's house in East Bridgewater on Sunday morning, I have 89.3 as a preset. That's
supposed to be WUMD: North Dartmouth. They play Jazz during that time. Instead I get
another French/Haitian Creole pirate from Brockton. In East Providence on the weekends, 103.1 starts up jamming 103.3! There's also one down this way in Providence running the same language on 96.7, interfering with WTKK (I don't like talk radio on F.M., personally) & WTIC-FM (which my radio, I think, is the only one capable of hearing it. Still, I want to hear a licensed station from Hartford that nobody else around here can!).
Does 97.7 "give a crap" about Brockton? Does 106.3 care about Woonsocket? 1410 in Brockton cared about their community. 1410 tried to make a go at it in Spanish. They spent $1.7M on that place back in 2004. They wanted $750k recently before it went into receivership. WMSX was trying to serve their C.O.L. (or at least part of it) and, probably at least partly due to the pirates, that owner went out of business.
The F.C.C. is not only a paper tiger, they're impotent. I think they should be able to enforce the rules but anytime they write a station up the fines are usually reduced & in lesser circumstances, eliminated altogether! Yes, in their current form, they do suck! If I were an agent, I'd want to go fine stations if for no other reason than revenue enhancement! If after an initial letter they didn't cease, I'd be busting up pirates with the S.W.A.T. team like they did with a pirate in Tampa 10 years ago (102.1 the Party Pirate) then fining them $75k! But I wouldn't preclude them from ever owning a licensed station (I believe that's the case with a former pirate not being able to own an L.P.F.M.). WBCQ is an example. It was started in 1998 by former pirate Allan Weiner. It's been on for 10 years now broadcasting free speech programming to 3 continents on 4 frequencies.
I hate what radio has become. I tune in less & less. When I started
in 1996, there were a lot more owners, seemingly more variety, etc.. I've worked for 2 of the Big C companies. The feeling I got there was not of evil, but something more hollow. Those stations were just hollow. I've had to line up voicetracks in Prophet at WFKS-FM in Jacksonville. I've sat in an empty studio at WQIK-FM in Jacksonville on the overnight shift while somebody else's voice played on air & my job was just to make sure there was enough music for the hour. Now do the listeners care? I'd like to think so. They're listening to less radio, watching less T.V. & reading less print. They've gotten tired of the old media & have new toys.
Think all radio is soulless & banal like the big stations? Check out WOON-Woonsocket, R.I. (
www.on1240.com &
www.onworldwide.com). They're doing it
RIGHT! WOON is a Woonsocket-oriented station that carries the high school football & moreso, hockey, games; it carries local news & weather; it plays all sorts of music. They also don't turn their backs on Bellingham, Blackstone, Cumberland, Lincoln, Millville, North Smithfield or Smithfield.
They way to change things is internally rather than externally. Personally, in the years in between posts (your handle was "Real Deal Ed Beal Rapking" when I last posted en masse) I've seen you have a passion for urban music & WILD/1090 as they were. I used to have 1090 on my A.M. stereo car radio here in Providence which I could hear when I went to work near the state house (here in town, 1110 is too powerful). I took them off when they dropped stereo & flipped to talk. I haven't been back since. Now, $7M is too much for WILD, I agree. As I remember, that was the price a few years ago. With Radio One's current stock price you could give them 3 sticks of chewing gum & it'd be a fair trade. This may come across crass, but why don't you & all the pirates pool your money, get a loan &
buy 1090? It has the heritage. It's waiting to come back. Radio One will be out of Boston (seemingly forever), R&B will be back on air (probably gospel, classic soul & Caribbean on Sunday again too) & hopefully so will C-QuAM stereo. Run a model station so the F.C.C. won't touch it, get a 2 share in the ratings & get the ads. Simple enough. Buy 1090. Go legit. There are enough stations out there. One will come sooner or later. Buy a licensed station. Remember, even if the F.C.C. isn't going to do anything, how do you justify income from a pirate station to the I.R.S.? They'll most definitely come after someone!