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Local stations featured on SCETV documentary

N

ngriffin

SCETV's Southern Lens program will feature a documentary called "Losing Their Voices" about the changes in the radio industry and the effects on local radio. I first saw mention of it in today's Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Their article mentioned that WBCU in Union and WAGI/WEAC in Gaffney would be among the stations included.

http://www.scetv.org/index.php/southern_lens/show/losing_their_voices

The program airs Thursday, October 9 at 10pm on SCETV's main channel (analog and the .1 channel on digital).
 
I am looking forward to seeing this documentary. I believe it will be right-on-the-money about what has happened to local, community oriented radio.

Yes! I remember those swap shows. Here in Easley, WELP AM 1360 and FM 103.9 at the time had a swap show called Tradio. Anything from baby chickens to tractors to most anything you could imagine was offered on there.

WELP was about as community as you could get. They carried high school football games on Friday nights. After the game every Friday, they had a call-in show called Buck's Scoreboard where they gave you a rundown of all the scores in the area. It was sponsored by the local (now defunct) Buck's Restaurant.

WELP AM/FM was a simulcast playing gospel music during the days. After the AM signed off at sundown the FM played mostly top-40. The FM normally signed off at 10:00pm every night, but would stay on later for football games and Buck's Scoreboard. The AM & FM transmitters at the time were co-located on the hill near the Arial community. Around 1980 the FM transmitter was moved out to a site near Kay Drive and Lathem Road and the power was increased to get a better signal into Greenville.

The AM, after several different owners, is still on the hill playing gospel, sounding pretty much the same as it did back then (no Tradio though). The once great community station FM 103.9 went through several different owners and formats before becoming WOLI-FM with a Spanish format.
 
There appears to be repeats of Southern Lens at 9pm the following Sunday night on the SC Channel (the .2 multicast channel).

I just recently moved to SC, so I'm looking forward to learning about local radio (past and present) here. I got my start in radio at an AM station in Iowa that still airs "Buy, Sell, or Trade" 6 days a week. The other AM in town had the "Trading Post." Along with the usual restrictions on what could be sold, we had to add car batteries. We had a caller who would take dead batteries, give 'em a good zap so they'd start once or twice, and then call in and sell them to an unsuspecting listener. Turned out to be the same crank who wrote nonsensical letters to the editor (doesn't every town have one?). :D

Also, y'all might be interested in Bob Doll's book about WBCU entitled A perfect union : 50 years in a small town and its radio station, a love story. It's 10 years old, so I don't think it's still in print, but if your public or college library doesn't have it, request it through interlibrary loan. Spartanburg CC has a copy, and I bet the library in Union does, too.
 
Sounds like a good program. I wish I could get it up here in the Tidewater area of VA. One can hope some program/owners will see it and say, "hey what a great idea, LOCAL radio." The swap shop programs were really popular as I came thru the years of broadcasting. We had it sold out every month!

Keep Radio Alive!

Kris
 
WOW!!! Too bad I am way up in IL... As someone who loves and worked in small town radio I am sure this special will hit the nail right on the head... If they have a video of this with Christmas coming up I may have to treat myself!!! I think for thr most part everybody has had the chance to do a swap shop, tradio, tell & Sell at one point in their life... Those features along with HS Football, Sunday church services, and any other things that a small stations can do to make money is what makes small town radio so awesome... When I was still living in Camden and working at WPUB I could go anywhere in Camden and see listeners that would call in and make request, want school closing info, or just to chit chat if I had the time. Try that with most of the stations that VT... CC1
 
That is what WALI 93.7 in Walterboro is like: great swap shop every weekday morning, lots of local sports, including Colleton County football games (with same announcers for thirty years), local weather and news, Paul Harvey, even reading the obituaries over the radio.
 
To more killowatts, I've hosted "Tradio." At another station I worked for, it was called "The Trading Post." Same thing. Baby Chickens, used altenators, etc.

I see radio where it is now, and was there in the 70's. I hope SCETV is fair in their accessment of the value of broadcast radio no matter what market size.
 
Say what you want, but stations like WPUB are more popular than these people that program the corporately owned stations. They might not show it in the numbers, but am happy to say that these kind of stations are still alive and well and I can pikc up WPUB from time to time over here in the Pine Ridge and South Congaree area and it is still a small town station and really is a breath offresh air. I wish that we had something like it here in Columbia.
 
Thank you Lhsh for the good comments about WPUB. Chris Johnson, Phil Rogers, Dave Macintosh, and the staff at PUB still believe in local radio... Sure when they are not live they run automated, but believe it or not people realize they have a local voice to turn to. A lot of people never realized that there was a local radio station in the county. Back when I worked there starting in 1991 it was a mish mash of what ever... You could call it a pre Jack FM LOL! Lot of people only listened to either Great 98, WSOC, WNOK... Once we moved from 94.3 to 102.7 and changed formats to oldies and really got out in the community that was when WPUB became a cool station to listen to... We had request shows that people could call in to such as Solid Gold Saturday's with Chuck Morgan, Super Seventies Saturday Night with yours truly, and The Sunday Night Hit Parade with Chuck Morgan. There was nothing fancy about our shows, but just the love we had for the music we played which resulted in listeners calling our request shows from Sumter, Columbia, Camden, and all over the midlands. We even had Jocks from other stations who did similar shows call and compliment our shows since we had all kinds of freedom with what we got to play!!! WPUB was my home and was near and dear to my heart as there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that went into that station. One of the best things about small town radio is the friends that I made along the way and even though I no longer live in Kershaw County I am always welcome into their Businesses, homes and where ever we meet!!! CC1
 
It’s a shame they went to all the trouble to talk to so many people, and put together such a cheep, badly edited documentary, it looked like the work of some 6th grade media class, I was very disappointed. The idea is great, and some of the information was very interesting, but more stations should have been included, and more should have been said about all the communities that no longer have local radio. It would be nice if someone would come along and make a really good documentary about small town community radio stations.
 
Old Tyme radio still exists in Anderson, SC! Swamp-trade shows, etc. Local deaths, e.m.s. reports, police blotters etc.... WRIX-FM 103.1 has all of these features every morning! So does WAIM-AM 1230 in Anderson. They are actually owned by two different owners. Yes, Anderson is well served on the local am and fm dial!
 
I have to agree with Radiogman. The technical problems were a detraction (especially the audio from the built-in mics on the camcorders they used), but what was really lacking was depth. They needed an hour, rather than 30 minutes, and they needed to look at the issues a bit more critically.

I really got the impression that those who planned it out (Winthrop students?) didn't grasp that the loss was due to more than deregulation and Clear Channel. Art Sutton touched on local economics and civic involvement, and the Rock Hill owner touched on the issue of move-ins and competition from large market signals. I was also hoping to hear more about changes successful stations have made to stay relevant.

All of that said, it was still interesting to watch.
 
It was interesting to watch but I have to agree the depth just wasn't there. I guess I was hoping for an iceburg and someone handed me an ice cube. It seemed like they only showed a hand full of radio stations which doesn't tell but a little peice of the story for SC. I belive someone could do a really great job of telling the history of radio and how it has changed in SC if the right people would get together and work on a project like that before too many old timers pass on, there is still time.
 
I definitely agree. It would really be interesting to see where radio started in the state and how it has grown to what we know it now. I really do miss the home town stations and sadly there are none like that here in Columbia any more. I guess Magic 98.5 sounds the most like a home town station witht he way that the daytime jocks handle things and let's face it, Woody, Hunter and Doug are old top 40 jocks from the 60's and 70's that were live and local here when I was a kid.
 
What about B 106.7? They call themselves "Columbia's Hometown Radio Station," and have that great morning show, with weather/traffic updated often, as much as every 15 minutes.

They are all-local 24 hours a day, seven days a week (even during weekend overnights, when maybe 3,000 people are listening), and give weather forecasts where they actually discuss the weather, not just give a 5 second forecast. Also, they are a huge part of the community, and have local storm coverage during severe weather.

That classifies a hometown radio station!
 
If you missed the program, it will re-air on ETV Thanksgiving evening at 10pm.
 
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