Question for David Eduardo

[Mid West Clubber]

Do you know anything about beatbox fm in Argentina... it seems to be a net only station, but some websites list it as being on 88.1,,, but they have no adverts, and very little i.d's.. is it a pirate perhaps with very low power, or is it just a webstream.. Format is mostly dance music, either instrumental or english, with very little spanish spoken accept the beatbox punto FMe drops.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Do you know anything about beatbox fm in Argentina... it seems to be a net only station, but some websites list it as being on 88.1,,, but they have no adverts, and very little i.d's.. is it a pirate perhaps with very low power, or is it just a webstream.. Format is mostly dance music, either instrumental or english, with very little spanish spoken accept the beatbox punto FMe drops.

It's a web station, although they may be a pirate as well... Argentina has thousands of pirate stations. There is nothing unusual about a lot of English music on stations anywhere in Latin America; some are 100%. The announcing, ads, promos, etc., will be in Spanish, though.

Were it a licensed FM, it would come under the effect of the new content law in Argentina, requiring a significant majority of music be in Spanish. Internet stations, of course, are not part of that legislation.

 

[Mid West Clubber]

Thank you Mr Eduardo,, i figured you would know more about this station than anyone else on this board. I do like some of the latin america stations, there are a few CHR-Dance- and Spanish Rock stations there I like, like mega 98.3, and some dance station on 94.9,, I think those two are legal though.. With no adverts or DJs, I dont see why beatbox would be on FM unless its just a small hobby station. The webstream rarely has more than 5-10 listeners.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Thank you Mr Eduardo,, i figured you would know more about this station than anyone else on this board. I do like some of the latin america stations, there are a few CHR-Dance- and Spanish Rock stations there I like, like mega 98.3, and some dance station on 94.9,, I think those two are legal though.. With no adverts or DJs, I dont see why beatbox would be on FM unless its just a small hobby station. The webstream rarely has more than 5-10 listeners.

Mega 98.3 is not only rock, it is 100% Argentine rock! Interestingly, it was owned by Emmis when it went on the air in April of 2000. The station shot to #1 with over a 20 share, where it remained for the next 4 years while Emmis owned it. The launch was a project I was involved with as consultant, but working with the fine progtrammers at Emmis, Rick Cummings and Andy Bloom. At one point, it had the highest cume of any station in the Western Hemisphere.

Buenos Aires has some good CHR's, and generally good radio, complicated by the fact that pirate stations are a popular hobby. Mega had a truck that ran around the city looking for stations on or next to 98.3 (Mega is 120 kw ERP at about 300 meters antenna height) and if found, the large and angry crew suggested to the operator of the pirate how much nicer it would be were they to move away from Mega's channel.

Most of the pirates were in the 100 watt range, but since Buenos Aires is like New York in that it is full of tall apartment buildings, some of those operations were 200 to 300 feet above terrain and covered pretty well. With 17 million, it's a very large market geographically, though.