WUMB GM Pat Monteith "Retires"

[WLYNWAZNgm]

A car being driven by an unlicensed driver, who has no insurance. is, on the surface, no different than any other car -- until he hits you. Then, let the games begin!
If God is justice, justice is blind, Stevie Wonder is blind, then, therefore, God must be Stevie Wonder. Your logic is severely flawed, at best. If a legitimate, legal station
feels that there is money to be made, doing ANY given format, they will jump on it in a heartbeat...

 

[aaronread]

All true, Aaron...but my point about the name on the license was in response to an earlier poster's suggestion that the WUMB license could somehow be formally challenged at the FCC based on some sort of lack of congruence with the mission of UMass Boston.

Even if you could somehow persuade the FCC to hear a challenge on those grounds (and you can't, because it's a format issue and the FCC hasn't wanted to address those since the early 1970s), it would still hinge on the idea that the licensee of WUMB is "UMass Boston" - and as far as the FCC is concerned (regardless of the administrative reality behind the scenes), that's not the case.

Ahhhhh, I see now. I was kinda wondering where you were going with that, but in retrospect it was obvious.

As for my views on the purpose of higher education? Well, the fact that I have actually worked full-time for both small private and large public universities for five years, as well as consulted for a dozen different college-owned radio stations for over ten years, I think largely speaks for itself. Toss in that I'm married to a higher ed professional who's worked full time for seven different colleges, including UMB, and, well, I'd say that I think I can always learn more...but I do know quite a bit.

When you've sat on as many mission statement committees as I have, then you can feel free to debate my perspective on the mission of higher ed.

 

[raccoonradio]

Usually the FCC doesn't step in regarding formats but I remember in 1979
WCOP 1150 dropped country and some sort of fan group petitioned the FCC to deny the licences of WCOP AM
and FM (100.7) as there was now no longer as country station in town.
Ultimately Plough "bought time" on WDLW 1330 to run country on
weekends. This succeeded enough that the station later went country full time, only to later drop it again
(1989; see Bos. Globe article online) after WBOS adopted the format and picked up those listeners.


http://lists.bostonradio.org/bri/v02/msg05540.html

>>Here's what Waves magazine (8/79) says about the "lawsuit": "The
Committee for Community Access petitioned the FCC to deny the [WCOP AM/FM] licenses, and nearly 1600 persons
wrote to CCA or signed petitions in support of CCA's effort. The
current programming on WDLW is the result of a settlement agreement between CCA and Plough Broadcasting
Company, the former owner of WCOP:
CCA has dropped its license challenges against Plough, and Plough is
helping to sponsor the country block on WDLW."

 

[aaronread]

It's true that the FCC did used to consider format changes more closely when it came time for license renewal. IIRC that was fading fast during the 1980's and it died completely with the Telecom Act of 1996.

That said, I wonder how the FCC would react to 1600 people with demonstrated standing filing petitions to deny against a license renewal. And I don't mean the cookie-cutter petitions that some religious groups tried to use in the last round of renewals; those were too obviously being coordinated on a national scale and too obviously coming from people without standing. (i.e. not living within the service contour)

I mean 1600 regular joes and janes, living in the service contour, all highly pissed about a format change, and all writing letters to the FCC about it. The FCC hates-hates-hates getting involved with programming questions, but that'd be an awful lot of complaints to just simply ignore them.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

Doubtful the FCC would get involved in a format change petition even if it contained 16 THOUSAND signatures.
They are not in the programming business. The licensee has sole control over formats. Just like restaurants, radio
stations need to reinvent themselves every once in a while...

 

[thirdendorsed]

the urban community is overserved by radio, with ~10 stations playing hiphop/rnb/dancehall/soca and another 15 playing konpa/rara/lounge stuff and a half dozen doing talk at anyone time in a variety of languages like english, spanish, kreyol, jamaican/trini/bajan patois just on FM alone before adding in smartphones & streaming, and for 'print' as in printed on a screen, between twitter, uhub, reddit, blogs & papers like bulletin/dotnews theres no shortage of ways to keep track of what is going on. if i asked 10 people on the street if they feel theyre "underserved by media" theyd stare crosseyed and run away slowly

if anyone is underserved, it is the hipster communities of allston. record-hospital is only a few hours a week in the middle of the night. some of us arent night-owls.

Kindly name the 25 stations that you think are serving the urban community, essentially inner city Boston. Please include the news and public affairs programming provided. Don't tell me about leased time, don't tell me a shopper is a community newspaper, don't tell me twitter covers the news and don't tell me Clear Channel gives a hoot about the inner city when it comes time to program WXKS-FM or WJMN.

As for the "hipsters of Allston," eventually they'll learn there's more to life than bars.

 

[WNTIRadio]

He's referring to pirate operators. That doesn't count as "stations" in my estimation.

Leased time CAN count. If a community group leases time on a station to air their issues, why doesn't that count towards serving a particular community? Someone has to pay to keep the lights on. Radio China leases 1090 and serves the Chinese population in Boston. What's the difference between that and leased access time on a cable operator?

ALL of the pirate operators should get together and buy a station... 1260 for example. Great signal in the city. They could work out a schedule and everyone could get served. But no, they have to be greedy and want to be on 24/7 and interfere with licensed stations, as well as not pay any regulatory fees and/or taxes.

I still don't see why WUMB has to serve the urban community any more than any other station in the market. What about WBUR? Why not WERS (in fact from 7pm-2am weeknights they DO serve the urban community with reggae and hip-hop)? Or WMBR? WHRB? All I detect is that you have a bug somewhere in your transverse colon in particular about WUMB's current format, which does earn the station income and also 60k listeners on a rather limited signal.

Radio, even non-commercial radio, is a BUSINESS. Which means it needs to at the very least, in non-comm land, cover the costs of operating. If you've ever been responsible for a non-comm's income and expenditures (I have in the past) you quickly realize how EXPENSIVE radio is to do, even on a budget with only a couple of employees. All the equipment, upkeep, leasing T1 lines or STL's, transmitters, tower rent, licensing for internet streaming/ASCAP/BMI/SESAC, your fees for your FCC attorney(s), and paying vendors adds up quickly. $200,000 a year goes out the window fast, even running things lean and mean. So how then, do you suppose, such a station serving the "urban" audience survive if it is listener funded and those listeners need to do more important things with their money such as support themselves and their families? You really think people in Dorchester, Roxbury and the less affluent side of JP are going to give their hard earned money to a RADIO STATION??? You're nuts if you think that.

Tell me, how many urban formatted NPR and member supported stations do you see? An advertising based model is different. There is a buffer between your station and the audience. As long as they listen, you will get the larger buys. But non-comm is going straight to the source for funding. When the source is strapped for cash, it's a very shallow well.

Look at WBAI in NYC. They target mostly the "urban" population of NYC. They try and raise money for a month and never make goal. They barely scratch by every time. And that's with a full B signal from the T-T-T-TOP of the Empire State Building.

 

[uncamark]

Tell me, how many urban formatted NPR and member supported stations do you see? An advertising based model is different. There is a buffer between your station and the audience. As long as they listen, you will get the larger buys. But non-comm is going straight to the source for funding. When the source is strapped for cash, it's a very shallow well.

There are some pubcasters that program urban--mostly in the south and owned by historically black colleges and universities. They are usually the secondary NPR signal in the market, as WUMB is to WBUR/WGBH, so they don't carry the drive time news shows in most cases (although many of them carry "The Takeaway," which would be impossible in Boston because GBH co-produces that show). They do carry "Tell Me More" and Tavis Smiley from PRI, of course. Musically, they're predominately jazz and old-school R&B and in many cases are friendlier to "smooth jazz" than your typical jazz public radio station.

 

[aaronread]

As for the "hipsters of Allston," eventually they'll learn there's more to life than bars.

Wow. That's impressively arrogant. You expect WUMB to bend to your impossible vision of reality, but you reject the work that Allston-Brighton Free Radio did?

 

[4CX1000A]

UMass Boston draws primarily from an urban community.

Have you been to UMass Boston lately? There are kids there speaking Chinese -- lots of them. UMass Boston is drawing students from all over the world. It ain't Boston State College any more.

 

[raccoonradio]

College radio, small AMs, etc can provide some of this programming. It could be Spanish language shows on WMWM... a church service on an AM station...Community DJs coming in to
program interesting music.

>>ALL of the pirate operators should get together and buy a station... 1260 for example. Great signal in the city. They could work out a schedule and everyone could get served. But no, they have to be greedy and want to be on 24/7 and interfere with licensed stations, as well as not pay any regulatory fees and/or taxes.

Exactly.

>>Radio, even non-commercial radio, is a BUSINESS.

It may have seemed weird to read a Wash. Post article about the decline of "advertising
revenue" on NPR. "Thought they were non-commercial?" Nope, corporate donors...or
smaller businesses on individual stations. Not totally advertising but...

NPR Donors list

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_are_the_NPR_corporate_donors

I would think that some kind of mention is made on air of these (CarFax, Dow Chemical,
Disney, Fox Broadcasting, CITGO, Blue Note Records, New Line Pictures, General Motors, Visa, Pabst...)

From NPR itself:
>>Corporate sponsors are interested in exposure to the well-educated, relatively affluent NPR audience (both on-air and online), which can be difficult to reach through other media. Selective sponsors also value association with the NPR brand. Messages acknowledging our sponsors are presented on-air in short announcements

http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/publicradiofinances.html

 

[fybush]

I would think that some kind of mention is made on air of these (CarFax, Dow Chemical,
Disney, Fox Broadcasting, CITGO, Blue Note Records, New Line Pictures, General Motors, Visa, Pabst...)

You have time to make 11,500+ posts here, many of them containing veiled (or sometimes not-so-veiled) attacks on public radio...and you can't even be bothered to tune in long enough to hear how corporate underwriting is handled? "I would think..."? Really?

I have long believed that many of the most vocal critics of public radio haven't actually listened to public radio at any time in the last decade, based on some of their wildest assertions and imaginations about what's on the air.

Want to hear corporate underwriting in action? Here, I'll spare you the need to actually listen to any of the content being funded...just tune in to All Things Considered or Morning Edition at 28:20 after the hour or 58:20 after the hour. That's it - 80 seconds out of each hour (plus 11 seconds at the end of each top- and bottom-hour newscast) devoted to national underwriting.

(But you'd already know that if you were actually listening...and the WaPo story wouldn't have come as a "surprise" either, just as it didn't come as a surprise to any of us actually working in, around or with public media.)