from: "The Chronicle of Philanthropy" April 18, 2002 Taking to the Airwaves Local nonprofit groups use radio to spread ideas, preserve cultures By Nicole Wallace Churchton, Md. The signs on the studio's wall offer the first clue that the radio station here, which serves small towns on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, is unusual. One admonishes on-air personnel to speak directly into the microphone. Another reminds them to read the station identification -- WRYR 97.5 -- every hour on the hour. The advice may seem basic, but it has to be. The station, which has been broadcasting since February, is run entirely by volunteers, few of whom have experience in radio. South Arundel Citizens for Responsible Development, the grass-roots environmental organization that operates WRYR, is one of the first local nonprofit groups in the country to take to the airwaves with its own radio station as part of the low-power radio service established by the Federal Communications Commission in January 2000. The low-power stations, which have a 100-watt signal, can reach a radius of three or four miles, compared with commercial stations that broadcast at 100,000 watts. WRYR features local storytellers, musicians, and ministers, and the group plans to develop shows that discuss local history, give the watermen who work on the bay a chance to share their way of life and perspectives, and allow listeners to call in and discuss their feelings about local environmental issues. "By promoting and sharing the uniqueness of the community, it makes it a little bit easier to protect it," says Mike Shay, the group's vice president. More than 3,400 organizations have applied for low-power radio licenses so far as a way to advance a wide range of missions. Among the proposed offerings: regional music, talk shows produced by and for young people, language instruction, religious programming, and local news for immigrants in their native tongues. About 250 charities, churches, advocacy groups, schools, government agencies, and other noncommercial organizations have received permission from the FCC to start broadcasting. Despite their diverse causes, they share a commitment to creating a local voice and a sense of place on the airwaves at a time when much of broadcasting is becoming more and more centralized. As they take their first tentative steps into the world of radio, these organizations find themselves facing old challenges, such as how to raise money to pay for the radio programming, and new issues, such as deciding what broadcasting equipment to use. To help answer the technical questions, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, in San Francisco, is developing a manual to guide organizations through the process of starting up a small radio station. Information will include advice on such issues as determining the best location for positioning the radio towers. The Ford Foundation, in New York, has given the federation a one-year, $125,000 grant to assist start-up stations. Carol Pierson, chief executive officer of the federation, says her group also plans to organize a group purchasing program to help charities save money on their equipment. "They're not radio broadcasters, so they're starting from scratch," she says. Controversial Idea When the FCC first proposed the idea of low-power FM stations, the plan touched off fierce opposition from the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents commercial broadcasters, and National Public Radio, which feared that the stations would interfere with their frequencies. Congress weighed in on the matter in December 2000 with a law that increased the amount of space on the dial necessary between a low-power station and neighboring stations. Even under the FCC's original requirements, few frequencies were available in congested urban markets like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The requirements also knock out smaller cities, such as Portland, Ore, and Minneapolis, meaning that most of the available frequencies are in rural and suburban areas. Despite the setback, advocates of low-power radio believe that the new service has the potential to significantly increase the number of so-called community radio stations in the country. The FCC is first considering licenses for 100-watt stations; it has yet to announce when it will accept applications for the even smaller 10-watt stations that would allow organizations to broadcast to an area with a radius of one or two miles. Ms. Pierson of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters expects that more than 1,000 licenses will be issued by the time the FCC works its way through the applications for 100-watt stations. Of those, she estimates that about half will go to churches that plan to use the stations to spread their religious message and half to community-oriented stations. After organizations get the green light from the FCC to start a station, many face the challenge of figuring out how to turn their ideas into programming that will further their missions, says Cheryl A. Leanza, deputy director of the Media Access Project, a nonprofit law group, in Washington, that focuses on telecommunications policy and that helped spearhead the fight for low-power radio. "Once the dog catches the car, what does the dog do with it? It's that sort of problem," says Ms. Leanza. "Wow, you have a radio station. Now what are you going to do?" Preserving Cultural Heritage Reaching out to local residents and preserving an area's cultural heritage are important goals of many of the stations. The Hmong American Community, a nonprofit organization in Fresno, Calif., plans to use its station to broadcast news and health information in the Hmong language, which is spoken in southeast Asia. The organization hopes to get its station on the air early this fall. Many of the Hmong residents of Fresno, especially older people, understand little English, and they struggle to piece together information from what they see on television or hear on the radio, says Vilaysouk Inthaly, project manager at the charity. She says that many of them saw images of the September terrorist attacks on television, but had to wait until younger members of their families got home to find out exactly what had happened. "This will bring them the total package in their own language, so they can understand every single word," says Ms. Inthaly. The station's programming will also include music from Laos and traditional stories told by older Hmong people, which the organization hopes will help young people growing up in the United States learn more about their heritage. In Opelousas, La., the Southern Development Foundation hopes to expand the availability of Zydeco and Cajun music on the radio dial. Mona Kennerson, the organization's development director, says that even in southwest Louisiana it can be difficult to find such music on the radio. One station plays Zydeco from 6 a.m. until noon on Saturdays, while another plays it from 3 to 5 p.m. on Fridays. "You wouldn't know about the programming if you weren't a listener of the music," she says. Southern Development plans to combine local music with programs developed for and produced by young people and local news and information. Ms. Kennerson says that she wants people who listen to the station to be able to say, "When I listen to them, I know what's going on in Opelousas." That kind of commitment to local information will make the new stations a boon to other nonprofit organizations, predict low-power radio advocates. Pete Tridish -- the name that Prometheus Radio Project co-founder Dylan Wrynn has used since his days as a radio pirate running an unlicensed station called Radio Mutiny -- believes that charities will find low-power stations more receptive than other media outlets to discussing their issues at length. "When you're talking to the corporate media, you have to talk in sound bites. You have to train everybody to stay on message. Otherwise you're going to get distorted," he says. "When you're talking to a community radio station, you don't have to be a talking head. You can just be yourself." Mr. Tridish's Philadelphia group is organizing a series of what it calls "radio barn raisings," where low-power advocates and radio enthusiasts gather to help an organization put its radio station together, get to know one another, and learn more about radio. In addition to drawing representatives from groups that are building stations, the gatherings have attracted participants from organizations that are still waiting to receive an answer from the FCC about their applications. Andrea Cano, director of the Microradio Implementation Project, in Portland, Ore., says that proponents of low-power radio had hoped that the FCC approval process would move more swiftly than it has. She says groups that have not heard from the FCC feel as if they are in limbo, which makes it difficult for them to maintain the enthusiasm of their volunteers and to raise the money they'll need to start broadcasting. Ms. Cano recommends that they look at the time as an opportunity to hold town meetings to find out what topics most interest residents of their area, decide who will be in charge of various tasks if the license comes through, and maybe even test the waters as radio broadcasters on the Internet. The American Museum of Radio, in Bellingham, Wash., is one group that is getting ready to take the plunge. While the museum is waiting to hear from the FCC, it has built both a radio studio and a small digital studio, which will allow it to convert programming into a format that can be broadcast over the Internet. "The key idea is to provide an exhibit that reaches out beyond the four walls of the museum to try to produce a radio station that uses the production techniques of the 30s and 40s so that the station will have a sound of that era," says Jonathan F. Winter, the museum's founder. Much of the programming would be recordings of radio dramas and news programs from that era. Says Mr. Winter, "We want people to be able to tune their dial and to hear a sound that is really different." Money Problems Despite their relative lack of technical savvy, many of the organizations that are starting stations say that fund raising has been a bigger challenge than learning the ins and outs of radio. Bird Street Media, an organization that was founded to apply for the license, plans to broadcast an eclectic mix of programming -- including radio dramas written by a member of the community theater, a resource show that explains how residents can seek help for problems they face, and local news. It took $10,000 for the Oroville, Calif., charity to get the station on the air this month. So far, Bird Street Media has brought in $3,000 with its Hundred Dollar Hundred Founders club, and took out a loan to cover the additional $7,000 to purchase its equipment. With all the work involved in starting the station and developing programs, the organization hasn't had a chance to submit any proposals to foundations or corporations that might support their work. "Everybody's been so busy. We've got such a small base, probably five or six people who are doing the majority of the work here," says Marianne Knorzer, the station's manager. The Newport Musical Arts Association, in Rhode Island, also a new group, has applied for grants with no success. "It was always the same story," says the group's co-founder, Steve Cerilli. "The grant makers wanted to see a track record of at least three years. They wanted to see, Have you received any other grants from other grant makers?" Mr. Cerilli estimates that it cost $10,000 to $11,000 to get the station going. The group held a fund-raising event in December which brought in $2,400. Mr. Cerilli and co-founder Frank Tassitano charged the rest to their personal credit cards. The organization hopes to raise money from listeners and by presenting jazz concerts in Newport. Alternative Broadcasting Mr. Tridish, of the Prometheus Radio Project, believes that the benefits of low- power radio as an alternative to mainstream radio are worth the hard work charities are putting into developing quality programs and the struggle to find funds. The goal of commercial radio, he says, is to deliver as many listeners as possible to advertisers at the lowest cost, but community radio is a very different experience. "It's more like you meet a stranger in a park, and you talk for a couple hours, and then they invite you over to their house and they start pulling all their records off the shelf and start playing them all for you," he says. "It's more like making a friend." Subscribers can read this article on the Web at this address: http://philanthropy.com/premium/articles/v14/i13/13004701.htm _______________________________________________ imc-audio mailing list