Sometime in early 2013 will mark a terrible but understandable loss for over-the-air radio broadcasting.  As reported by the great Radio Insight website, WMVY of Tisbury, Massachusetts on Martha’s Vinyard will become yet another NPR drone.  The 92.7 MHz FM signal will become a retransmission of WBUR in Boston and “mvyradio” will, if it receives enough donations, become an online-only enterprise.

Unlike some of the similar recent changes I have railed against, WMVY is much more understandable.  It is and always has been a commercial outlet.  Even with all of the buzz, good reviews, and a huge amount of listeners from around the world via its Internet stream, the station continued to lose money.  In this specific case, it is better that WMVY’s fate be to become a rebroadcast of a distant city’s NPR station than yet another station churning out K-LOVE or some other mindless Bible-babble that never has any local content.

Still, it is sad to see one of the pioneers of the “adult album alternative” format to be thrown into the sea with thousands of other online broadcasters.  That’s an even tougher way to survive even without the overhead of a transmitter and its huge electric bill.  Despite having an already known brand (at least in some circles), it is difficult to get attention in a world where all too many people mindlessly go to nothing but Pandora or, my favorite of that type, Slacker, without ever thinking about trying to find something fresh where the true glory of radio — the full element of surprise — can be experienced.

At this time, I am not sure if I will transition myvradio’s listing to one of the few Web-only stations I keep on my Radio page.  My thinking at the moment is first to see if it actually receives enough donations to live on and then, if it does, to see if it retains a large portion of its live talent or becomes just another glorified mp3 playlist.

I am sure of one thing.  I continue to encourage everybody to outwardly support any remaining good, independent over-the-air radio outlet left in their lives whether it is local or not.  Our voices, our numbers, and our dollars are the only thing standing between retaining anything good out of a service that truly should not be dying like it is and losing it all to the likes of the radio conglomerates where even the choices of the folks at NPR have to be questioned.

As for NPR and my love/hate relationship with it…no, maybe love/suspicion is best for now…I will get to that another day…hopefully soon as it appears I am ready to rise again from another period of slumber during the long, inglorious history of KoHoSo.us.

Even as I have narrowed down the English-speaking world’s tens of thousands of radio stations into only approximately 175 good ones on my Radio page, it is difficult for me to always keep up on any changes that have occurred until I happen to go back and listen to that station.  This is especially true since most of the stations I list are independent and, thus, not usually considered by the mainstream media that covers radio (what little there is remaining of it) to be newsworthy.  Because of that, this news might be old to some.  However, it still bears reporting because it will be news to those that only follow this type of stuff though KoHoSo.us.  In addition, both are good examples of how the government of the United States is acting in the name of its citizens while, instead, doing nothing but protecting corporate interests.

To put it plainly, I have had to delete the pirate/variety stations Free Radio Olympia and Free Radio Santa Cruz from my Radio page.

Free Radio Olympia preemptively shut down in June to avoid an upcoming raid by the Federal Communications Commission.  Sadly, they have not been able to keep up their web presence so not even an online stream is available as was promised when they shut down their transmitter.  With no trace of them at this time and no “tweets” from their Twitter account since 2010, I doubt this station will return anytime soon (if at all) since the FCC had really been turning up the heat on pirate stations in the Pacific Northwest (why they have focused on that particular region is still a mystery).

Free Radio Olympia was not the greatest station there ever was.  However, they stood for something that most people don’t want to bother fighting for anymore — that the airwaves belong to the people (as originally ordained by the U.S. Congress), that said airwaves should be a forum for full freedom of expression, and those that do not care for the programming have the freedom to turn the dial to another station.  In my view, stranger still on the FCC going after Free Radio Olympia as opposed to any other pirate station is that they were not interfering with the signal of any other station in any significant way nor were they by any means the only pirate outlet broadcasting content that would earn a licensed broadcaster a huge fine (mainly, any song containing one of George Carlin‘s “Seven dirty words“).

At least Olympia still has the great KAOS (a college station I have recommended on various websites I have had going back to 1998) plus the struggling but full of potential KOWA.  It would be my hope that those behind Radio Free Olympia along with all of the volunteer hosts would put their energies behind the legally-licensed KOWA and bite the bullet for a while on being able to say, “Fuck,” over the air.  KOWA could really be something if it got more support in an area that is surely open to non-commercial radio and probably tiring like many others of the deteriorating quality of NPR programming being shoved down the throats of the area over the transmitters controlled by the University of Washington (a long story that I might cover in some other post especially if “U-Dub” does something else with its radio stations that pisses me off again).

As for the other station, Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC) is still alive and kicking over the air.  However, they state on their website that SoundExchange, the organization that collects song royalties from radio stations, has forced FRSC to remove its live stream because they refuse to pay.  This seems rather strange to me but, then again, Santa Cruz is definitely a capital city of strange.  After all, FRSC is a pirate station so why would they bother listening to what SoundExchange had to say…assuming SoundExchange actually contacted them at all?  After all, the big violation here is that FRSC is broadcasting without a license, has been doing so since 1995, and was shut down once already in 2004 by federal marshals with assault rifles drawn (after which FRSC was back on the air within a month, thus showing how effective that expenditure of tax money was).  In addition, there are plenty of other pirate stations the USA streaming away while playing artists signed to big record labels with not one peep about SoundExchange giving them any grief.

Whatever is going on with FRSC and whether or not the threat from SoundExchange is real or just a ruse to gain attention for some reason, the fact is that it no longer streams on the Internet.  Therefore, it has to be removed from my Radio page.

While the SoundExchange threat may or may not be real in the case of FRSC, it is real when it comes to many other small-time outlets whether they are traditional over-the-air radio stations or Internet broadcasters.  The royalty fees have become so high even for non-commercial broadcasters and the enforcement so heavy-handed that it is forcing many off of the playing field.  That only serves to decrease competition and put more power into the hands of Clear Channel, Cumulus, CBS, Entercom, Saga, and all the rest of the radio conglomerates.  Worse yet, the recording industry still hasn’t changed it’s actual business model – ripping off artists for every dime they can out of their royalties.  Any artists that came out in favor of the current SoundExchange system – including beloved Bob Weir and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead — need to take another strong look at how this is working and admit that they got suckered and sure as hell hasn’t helped the new up-and-coming artists they claimed it would.

In case anybody is wondering…yes, there is one pirate station still left on my Radio page.  Radio Free Canton out of Ohio is still going strong after 12 years on the air illegally.  I hope it stays on the air for many more years to come if only to keep sticking it to The Man who has stolen most of our radio stations right in front of our faces while hardly anybody has said one peep about it.

It has been far too long since I have focused on radio here at KoHoSo.us.  I am delighted to return to the subject with an outlet I have been aware of but never got to check out and research until now.  While the format is quite normal, the station itself is unique for a couple of reasons.

WKIT is a commercial “classic rock” outlet licensed to Brewer, Maine and serving the Bangor market.  The primary reason I am adding it to my Radio page is it’s one of the few remaining commercial music stations that has a live disk jockey in the studio at all times (minus a small handful of very good syndicated programs that run during part of the weekends).

As for the second reason WKIT is notable…well, just take a look at the logo (which can be clicked upon to take you to WKIT’s website).

Click on the logo to go to WKIT 100.3′s website!

Yes, WKIT is owned by Stephen King along with his wife, Tabitha, under their company, The Zone Corporation, which also owns their AM/FM outlet WZON that broadcasts a “progressive talk” format.  WKIT is a labor of love for the Kings and it shows in their investment in local talent, the playlist which is kept fairly wide, and the fun they have with it by adding Stephen’s literary reputation into the station’s identity.  It is also a good lesson for other independently-owned outlets across the country that they do not have to give in to using outside programming services as WKIT consistently achieves the Bangor market’s number one rating.

As it is the music of “my era,” there are quite a few classic rock stations on my Radio page.  As of now, WKIT would be one of my top recommendations.  I’m sure “Doug E. Graves” would love for more people to stop by and “dig” his station.

WKIT mascot Doug E. Graves and station co-owner Stephen King; from special effects artist Christian Hanson’s website, The Monster Closet (click on this photograph to be taken to Hanson’s Portfolio page where it is originally posted).

One more note on a Maine radio station…I have removed WHSN of Bangor from my Radio list as a recommended stream.  Unlike other removals, this is not for the usual reason of programming changes.  It is more that nobody can see what the programming is anymore as the latest version of the WHSN website no longer has a program guide.  In my view, this is crucial for any type of variety format outlet and, in the case of a college station, inexcusable that nobody could be found to do a little HTML coding to make a table or link to a PDF file.  My removal of WHSN does not mean I now discourage people from continuing to listen to it. It simply no longer fits into what I would consider to be a “best stations” list if my readers from all over the world cannot find out when the various programs will air in their time zone.