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FCC Move Could Shut Down High School Radio Station
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "This probably has been happening all along, maybe just not in my area. A broadcasting company bought an FM radio station in The Dalles, Oregon (a little hick town east of Portland), and wants to move it to a much choicer market in Seattle, Washington. The FCC has given the green light for the move. Problem is, the frequency in Seattle is being used by a station owned by a local high school, Mercer Island High School. The school has appealed, saying the decision ignores the FCC's own rules, and questioned the FCC's assertion that there's space available elsewhere on the Seattle-area radio dial. The school says the proposal is 'little more than an effort to migrate from a rural community to an extremely well-served urban area.' Critics of the proposal contend that the move is an attempt to tap the much larger Seattle radio advertising market."
A college radio station was pre-empted because a major new york radio station wanted the frequency. The college refused to move and put up a fight against the FCC, which fined them for various "other" violations.
The taxpayers ended up flipping the bill because of the greedy commercial radio station and the hard nosed college administrators. The FCC is a bunch of corrupt people buyable by whoever has the most money. it just goes to show that the US government is corrupt.
I live in Seattle and I have heard this high school radio station. It's complete and utter crap in my opinion. They play all the heavily commercialized rap and R&B songs. We have two great radio stations in Seattle that pay little attention to commercialization of music:
103.7 The Mountain plays all sorts of music, not just the singles everyone else plays. Furthermore, they don't overplay songs and they aren't afraid to take risks (They played artists like Jack Johnson before anyone else caught on).
90.3 KEXP plays almost any kind of music that has not been commercialized by the RIAA. Sometimes they play things that are a little too weird for me, but sometimes I hear a GREAT song and look it up online (they log all their playlists since you won't recognize their music from TRL).
I doubt the radio station that is trying to displace the hich school station is as good as the two I have mentioned, but seriously, the high school station is not good at all. Also of note, Mercer Island, where the high school is, is where Washington State's most privileged families live. Mercer Island is where a 16 year old girl drover her new Audi A6 drunk and killed a child. (Not to generalize.....)
Furman University in Greenville, SC was without a radio station for about a year and a half because Clear Channel bought a station and boosted its power enough to knock us out. What's annoying is that an exec for Clear Channel is on the board of trustees for Furman. Talk about right hand not knowing what the left is doing... They promised us new equipment to make up for it, but that never materialized. Meanwhile, we were stuck without our beloved WPLS for a significant amount of time....
The point is that the FCC is letting large corporations control the airwaves to the detriment of the public (i.e schools).
Apparently a good deal of public values what the corporations provide. Maybe you don't value it, but many people do.
If people really valued this radio station so much, where is the money? I've found it's easy for people to claim such and such is the greatest thing, but when they are asked to pay for it, suddenly it's less important.
The fact is most of the public likes what you and I would consider crap and that means most of the resources are going to go to providing them with their crap.
That doesn't mean what the public wants is somehow objectively worse than what we want. We have different values. But, should we given resources, airwaves and otherwise, disproportionately?
They are prioritising the big and wealthy over the little guy. It doesn't affect your rights online, but holy fuck does it affect your rights
The problem is that "the little guy" mostly doesn't give the public the crap it wants and the wealthy do.
If you want to be one of those wealthy people, you need to provide people with the crap they want, like Beanie Babies, or Public Storage, or fatty Hamburgers, or Britney Spears' T&A, or shiney Chrome rims for SUV's.
The fact is that the animals mostly make the world go round and stations like ClearChannel are giving them what they want. Shouting "NO!" isn't going to change that.
I live in Seattle and do listen to the hishschool station. KUBE 93.3 is the biggest hip-hop and R&B station in the Greater Seattle area. They cater to the Top 40 format so on any given day you will here the same eight songs every hour. 104.5 plays more of the underground and non-mainstream (read: GOOD) hip-hop. You barely every here commercials and hear alot of older stuff that never made in big with commercial success. It is really sad if they do bring down that station. I guess big business is where it's at.