"Touch FM" Story In Today's Boston Globe

[Eli Polonsky]

In WMFO's case, and arguably in WBRS's case, getting a few people in over the summer could quickly lead to more people next summer.  Pretty soon you'll have some seats on the executive board.  Within five years, you've effectively pulled off a bloodless coup and you're running any format you want.   

Don't think you could do this at WMLN, though - they've got a pro GM who would stop a coup before it starts.   And I forgot about WHRB...I suppose in theory you could attempt something like a coup there, but it'd be damned hard to get it past the alumni council.

The problem with trying to pull a community "coup" at student-run college stations is that if it's not officially sanctioned by the parent school, which usually view their student college stations as simply an on-campus activity for their students regardless of some having signals serving large portions of a major market, it will inevitably eventually run into problems when the school catches wind of what's going on, which usually happens when the station either needs money or falls into disrepair and calls on the college for help, or if students complain to the college that they don't have adequate access to their college station due to community infiltration. (Or, in the worst case, if a community host does something negatively controversial or illegal on the air, eliciting negative listener or FCC response to the college).

Then the school, which usually stays uninvolved, may start enforcing percentages of student vs. community members, making such threats as withdrawing funding or losing facility space if student percentages aren't met. There's nothing really wrong with this in my opinion, student college stations by definition are supposed to be for students, whose tuitions support the student activities budget which partially supports the stations, and it's benevolent of some colleges to officially allow any percentage of outside community members on board. The problem is that when community percentages become too large and are then cut down, programs that have become popular in the community are often suddenly canceled as a result.

[webcastboy]

Your points are all completely valid...although I'll toss out there that in WMFO's case it took lawsuits from former members and NAL's from the FCC before Tufts even noticed it had a radio station...much less started caring about whether there were students at it.   Similarly, WBRS received little attention from the administration or student body until "The Men's Room" racism incident a few years back.

Part of it is that the 1990's and early 2000's were a bad time for everyone in college radio; incoming students didn't care about traditional media much and student interest was at a severe low.  Ever since 2002-03, though, interest has perked back up as more and more kids are growing up being very media-savvy.  So perhaps the time is already past when a "coup" could successfully be pulled off.

Still, I didn't say the idea of a community coup at a student radio station would be easy, just that it could be done.  I strongly suspect that if a coup were done at some of these stations...and the station was successful, got lots of good press, started getting good listener feedback, and (here's the key) started running successful fundraisers & underwriting...the administration might start being hard pressed to smack it down.    Doing any of those things is not easy; it takes a lot of work.  But it's still a helluva lot cheaper than buying a frequency outright at Boston market prices.


For what it's worth, though (and I recognize this is drifting far from the original topic) I have spoken to a few regulators at the FCC, some of which are directly involved with the management of non-commercial and college licenses.  They all say that it is the FCC's intent that all college radio stations have a professional manager and/or professor at the helm to ensure compliance and provide consistency from year to year.  So the attitude that many Boston-area colleges have towards their radio station is running directly counter to that.

[raccoonradio]

Touch FM's website has been recently redone, with listing of a lineup, events, and the slogan "the FABRIC
of the black community". It's listed as LPWTCH (sic) though of course it's not licensed by the FCC as an
LPFM or a licensed broadcast station.

http://touchfm.org/

They seem dedicated to providing "profanity free" music and talk for the black community but still are not
legal. Maybe if they can raise some money somehow they could buy WILD and go legit. The owner has
been fined by the FCC and the station may have been visited but apparently it hasn't been raided/shut down.

"community-based, sponsorship and underwritten radio service" --almost sounds like they mean to be a non-comm (the word advertising not used), and indeed LPFMs--and again they are NOT a licensed LPFM!--
are supposed to be non-profit.

some updates on unlicensed radio from this website: http://members.aol.com/baconti/bostonLP.htm

--Choice 102.9 fined this month
--103.1 Brockton off air, antenna damaged by storm
--"870 Boston - Classical and jazz music days, French Caribbean zouk nights.  Back on the air, Feb 2007."
--"98.9       R.Top Inter, Brockton - Relays 1710 / 98.9 Boston.  Off the air, 2007, after FCC notification of unlicensed operation."

I should add that I am also picking up the jazz pirate on the North Shore at 88.7 (came in in downtown
Beverly)

[cheapman]

Sounds to me like the people who run this station have some good intentions.  Problem is if they don't play legal they're doomed to fail.  And when they eventually do get shut down whatever listeners they have will forget them in a heartbeat just like every other station that's changed formats.

Plus it kind of ticks me off that back in the 70's I had to take an FCC exam just to get a job as a DJ!

[ciao99]

Touch FM's website has been recently redone, with listing of a lineup, events, and the slogan "the FABRIC
of the black community". It's listed as LPWTCH (sic) though of course it's not licensed by the FCC as an
LPFM or a licensed broadcast station.

http://touchfm.org/

They seem dedicated to providing "profanity free" music and talk for the black community but still are not
legal. Maybe if they can raise some money somehow they could buy WILD and go legit. The owner has
been fined by the FCC and the station may have been visited but apparently it hasn't been raided/shut down.

"community-based, sponsorship and underwritten radio service" --almost sounds like they mean to be a non-comm (the word advertising not used), and indeed LPFMs--and again they are NOT a licensed LPFM!--
are supposed to be non-profit.

some updates on unlicensed radio from this website: http://members.aol.com/baconti/bostonLP.htm

--Choice 102.9 fined this month
--103.1 Brockton off air, antenna damaged by storm
--"870 Boston - Classical and jazz music days, French Caribbean zouk nights.  Back on the air, Feb 2007."
--"98.9       R.Top Inter, Brockton - Relays 1710 / 98.9 Boston.  Off the air, 2007, after FCC notification of unlicensed operation."

I should add that I am also picking up the jazz pirate on the North Shore at 88.7 (came in in downtown
Beverly)

So the net effect is that the FCC is going after stations serving underserved communities in the cities of Boston and Brockton.

I live in a heavily minority area....Roslindale/ Hyde Park. We can't get Touch FM down here. So no matter what it's intentions, it's serving a very small portion of the black community in Boston. This low-powered pirate, whatever you want to call it, is not a viable alternative to a full fledged radio station.

And no, I hope they don't go after WILD. WILD's daytime only signal is a liability. Owning it limits the programming that can be offered to the community. Any signal would be better than 1090. I say get rid of it.

[rapking]

Touch FM's website has been recently redone, with listing of a lineup, events, and the slogan "the FABRIC
of the black community". It's listed as LPWTCH (sic) though of course it's not licensed by the FCC as an
LPFM or a licensed broadcast station.

http://touchfm.org/

They seem dedicated to providing "profanity free" music and talk for the black community but still are not
legal. Maybe if they can raise some money somehow they could buy WILD and go legit. The owner has
been fined by the FCC and the station may have been visited but apparently it hasn't been raided/shut down.

"community-based, sponsorship and underwritten radio service" --almost sounds like they mean to be a non-comm (the word advertising not used), and indeed LPFMs--and again they are NOT a licensed LPFM!--
are supposed to be non-profit.

some updates on unlicensed radio from this website: http://members.aol.com/baconti/bostonLP.htm

--Choice 102.9 fined this month
--103.1 Brockton off air, antenna damaged by storm
--"870 Boston - Classical and jazz music days, French Caribbean zouk nights.  Back on the air, Feb 2007."
--"98.9       R.Top Inter, Brockton - Relays 1710 / 98.9 Boston.  Off the air, 2007, after FCC notification of unlicensed operation."

I should add that I am also picking up the jazz pirate on the North Shore at 88.7 (came in in downtown
Beverly)

So the net effect is that the FCC is going after stations serving underserved communities in the cities of Boston and Brockton.

I live in a heavily minority area....Roslindale/ Hyde Park. We can't get Touch FM down here. So no matter what it's intentions, it's serving a very small portion of the black community in Boston. This low-powered pirate, whatever you want to call it, is not a viable alternative to a full fledged radio station.

And no, I hope they don't go after WILD. WILD's daytime only signal is a liability. Owning it limits the programming that can be offered to the community. Any signal would be better than 1090. I say get rid of it.

Yes..WBAL is a crappy signal in Boston . O Im sorry...WILD is a crappy signal in Boston.

[argytunes]

The Boston Globe article really didn't give any insight on the type (or demo) of audience that TOUCH hopes to reach?

Some of the programming ideas (like the morning show) are interesting...but there was little mentioned about the musical artists.  The phrase: less repetition of the same songs didn't really tell us much.  This was obviously a loose reference to one or two other stations in the market! 

I'll avoid echoing the comment another poster made about radio listenership being down!  Simply because most people currently connected with the business KNOW this already! 

argytunes

[PaulBWalkerJr]

WILD-AM's signal in most of Boston is OK, being diplexed into the WXKS-Am towers in Medford.

Rapking, We KNOW you don't like RaidoOne/WILD.......

[webcastboy]

And no, I hope they don't go after WILD. WILD's daytime only signal is a liability. Owning it limits the programming that can be offered to the community. Any signal would be better than 1090. I say get rid of it.

This is drifting into another topic entirely, but I do agree that the AM band is littered with far too many signals that have questionable viability at best.  Daytime-only operations are a prime example; that's not something the 24-7 instant-gratification modern media consumer is willing to tolerate very much.  Perhaps an older demo would, but that won't last much longer....5-10 years at most.

This isn't an indictment against WILD's programming.  I rather think it's a tragedy how certain demo's are rather overserved (sports) and others are sorely neglected (black/"urban") in Boston.  Probably throughout most of the country.   No, this is just my annoyance as an engineer how useless most of the AM band has become thanks to massive overpopulation of stations being shoehorned in.

Personally I would be in favor of eliminating all licenses that have the equivalent of less than 5000 watts on 1200AM (sliding to fewer watts on lower freqs and more watts on higher freqs) day or night.  Also eliminating any license that requires more than 3 or 4 towers for day or night patterns.

At the same time, I'd also clean up the ridiculousness of signal politics with Canada and Mexico, which is keeping a small but noticeable contingent of US stations at artificially low powers.   WJIB comes immediately to mind with the great clear channel 740 frequency.

Any allocation that expired would be permanently retired.  Whose brilliant idea was it to allow 1370 to reappear in Rhode Island?!?!?!   

And yes, any station owner that applied for, received and built an expanded band station...and then tried to keep his/her original frequency on the air somehow...would be dragged out into the street and shot.  No questions asked.     Considering what the entire point of the expanded band was, and how these people were handed a free, vastly-improved signal on a silver platter...their arrogance today is astounding.

Ditto for the concept of FM translators for AM stations.  Yeah, let's create "parity" between the FM and AM band by making both of them a mess of interference.  Great concept...NOT!!     Look, I'm a supporter of the concept behind LPFM, but even I think the implementation of it was a disaster; and I think FM translators should all be shut down and banned outright for the trouble they've caused.

Would I shut down grandfathered Class D FM's?  Quite possibly.  That's a tough call, I hate to dump on my beloved college stations...but at the same time, many of them are still operating in the same manner that got the Class D license phased out in the first place.   And I don't want to be a hypocrite by judging some low power stations on content which is purely subjective.   I suppose if pushed I'd have to say that I feel Class D FM's should be shut down as well, but there should be some incentives program for nearby Class A "college radio" stations to get IBOC and dedicate a HD multicast channel to the displaced Class D.  Not a perfect solution, admittedly...especially not right now.  But 10 years down the road...the Class D might actually be better off on a bigger signal that way.

Truth be told, this concept could do wonders across the entire AM & FM Band.   Instead of introducting more content "clutter" with the lame HD2 channels we've seen so far.  Why not pay FM's to carry a weak AM or FM signal on their multicast channel and retire the old license?  Clean up the band dramatically.  Again, receiver penetration today is probably too low...but if you started today and made it a 5 or 10 year migration process, that could work.   Assuming you block idiots like the aforementioned expanded band AM's.

[Eli Polonsky]

WILD-AM's signal in most of Boston is OK, being diplexed into the WXKS-Am towers in Medford.

It really is a pretty good day signal, but the problem is that it's doomed to be only a daytimer forever on 1090 due to WBAL's nighttime signal strength up here. There is no feasible way for WILD to have any kind of night signal on 1090 because of them.