foucaultspendulum
Radio Rebels
From the Dorchester Reporter, May 15, 2008 (www.dotnews.com/radiorebels.html), this article comments on the rising clout of Touch FM (LP-WTCH, 106.1 FM), a pirate radio station based in Grove Hall in Boston. The station, which first took to the airwaves in 2005, was fined by the FCC for operating without a license.
Some excerpts from the article:
Spice, the station's 41 year-old creative director who anchors the four-hour "Big Morning Thing" with Mattapan side-kick Jonathon Gates, is soon at full throttle. He reads the morning news and weather. For a moment, he frets that Sunday's Man Up-Gang Truce Rally that the station is leading might be a drizzly affair.
Undeterred, Spice launches into an appeal for support, no matter what the clouds bring.
"We need the black men in our community to step up. Ain't no one else gonna do it. We need to be accountable. You never shot a gun? Okay. You never sold drugs? That's fine. You're still accountable for what's happening on these streets, right."
Spice's tough love message is peppered with calls from "the community" - black men and women, mostly African-American with heavy Boston accents. They share stories of dead and jailed children. They chide neighborhood businesses who fail to support this weekend's march by refusing to post flyers in their windows. They pledge their devotion to the one radio station that captures their spirit. They ask Spice to play an old favorite from their childhood. He obliges.
To local ears, their voices are familiar and authentic.
But it's strange to hear them on the radio at first. There's no other place like it on Boston's dial. And if the FCC has its way, the station could be silenced.
Touch FM (officially LP-WTCH Boston) - which sprang from the bosom of the Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corporation offices in the fall of 2005 - is unlicensed. They admit it. They're pirates.
And they are unrepentant, even in the face of the most recent broadside from the government: A May 7 forfeiture order from the FCC that levies a $17,000 fine on station founder Charles Clemons. The ruling stems from a pair of site visits made to the suspected TOUCH offices at the corner of Cheney Street and Blue Hill Avenue in 2007. The order accuses Clemons of "willfully and repeatedly" using the frequency without a license and for "failing to permit a station inspection."
* * *
It's hard to know just how many people catch the 100-watt signal emanating from a Grove Hall rooftop. But each day around 9 a.m., the station's Internet server maxes out as office workers tune into TOUCH's streaming audio link online, presumably from Greater Boston locales where the radio signal is weak or non-existent. They can only handle up to 5,000 online listeners at a time. The traffic eases up around 5 p.m. when the work day comes to a close.
Whatever the total audience, there's no doubt that the station has found its intended niche.
Michael Kozu, a community organizer for the Grove Hall based Project RIGHT, says that the station has developed a robust and devoted listenership.
"I think they really have filled a void, particularly for communities of color. When you look at major radio stations they pretty much bypass the needs of communities of color, especially since WILD sold their FM station," Kozu said. "The problem is that because [TOUCH] has such a limited coverage area, their reach doesn't cover as much as it needs to."
The Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corporation (NDC) is a non-profit with a solid reputation, much of it earned by successfully developing the Mecca shopping center on Blue Hill Avenue. The NDC owns the Mecca Mall, which boasts tenants like Stop & Shop and Dunkin' Donuts as anchors. The shopping center is widely credited with sparking a cycle of economic growth in the immediate neighborhood, which straddles the Dorchester-Roxbury border.
* * *
Morrison, who makes recorded cameos on TOUCH using the handle "Information Mama," says that the station's musical fare - a steady mix of old-school R&B, party tracks and slow jams - is a deliberate departure from the typical play-lists of high-power commercial radio. The mission, she says, is in line with that of the NDC: to raise the expectations and activism of a neighborhood still struggling with its share of blight and violence.
"They consciously make sure there isn't anything negative in the music, whether its jazz, R&B or hip-hop," Morrison says. "It proves you can program radio all day without being negative."
Radio Rebels
From the Dorchester Reporter, May 15, 2008 (www.dotnews.com/radiorebels.html), this article comments on the rising clout of Touch FM (LP-WTCH, 106.1 FM), a pirate radio station based in Grove Hall in Boston. The station, which first took to the airwaves in 2005, was fined by the FCC for operating without a license.
Some excerpts from the article:
Spice, the station's 41 year-old creative director who anchors the four-hour "Big Morning Thing" with Mattapan side-kick Jonathon Gates, is soon at full throttle. He reads the morning news and weather. For a moment, he frets that Sunday's Man Up-Gang Truce Rally that the station is leading might be a drizzly affair.
Undeterred, Spice launches into an appeal for support, no matter what the clouds bring.
"We need the black men in our community to step up. Ain't no one else gonna do it. We need to be accountable. You never shot a gun? Okay. You never sold drugs? That's fine. You're still accountable for what's happening on these streets, right."
Spice's tough love message is peppered with calls from "the community" - black men and women, mostly African-American with heavy Boston accents. They share stories of dead and jailed children. They chide neighborhood businesses who fail to support this weekend's march by refusing to post flyers in their windows. They pledge their devotion to the one radio station that captures their spirit. They ask Spice to play an old favorite from their childhood. He obliges.
To local ears, their voices are familiar and authentic.
But it's strange to hear them on the radio at first. There's no other place like it on Boston's dial. And if the FCC has its way, the station could be silenced.
Touch FM (officially LP-WTCH Boston) - which sprang from the bosom of the Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corporation offices in the fall of 2005 - is unlicensed. They admit it. They're pirates.
And they are unrepentant, even in the face of the most recent broadside from the government: A May 7 forfeiture order from the FCC that levies a $17,000 fine on station founder Charles Clemons. The ruling stems from a pair of site visits made to the suspected TOUCH offices at the corner of Cheney Street and Blue Hill Avenue in 2007. The order accuses Clemons of "willfully and repeatedly" using the frequency without a license and for "failing to permit a station inspection."
* * *
It's hard to know just how many people catch the 100-watt signal emanating from a Grove Hall rooftop. But each day around 9 a.m., the station's Internet server maxes out as office workers tune into TOUCH's streaming audio link online, presumably from Greater Boston locales where the radio signal is weak or non-existent. They can only handle up to 5,000 online listeners at a time. The traffic eases up around 5 p.m. when the work day comes to a close.
Whatever the total audience, there's no doubt that the station has found its intended niche.
Michael Kozu, a community organizer for the Grove Hall based Project RIGHT, says that the station has developed a robust and devoted listenership.
"I think they really have filled a void, particularly for communities of color. When you look at major radio stations they pretty much bypass the needs of communities of color, especially since WILD sold their FM station," Kozu said. "The problem is that because [TOUCH] has such a limited coverage area, their reach doesn't cover as much as it needs to."
The Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corporation (NDC) is a non-profit with a solid reputation, much of it earned by successfully developing the Mecca shopping center on Blue Hill Avenue. The NDC owns the Mecca Mall, which boasts tenants like Stop & Shop and Dunkin' Donuts as anchors. The shopping center is widely credited with sparking a cycle of economic growth in the immediate neighborhood, which straddles the Dorchester-Roxbury border.
* * *
Morrison, who makes recorded cameos on TOUCH using the handle "Information Mama," says that the station's musical fare - a steady mix of old-school R&B, party tracks and slow jams - is a deliberate departure from the typical play-lists of high-power commercial radio. The mission, she says, is in line with that of the NDC: to raise the expectations and activism of a neighborhood still struggling with its share of blight and violence.
"They consciously make sure there isn't anything negative in the music, whether its jazz, R&B or hip-hop," Morrison says. "It proves you can program radio all day without being negative."