enid (08/10/82)
>From enid Fri Jul 30 00:17:31 1982
To: physics!npoiv!harpo!ihps3!ihuxo!schnable
Subject: Re:re: Commercial Free Summer
Cc: enid@mit-ccc
There is WBAI-FM at 99.5 in New York and there is also WFDU-Teaneck
in New Jersey, which you can get in the city and 'burbs. WBAI (We Beg At
Intervals, as we all used to say) is, to quote Steve Post, "Listener
spotted, non-commercial radio." Listener sponsorship is what my friends
at BAI subsist on, supplimented by *real* jobs and working, in some cases,
for National Public Radio. Several of the voices that we hear up here in
Boston I recognize as BAI-trained reporters and some are from our Washington
bureau of Pacifica, like Ted Clark, for instance. Some are friends and
acquaintances who are still and not still on the staff of the station.
Avoid them during fund-drives, we've always called them marathons and some-
times it can be argued that some of our best programming has come from the
marathons. Marathons do often last forever, though and even the staff gets
tired of them.
WFDU, on the other hand, is a college station, run by (I think they
run it) students of Fairleigh Dickenson University. I don't know them as
well as BAI, but they have had good shows in the past.
Sorry this is not more general as per geoghraphical spectrum, I grew
up in NY and moved to Boston. If anyone else has offerings from other parts
of the country I'm sure your fellow [fill in your own state name] ers
would appreciate them.
-Enid Brown (enid@mit-ccc)trb (08/13/82)
WBAI was THE underground station in New York back in the days when people were interested in such things, but when the counterculture movement died, WBAI was taken over by extremely dull, biased programming. (The next few sentences might be construed as prejudiced, I know, but these are my opinions.) WBAI became a soapbox for disgusting radicals - I found the lesbians (who seemed to be on all the time) particularly irritating. The programming tended to be tenants' rights, third world rights, drug users' rights whoever wanted to flame into a microphone. People with complaints. This kind of programming MIGHT be interesting once, but it gets quite annoying on a regular basis. There were big political battles for "control" of the station. Listening to WBAI was just no fun anymore. WBAI IS coming back, but it is not nearly as enjoyable as it once was. It does have occasional good programming, music and talk, but they still have lots of dull, biased programming, and they tend to be overly elitist. I like WFMU (91.1), which has a much smaller budget than WBAI, and they have more consistently interesting programming, mostly music, sprinkled with other programming. Their public affairs programming is usually boring, but at least it isn't rampant. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ (201) 386-6491