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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Springfield's WNNS/WMAY/WQLZ Asked to Donate Radio Station |
Current rating: 0 |
by Franklin Nord of 23 Skidoo
Email: fnord8102 (nospam) altavista.com (unverified!)
Address: Springfield, Illinois |
19 Mar 2001
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An invitation was issued to Springfield Radio Conglomerate to donate its frequency to Radio Free Springfield. |
WNNS/WMAY/WQLZ Asked to Donate Radio Frequency
WNNS/WMAY/WQLZ was formally invited last week to donate its newly purchased radio
frequency to the community of Springfield. Due to the proliferation of lowest-common-
denominator cultural filler that is being spewed across Springfield\'s airwaves, there is no
bandwidth left for community activists to begin a non-profit community-oriented, community-
reflective radio station.
Rather than risk arrest by starting a non-sanctioned radio station, known as a \"pirate\" radio
station in the mainstream, some community activists have decided that asking
WNNS/WMAY/WQLZ to donate its extra frequency is a good place to start. Authors of the
invitation explained to WNNS/WMAY/WQLZ: \"To remain a community, to the extent that we
are a community, is to protect those invisible wealths that community offers. Such basic human
needs as autonomy, security, freedom from fear, conviviality, and creativity cannot be met by a
market driven solely by profit, which evidently tends toward bland cultural homogenization.\"
The issuers of the invitation (a complete text is attached below this press release), Free Radio Springfield, are
Springfield residents who are bored to tears with commercial radio as it currently exists.
Franklin Nord explains how the group got started. \"Five years ago, we all got really tired of top-
forty pop, the stale modern rock format, and the lite country rock music, and we shut off our
radios. It is ridic for the government to give up the airwaves of the public to people who just
want a radio station to make money off it. As all media should be, radio is a tool for the public,
for people, for citizens of Springfield to get to know each other again, through the eyes of
Springfield\'s own Vachel Lindsay and police-harassed African Americans, through the poor
working class unable to earn a living wage and Latino immigrants unable to live their lives as
they best see fit, through the eyes of women who along with their children can see no hope. This
is what radio can be: community staging its theater of dreams on the air. Our community
deserves a radio station of its own, and it\'s ridic in this country that corporations are given first
dibs on the airwaves that rightfully belong to the people. Each citizen of Springfield owns a
piece of the airwaves. We want to reclaim ours.\"
Musician Thom Yorke explains that these radio stations seem to \"exist solely for the needs of
the advertisers.\" That\'s a definition that defies rebuttal.
Free Radio Springfield has yet to receive an RSVP to its invitation from WNNS/WMAY/WQLZ.
But, the night is young.
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Text of Invitation below:
an Invitation
In order to be for the community, media must also be of the community and by the community.
We, the community, invite you to open up your recently acquired FM radio frequency to us. Many of us are eager
to contribute to local media and we would like to create a non-profit community radio station.
You have not yet started broadcasting on your new frequency because you are trying to determine the type of
programming this market, our community of Springfield, can support. Expensive consulting firms and we will tell
you the same thing: Springfield is already saturated with lowest-common-denominator cultural filler. Your money
will tell you that you should probably keep the new station running on those same lines, though, because even if you
generate a little less revenue, you will still get advertisers to support you.
If, however, you believe in the power of community, you can find out what this community wants by opening up
your new radio frequency to the community. If you want to know what people want to hear, which is not
necessarily what the advertisers want to hear, open up the frequency and let people play what they will.
Opening up the frequency to the community can be your gift to those of us who are not satisfied with the market’s
current offerings on the radio, a compensation for the frustration of not being catered to by the mysterious
conglomerates who control the contents of that which is broadcast in our community.
It’s time for the community in Springfield to recover its soul from the business interests, which have purchased it
from the government, in this case via our airwaves. To remain a community, to the extent that we are a community,
is to protect those invisible wealths that community offers. Such basic human needs as autonomy, security, freedom
from fear, conviviality, and creativity cannot be met by a market driven solely by profit, which evidently tends
toward bland cultural homogenization.
The world is changing. To remain a community, we must be able to adapt to change. To do that, we must have a
thriving diversity of ideas and experiences to draw from to further the vision of our community. The vision that can
simultaneously strengthen and liberate us is this vision of a community radio station, which will grant the
community something that has been denied it for too long.
We now invite you, as a radio conglomerate, to participate in the reclamation of this community’s body & spirit by
offering your extra radio frequency as gift to Springfield. It is a gift the community of Springfield will cherish.
Please RSVP to the above invitation to:
Free Radio Springfield
c/o Autonomania
fnord8102 (at) altavista.com
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