Metro Pulse/Cover/Non-Commercial Radio

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Tune In!

Here's where you can tune in to Knoxville's local non-commercial radio stations:

WUOT, 91.9 FM
This 100,000-watt station operated by the University of Tennessee plays a mix of National Public Radio and Public Radio International news and entertainment shows, classical music and jazz. Supported by listener contributions, federal and state funding, and underwriting.
www.wuot.org

WUTK, 90.3 FM, The Torch
This 1,000-watt station also operated by UT plays a mix of alternative, punk, electronica, metal and hip hop music and sports programming. Specialty shows air weeknights starting at 6 p.m. Supported by UT's broadcasting department and by underwriting.
www.wutkradio.com

WDVX, 89.9 and a translator at 106.1 FM, East Tennessee's Own
An independent 200-watt community station, WDVX plays bluegrass, old-time music, classic country, folk, blues, Celtic and a whole bunch of other stuff. Supported by donations and underwriting. www.wdvx.com

WNCW, 96.7 FM in the Knoxville area
Operated by the Isothermal Community College in Spindale, N.C., this station broadcasts over six different frequencies in the region and plays a wide range of music, including Americana, bluegrass, rock, World, reggae, as well as news and entertainment. Supported by listeners, underwriters, the federal government and the state of North Carolina.
www.wncw.org

KFAR, 90.9 FM
This 88-watt pirate station lets volunteers play whatever they want, as long as their content isn't racist, sexist or homophobic, and they abide by community decency standards before 10 p.m. Supported by fundraising, donations and $10 monthly dues for DJs. For more information email [email protected]

WYLV, 89.1 FM, Love 89
Operated by Tennessee Media Associates, this station plays Christian music targeting 25- to 45-year-olds. Supported by donations and underwriting.
www.wrjz.com/about.html

WOEZ, 88.3 FM, Eazy 88
Also operated by Tennessee Media Associates, this station plays "Beautiful Music." Supported by donations and underwriting.
www.wrjz.com/about.html

Non-commercial radio stays on the air for its own sake

by Joe Tarr

It's hot as hell inside the broadcast booth of Knoxville's newest radio station on a muggy summer afternoon. The double-wide trailer—whose outside walls are spattered with graffiti—sits along a heavily wooded road in South Knoxville. The station's organizers squat rent free, but the neighbors don't mind—the place used to be a crack house until the station cleaned it out and moved in.

The broadcast equipment doesn't look like much: some used CD players, a small mixing board, a microphone, a broken tape deck. The transmitter is located in a cramped closet with a lock that requires a screwdriver to open. The antenna has been strung to the top of a tree out back.

Oh, and a video monitor in the booth shows the driveway outside, in case Federal Communications Commission agents should happen to visit. You see, Knoxville's First Amendment Radio (KFAR), is broadcasting illegally at 90.9 FM.

If the FCC comes by—they have once, leaving a warning letter, but were denied entrance because they did not have a search warrant—the plan is to grab the transmitter and run like hell. "They're going to have to chase us through the woods," says John Conner, one of KFAR's organizers, using a pseudonym. "I've seen [the regional FCC enforcement agent]. He's a nice guy, but I think I can take him in a 100-yard dash."

KFAR broadcasts an eclectic variety of music and news information—hip hop, bluegrass, electronica, jazz, indie rock, local music, alternative news programs and editorials. The station aims to be a true community station, giving anyone who wants it a platform to broadcast whatever they want (provided it's not offensive or obscene).

It's what many of them believe non-commercial radio should be. Their disgust with what the left end of the radio dial has become, and their willingness to break the law to force change, shows just how passionate people are about radio.

KFAR took to the airwaves because they say other non-commercial stations haven't been accessible to the public. "We're up here broadcasting, and we're more accessible to the community," Conner says. "We're providing a community service that [the legit non-commercial stations] never have, and we're doing it with very little fund raising."

It's an argument that stretches well beyond the Knoxville radio market. Whether you like what you hear on Knoxville's public radio stations or not, this city is fortunate enough to have several of them. There's a 100,000-watt station that broadcasts NPR shows, classical and jazz (WUOT); an eclectic Americana and bluegrass station that operates out of a trailer in Clinton (WDVX); and a college radio station that plays indie rock, hip hop and other genres (WUTK). And, the Americana, public radio and alternative music station WNCW out of Spindale, N.C., has a transmitter in Knoxville. There are also two small religious stations with non-commercial licenses.

How well these stations do their jobs can be the subject of fierce debate. But one thing is certain—a lot of people are listening.

Several terms get thrown around when talking about radio—" non-commercial," "public," "community," and "educational." But until recently the FCC had only two primary distinctions on the FM band—commercial and non-commercial educational. Commercial license holders are allowed to sell advertising, and any format goes, as long as decency standards are not violated and listeners don't complain. Non-commercial radio stations are not allowed to make a profit or sell advertising (although the rules have been loosened to allow "underwriting" announcements) and are supposed to have educational content, although the commission doesn't define what educational means.

Non-commercial radio is older than commercial—the University of Wisconsin at Madison WHA (then, 9XM) made experimental broadcasts as early as 1909 and is considered by some the oldest radio station—though commercial interests have always dominated.

Although there was no official designation for non-commercial, many universities obtained licenses in the '20s and '30s to broadcast a variety of educational and music programs. In 1945, the FCC reserved the 88.1 to 91.9 FM bandwidth for non-commercial radio.

In 1949, Lewis Hill started Pacifica Radio out of KPFA-FM in Berkeley, Calif.—the first independent radio supported by listeners, not advertisers or a large entity like a university. In the early '60s, Pacifica's programming spread to other cities. But many people were frustrated by the monopoly that commercial interests had on the radio.

In the mid-'60s, Congress became concerned that there was no alternative to commercial programming and that certain audiences weren't being served by the commercial model. The Public Broadcasting Act in 1967 provided a funding mechanism for non-commercial television and radio, out of which the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was created. In 1970, the CPB formed National Public Radio. The following year, the national news program All Things Considered debuted. (Stations that subscribed to NPR programming and got support via the CPB came to be known as "public radio." But technically the airwaves are all public, and there's nothing in the FCC license distinguishing a public radio station from non-commercial stations that don't get CPB funding.)

The Congressional mood turned once again in the early '80s and into the '90s when privatization and for-profit became the ideal model. Ronald Reagan, in 1981, and then Newt Gingrich in 1995, both attacked the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and tried to eliminate funding for NPR programming, which they attacked as liberally slanted. ("You know, the liberals have NPR all day," Gingrich told the Associated Press. "We have Rush [Limbaugh]. We pay for Rush through advertising. They pay for NPR through taxes.")

With its subsidy under attack, PBS and NPR were forced to look to other sources for funding. Public radio and television stations came to rely increasingly on listeners and viewers.

Knoxville's biggest non-commercial radio station, WUOT, went on the air in 1949. During the daytime, it played mostly instructional programming; in the evenings it was classical or jazz. For a time, it was only on from about 2 to 9 p.m. "Over a period of time the university became increasingly supportive of the station, and its hours of operation increased," says Norris Dryer, who hosts a classical music show and a talk show.

When Dryer started working at the station in 1968, it was broadcasting mainly classical, jazz and some folk music. The following year, the station jumped from 68,000 to 100,000 watts and went stereo. WUOT was a charter member of NPR, broadcasting the first edition of All Things Considered in 1972. "There were complaints from people who wanted music through their dinner hour," he says. "But after a period of time it drew a large audience."

Today, syndicated programs from NPR and Public Radio International have come to dominate the station's content.

WUOT still broadcasts a lot of classical and jazz music, but the news, talk and entertainment programs are the most popular and bring in the most listener donations, says the station's executive director, Regina Dean.

The shift toward news and talk has been mirrored at public radio stations throughout the United States. With the focus on getting support from listeners rather than the government, public radio began applying commercial radio marketing and formatting techniques. Consultants studied listener habits and realized that the shows with the most listeners happened to be the syndicated news and entertainment programs—namely, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Car Talk, Prairie Home Companion, Fresh Air and This American Life.

By emphasizing these kinds of programs, public stations can nurture loyal audiences who will be there when it's time to donate. But some say the approach has meant that most public radio stations sound alike, whether you're in Hartford, Memphis, Seattle or Toledo. And, critics claim, these stations are abandoning their mission to provide eclectic alternatives and locally produced programs.

WUOT has drawn fire a number of times in the past decade for killing local shows that didn't fit WUOT's increasingly narrow format. The anything-goes, all-night music show Unradio was canned in 1988. In 1999, the station canceled Live at Laurel, which featured concert recordings made at the Laurel Theatre, and Music of the Southern Mountains, about Appalachian Music. And, in 2000, Ashley Capps' diverse Friday music show, Unhinged, was canceled.

Capps (who runs the concert promotion company, AC Entertainment) still works at the station, overseeing its weekday evening jazz program, Improvisations. But, he remains an outspoken critic of the direction WUOT has taken.

"There is a philosophy that borrows pretty heavily from commercial radio—that is the notion that you surprise people as little as possible.... I think it is really sad. In my mind, it undermines the reason of being for public radio," Capps says.

"It's sort of the philosophy behind McDonalds. What it does is assume certain things that I don't think are necessarily true. Obviously, McDonalds is successful because they sell billions of hamburgers. But there are a lot of people out there who think their hamburgers suck and prefer to eat real food at restaurants that pay more attention to quality. To me, it's the same thing with public radio."

The strategy toward a narrowly defined format is ironic, he adds. "A lot of public radio's most popular radio shows do arguably the exact opposite. Car Talk sticks out like a sore thumb.... Prairie Home Companion completely breaks the format of public radio."

Dean argues that there is plenty of diversity in WUOT's programming, from classical music to jazz to news and entertainment shows. But, she adds, people tune in to public radio for certain things, and that's what the station is trying to give them.

"The public-radio demographic is not that different from Nashville to Idaho to California. You go to California—which is a much different area than East Tennessee—and Car Talk is still one of the most popular shows," she says.

"As far as homogenization or whatever, people are going to listen to whatever they want to. Broadcasting does not mean narrow casting," she adds. "The medium is still broadcast.... The reason we carry NPR, All Things Considered, Car Talk, This American Life, is because that's what people listen to."

Dean admits the station could do more to create a local voice. The station had hoped to hire a news director this spring to produce issue-oriented shows. But, the funding situation put that on hold.

Dryer says WUOT has done the best job it can of remaining diverse with its programming. But he misses the old days. "It used to be the individual stations had a lot of autonomy," he says. "If you were traveling in the South listening to public radio it would sound like a Southern station. In order to get national underwriting, NPR wants to go to national underwriters and say All Things Considered is heard by so many people on so many stations. I think overall it's not a positive move for public radio. But, to the extent that WUOT has done that, WUOT is just gong along with the trend."

Listener support for WUOT is certainly growing. More than a third of the station's $1.2 million budget comes from listeners, Dean says. There are some 5,300 members at the moment.

Another third comes from the state, filtered through the Institute for Public Service. The institute was on the chopping block during the recent budget crisis, leaving WUOT administrators worrying they might have to go off the air. As of Monday, it appeared that the state funding was secured, but Dean still didn't know all the details. She did not anticipate any more program cuts.

WUOT also gets about $140,000 from the Corporation for Public Broadcast—the only local station to get CPB funding.

The syndicated programs might be the most popular, but they're also the most expensive. NPR costs $200,000 a year. Some of those national shows—Marketplace, Schickele Mix, BBC News—were up for renewal last week and had to be cut because the late state budget made funding uncertain. Dean doesn't think any other programs will have to be cut.

A bit to the east of Knoxville at the oddly named Isothermal Community College is another public radio station that has moved in a different direction from WUOT. WNCW—which broadcasts in the Knoxville area at 96.7 FM—has bucked some of the national trends in public radio. It's tried to document the region's strong music tradition, as well as give attention to things that aren't covered elsewhere.

"There's a lot of music and information out there that just doesn't get broadcast," says WNCW program director, Mark Keefe. "I think the way to keep things alive is simply to broadcast it. Like Doc Watson.... People talk about Doc Watson, about how important he was, what an influence he was.... But the problem is, you turn on the radio station, no one is playing him."

The station made a bold move two years ago, by canceling All Things Considered and playing music instead. Other stations were already playing it, so the station decided to try something different. At first listenership sagged. But the station benefited by saving $40,000 it would have spent on NPR.

"That's a noticeable jump in your budget. And we were doing what we do best. People often say, 'I don't tune in to you to hear [NPR], I tune in to hear Doc Watson."

The station does still run syndicated programming, including Morning Edition and This American Life. But, it's paired with homegrown shows like This Old Porch, an old-timey music show, Frank on Fridays, an hour dedicated to Frank Zappa, and Dubatomic Particles, a reggae, ska and dub show. Many of those specialty shows are produced by volunteers.

It's clear that Keefe loves diversity in radio programming, but he's not one to criticize the direction other stations have taken. "Not everyone has the same idea of what an 'alternative' is. We've had people who said, 'I don't think a public radio station should ever play the same song twice,'" he says.

WDVX didn't set out to become a bluegrass and Americana station. It just sort of happened that way.

"We were looking at being more eclectic—encompassing more jazz and being more varied. But when we went on the air and started operating there were other things that determined programming besides concept. What can we do? When we started, it was the bare minimum—maybe an ID an hour and just music. We were limited to what music we could play. Most of the music we had was bluegrass and old timey. There was a buzz that got around about us in the bluegrass community," says Tony Lawson, station manager.

"I'm not one for labels...so we never said, 'We're bluegrass or an Americana station.' We just said, 'We're East Tennessee's own.' That sounded good for us."

The 200-watt station at 89.9 FM in Clinton has become affectionately known as the "station in the camper." (Its range is increased with a Knoxville translator located at 106.1 FM.)

Lawson and others started working on the station in 1991. In 1996, they did test broadcasts and were granted a license in 1997. Lawson has been working in radio since the '70s, but he grew disgusted with commercial end of the dial, which he saw becoming increasingly monopolized and stale.

WDVX has done a lot to invigorate Knoxville's airwaves, focusing on bluegrass, old-time music, blues, Western swing, folk and a smattering of world music and rock 'n' roll. There's also a live broadcast from Barley's Tap Room each Wednesday. Listeners have been loyal and the station has gotten international attention. (The station hasn't been without controversy—three years ago there were accusations that Lawson was mismanaging the station, and there was an exodus of unhappy volunteers. However, what you hear on the air gets mainly raves.)

Lawson says the station would like to be a bit more diverse, adding some local news programs, without straying too far from its roots. To do that, it needs a bigger studio—a 14-foot trailer might be good for creating a downhome image, but it's impossible to do much in the way of pre-recorded programming.

The station relies almost entirely on donations from listeners and under- writers. In the first six months of 2002, WDVX brought in $104,000, split almost evenly between donations and underwriting.

Lawson says the station started out very small because it didn't want to go into debt.

Station engineer and board member, Don Burggraf, says the station has avoided looking to the government for support. "A lot of NPR affiliates are required to fit the template that those particular entities expect public radio to be," says Burggraf. "This is one trap I didn't want to fall into with WDVX. We're well aware there's public money out there. But we're stubbornly autonomous. That's the crux of the whole matter right there—we don't intend to go by anybody's guidelines but our board's and the FCC's."

College radio used to be one of the places you could always rely on for something different. With no mandate to get good ratings or bring in donations or advertising, college radio could focus on quality programming. In the '80s, it became almost a refuge for music fans and musicians alike. Bands like R.E.M., U2, the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Throwing Muses built their careers in college radio. And college stations were the first to embrace electronica, hip hop, indie rock and just about anything else new and weird.

But, in the past several years, a number of college radio stations have become surprisingly conventional in their approach.

WUTK, the University of Tennessee's other radio station, drew fire last summer for installing a computer system called the Maestro to automatically play music. The station's managers also reduced the number of specialty shows allowed and changed the name from New Rock 90 to the Torch. WUTK also dumped a series of alternative news programs that aired Saturday morning, most of it syndicated but some of it locally produced, in favor of computer-rotated songs. Essentially, WUTK was becoming more like a commercial station.

The station's student managers justified the changes by saying their mission was to train students how to be commercial broadcasters. However, critics pointed out that the FCC doesn't license non-commercial stations to train DJs (which can be done off the air) but to provide non-commercial, educational content (a term the commission doesn't define).

Amy Varecka, WUTK operations manager, says the controversy was overblown. She says the station wasn't abandoning its responsibility to the community, but trying to operate more professionally.

"As custodians, I feel we have an opportunity to benefit the students as well as the community," she says. "We're public, just as the roadways are public. But at the same time, you have to have rules and guidelines you have to follow."

Programming at college stations will frequently change focus, because the students are always turning over. "The programming I think directly reflects the ambitions of the students involved. If you've heard us at all in the last few months, you'd know we've now got a lot of students interested in sports programming," Varecka says.

Varecka did her undergraduate work at Syracuse University, which has two college stations, one that is slickly produced and another that is anything-goes low budget. WUTK tries to be a mix of those. But the station suffers from low funding, she says. Under the control of the broadcasting department, the station operates on "duct tape, spit and shoestring." The community might be better served if WUTK was made a student activity, thus opening it up to more funding.

"It's hard to have a good presence on campus when funding is low," Varecka says. "If we were a student activity, we'd have a higher profile. It would probably be a good thing for the station."

Julie Hayes and Lea Dickerson—who hosted "The Panty Raid" on WUTK until they recently moved from Knoxville—say the Maestro has been bad for the station. "What the Maestro has done is allow people to be lazy," Hayes says. "Keeping the music current is not even a priority any more. Right now you probably have a backlog of 500 CDs waiting to be entered into the system."

Dickerson remembers when she first started working at the station a few years ago. The station's managers—in particular, then program director Brian Sherry—were diligent about having DJs review CDs for recommendations about what should be put into rotation, Dickerson says. It was a more democratic process than now, where just a few people control what gets put into rotation.

"There were so many cool specialty shows. The people in charge made it their business to learn everyone's interests. It was great," she says. "It really, really changed when the Maestro came in."

"The Panty Raid" specialty show played songs by female musicians in any genre of modern music, most of it unheard any where else on the airwaves. It was a throwback to all that was great about college radio in the '80s and '90s.

Hayes says the station suffers from an identity crisis. "Getting the Maestro was about trying to make the station more like a commercial station. But it's not a commercial radio station, it's a college radio station. It doesn't fit any type so there's not an audience any more," she says. "The Maestro has been a disappointment for everybody who used to listen to the station."

It was in part frustration with how WUTK and WUOT were being run that led to the formation of the pirate station, KFAR.

Several of the all-volunteer staff had hoped to get one of the newly created low-watt FM licenses. But lobbying by National Public Radio and national broadcasting groups changed the new license rules, making it impossible to get such a license in urban centers, according to Pete Tridish, a media activist with Prometheus Radio Project, a low-watt radio advocacy group. The FCC's original proposal would have allowed thousands of new 10- to 100-watt permits across the country for non-profit broadcasting. "Under the original FCC rules, in the top 10 urban areas there would have been 25 low-power stations available," Tridish says. With Congress' amendment there are essentially no licenses available in any of the top 50 urban areas.

Low-watt licenses are available in the areas surrounding Knoxville, and there are 59 applications throughout the state, including Maryville, Loudon, Tazewell, Cleveland, Johnson City, and several other Tennessee communities. The applicants include churches, schools and community groups. Permits have not been awarded yet in Tennessee, and it might take years for these new stations to get on the airwaves.

Angry that the opportunity was taken away from them in Knoxville, the KFAR group decided to broadcast anyway. Without having to do the expensive technical studies, the group was able to get up and running with just a few thousand dollars. There are about 20 to 25 active DJs, who must pay $10 a month dues for their shows. They say they're more open to the community than either college station.

"[W]UOT's not non-commercial—NPR is underwritten by G.E....[W]UTK does commercials," Conner says. "We're truly a non-profit. We're less than profit. Our DJs aren't paid. We don't have hierarchies like they do. We promote events they never talk about. We'll talk about issues they never do."

He points out that none of the non-commercial stations have addressed Knoxville's bad air pollution. "If our entire city's health is being affected and you can't hear about it on community radio, it's really frustrating. It makes you wonder what else they're not talking about."

Currently operating at about 88 watts, the station hopes to get a more powerful transmitter soon. The volunteers don't seem worried about breaking the law, but the FCC occasionally does crack down on pirates, says Tridish, who ran a pirate station himself a few years ago (before the FCC seized his equipment). An illegal station in Florida was just fined $10,000. Some people who push it have wound up in jail, although that is uncommon. But, with the death of low-watt FM in urban areas, many pirates are getting back on the airwaves.

"While low-power FM slowed down the pirates because they wanted to see how it would go, many of them are completely disgusted with the process," Tridish says. "For us who tried to reform the process of the FCC, they're saying, 'That's what you get when you play with the government.' It really taught us a lesson.

"We're loving working with small towns, but low power has really done nothing for those urban places."

Reaction from Knoxville's legit non-commercials to their rogue neighbor has so far been mixed. Dean hadn't heard about KFAR, but said it was unfair that she had to play by the rules while the pirate station doesn't. Others had a sense of admiration.

"The thing about it is, all the big boys have lobbied the [National Association of Broadcasters] to do everything it can to discredit the proliferation of low-power FM," Burggraf says. "This to me is a case of the right of the kings. [The big stations] have already got their licenses and they're trying to stifle competition."

"I really enjoy some of the programming [KFAR] has, particularly the programs produced by FAIR about behind-the-scenes media deficiencies. In this area of the country, a station like that would have a difficult time sustaining themselves. But by and large I feel the public airwaves are just that. It all boils down to definition of broadcasting: is it a public service or is it a business? In these days, the answer is 'public be damned.'"

In the next decade or so, non-commercial radio might be forced to change once again. This time it could be because of what is happening with technology and commercial radio.

The proliferation of satellite and Internet radio is opening up more choices for consumers. To survive, non-commercial radio stations may have to find a way to further distinguish themselves.

"A station like WUOT can possibly face major challenges in future. With the advent of satellite radio and the Internet, you can really access NPR in a variety of ways," Capps says. "It's really going to became more and more important for radio stations to become more unique, or there's not going to be any reason to listen to them."

Dean recognizes that WUOT will have to adapt. She says NPR is looking at providing different material to different formats. "We have to make sure that our version is providing something that the national version is not," she says.

Lawson believes that WDVX is already well situated for the emergence of satellite radio. "The more stations you have, the more you're going to have niche marketing. With satellite radio, to me the challenge is to become more regional, more local," he says. "Is the local band going to get its CD on satellite radio?"

WDVX is fortunate enough to broadcast from a hotbed of musical history and creativity. As such, people from all over the world tune in on-line to hear the likes of the Louvin Brothers and Dock Boggs.

Capps wonders whether radio means as much as it used to. He says radio isn't as powerful a promotional tool as it used to be.

"The way people get information about music seems to be changing a lot," he says. "Radio formats have become so restrictive that people have turned to new ways of discovering music. I know people who find out about music through the Internet more than any other means. It's especially true with young people. If you're a real music fan, it's hard to find any sort of satisfaction on the radio."

But Tridish says that people are still excited about radio. Low-watt FM and pirate have the potential to revolutionize politics and society on the local level.

"A lot of the interest [in low-watt FM] has to do with our general media landscape. With deregulation, we're seeing more concentrated ownership of the media," Tridish says. "Our media has gotten away from local production. There's no good reason for this. Media in a more democratic society would be open to all, instead of a central few making entertaiment. As a tool, it's local democracy instead of a commodity."