February 6, 2007
(Good) Radio Free D.C.
Driving down I-81 in central Virginia earlier this year, we heard something we haven't heard in awhile: a radio station playing good music. This, and the announcement of "eco-station" 94.7 the Globe got us thinking: why doesn't D.C. have a good independent music station? Other big cities have great listener-supported music stations, like KEXP in Seattle and WFMU in New York, and many other cities have decent student-run college stations. But D.C. has neither.
About the only thing that comes close, literally, is the much-praised WRNR in Annapolis, but it's broadcast from the Eastern Shore and can barely reach the eastern Maryland burbs. A commenter at DCRTV says there's little hope of a WRNR power boost because of legal restrictions - he says they have the biggest tower and most power they can have with their license. Most of D.C.'s college stations either have small areas, like Maryland's WMUC, or are internet only, like most of the other college stations, or are NPR talk stations, like WAMU. Georgetown used to have a student-run station, but their anti-war and liberal programming led the university the donate the station to UDC, which sold it to C-SPAN due to city budget issues. There's a small community station in Columbia Heights and Mt. Pleasant, Radio CPR, but that can barely reach those neighborhoods, and low-power FM in urban areas seems to be in stasis. So while Annapolis has their good station and Charlottesville has the aforementioned WNRN, D.C. is stuck with repetitive audience researched schlock.
Considering there are almost 6 million people in the greater Washington area, many of whom are very vocal in their disdain for local radio, why isn't there a good local station? Honestly, have you ever heard anybody say they like D.C. radio? Demand clearly isn't an issue, and as Marc Fisher points out, 3/4 of all Americans still listen to the radio, even with iPods, internet and satellite radio, and repetitive dreck from terrestrial stations. And the D.C. area is wealthy, so listener contributions shouldn't be too tough to obtain. The D.C. radio waves are crowded, but with the caveat that we aren't radio engineers, there seems to be some room - Wikipedia shows a few fairly wide gaps around the dial.
So what could make this happen? Funding seems to be the main obstacle, as FM radio licenses are given out freely, but are generally already taken and cost a lot to buy. For example, C-SPAN purchased WGBT from UDC for $25 million. That price might be prohibitive but a few big donors could go a long way. A grassroots effort and some big name support, vocal or financial, would also be a great start. With the city's music connections, we could see diverse shows hosted by D.C. residents Bob Mould, Ian MacKaye, and Chuck Brown. Maybe NoVa's Dave Grohl could get into the act, or any of the numerous and influential D.C. area musicians from the past.
Taking another route, why don't the area universities without broadcast stations come together and make a joint student-run station? That might solve the funding issue, and there'd certainly be an audience and people willing to work there for free. And considering that most of the best known independent stations started as college stations, this sounds like a good option.
We could even hope for corporate salvation, like Los Angeles' Indie 103.1, which is partially run by Clear Channel but is actually good. And there's always AM radio, though sound quality might suffer.
Maybe we're nostalgic or naive, thinking back to the time when we heard good stuff on the radio, but we think it can be done. We're begging you, whoever you are, for the love of music, start a legitimate (and legal) listener-supported station. D.C. is all ears.
Radio tower photo by Bill Adler
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One relatively inexpensive option is to get an HD radio for your car and pick up progressive-AAA WTMD from Towson on WAMU's HD2 stream. They're a commerical-free semi-local public station that plays stuff like The Hold Steady, Yo La Tengo, Spoon and Lucinda Williams, has real live DJs picking music, and carries The World Cafe.
THANK YOU! Atlanta has WAY better radio than DC mostly because of the Georgia State and Georgia Tech stations. I feel as though DC's (bad/fake) reputation as a straight laced JCrew city is upheld by the bland radio here. We definitely need better free radio!
thankfully we got satellite radio as a gift a while back, b/c listening to commercial radio around here gives me the hives-and not the good musical kind.
the new addition of 'george'? radio seems to be the next insult and an added layer of cheeeeeze.
indiefolkforever is right, WTMD is a terrific radio station. (Score one for Baltimore.)
Among the many frustrating things is that the public radio stations don't even try to fill the music gap. NPR and National Public Media both syndicate some really interesting shows. Specifically, I'm thinking of World Cafe (produced by WXPN Philly), Cyprus Avenue (KCUR Kansas City), and others. American Routes does air in DC, but the timeslot is constantly shifting. Right now, WAMU buries it at 10pm Saturday.
yeah, UDC made a tidy profit off gtown's idiot move of just giving it away. No wonder their endowment is embarrassingly low compared to its peers.
What, WPFW can't get any love?
The reason DC doesn't have a KEXP is because it doesn't have a Paul Allen. The EXP stands for Allen's pet music museum, "The Experience Music Project", which was partially funded by grateful Seattle taxpayers along with the stadium for his football team. In return, he bought out a college music station and professionalized it. Guess it works out even in the end.
What, WPFW can't get any love?
DCist is too whitebread to give it up for PFW.
While it may appear, at first glance, that there are some open frequencies in the D.C. area, the truth is that all available spectrum is already spoken for. If stations are too narrowly-spaced, they tend to interfere with one another. A great example of this is 106.7 WJFK, which due to some foolish decisions by the FCC, is short spaced with 106.5 in Baltimore, and 106.9 in Hagerstown. This is why JFK sounds like shit unless you're due west of their tower, which is near the intersection of 495 and 66. Establishing a new frequency here could only be accomplished by moving an existing license, and this would almost certainly require purchasing stations on other frequencies and shutting them down, or brokering deals that result in said stations lowering their power. All of this would require one to have more money than God (but apparently not more than Dan Snyder, who is currently plotting such moves with his sports talk station).
It would be great to see someone pry 90.1 from C-SPAN's hands, but it seems they have quite a firm grip on that frequency. That station is a total waste of electricity. Anyone who wants to spend hours listening to the Nixon tapes or simulcasts of some boring TV call-in show on the radio should find another way to do it (it's available on both XM and Sirius).
Let us not forget the great resource that we already have in 89.3 WPFW (check 'em out at wpfw dot org). Their musical programming covers real jazz, old school R&B, blues, underground hip-hop, Zydeco, Latin, African, and world music. On top of that, they're live and local, with their studios on Champlain Street in Adams Morgan.
And Radio CPR deserves mad props for their excellent programming, although I wish they were on 24/7, and I would love to know how the FCC has managed to turn a blind eye to them for all these years.
Maybe if the FCC wasn't beholden to a bunch of corporate necrophiles, you'd actually have radio choice instead of Clear Channel running roughshod over every one-kilowatt pirate radio station in the neighborhood.
While it may appear, at first glance, that there are some open frequencies in the D.C. area, the truth is that all available spectrum is already spoken for. If stations are too narrowly-spaced, they tend to interfere with one another. A great example of this is 106.7 WJFK, which due to some foolish decisions by the FCC, is short spaced with 106.5 in Baltimore, and 106.9 in Hagerstown. This is why JFK sounds like shit unless you're due west of their tower, which is near the intersection of 495 and 66. Establishing a new frequency here could only be accomplished by moving an existing license, and this would almost certainly require purchasing stations on other frequencies and shutting them down, or brokering deals that result in said stations lowering their power. All of this would require one to have more money than God (but apparently not more than Dan Snyder, who is currently plotting such moves with his sports talk station).
It would be great to see someone pry 90.1 from C-SPAN's hands, but it seems they have quite a firm grip on that frequency. That station is a total waste of electricity. Anyone who wants to spend hours listening to the Nixon tapes or simulcasts of some boring TV call-in show on the radio should find another way to do it (it's available on both XM and Sirius).
Let us not forget the great resource that we already have in 89.3 WPFW (check 'em out at wpfw . org). Their musical programming covers real jazz, old school R&B, blues, underground hip-hop, Zydeco, Latin, African, and world music. On top of that, they're live and local, with their studios on Champlain Street in Adams Morgan.
And Radio CPR deserves mad props for their excellent programming, although I wish they were on 24/7, and I would love to know how the FCC has managed to turn a blind eye to them for all these years.
The reason DC doesn't have a KEXP is because it doesn't have a Paul Allen.
Paging Dan Snyder. Paging Dan Snyder.
Check that, he already tried to bastardize WGMS. Maybe we should keep his grubby fingers out of the radio spectrum.
Seconding the Album 88.5 love.
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The FM dial around DC is pretty much full, wikipedia or not. That means the only way you'll get a new FM signal on the air here is either 1) LPFM (which, as noted, is pretty much useless) or 2) getting carried on an FM sideband (i.e., the HD option listed here). Since both of those will result in tiny potential audiences for the forseeable future, we look to other options.
Well, you can, as the article notes, try to buy an FM station. According to a rumour passed on my DCRTV, the old WGMS (104.whatever) may be up for sale. But the amount of money here goes well beyond whatever any community supported station (or even a few well heeled investors) could ever raise. So what to to?
AM. Seriously. There are a number of AM stations in the DC area that seem to perpetually be up for sale (at least, the owners are willling to listen for the right $). This solves the potential audience problem (we ALL have AM radios). Even if you didn't want to buy a whole station, there are plenty of stations that will sell you time (e.g., use of the station between 7pm and midnight on all weeknights, or all weekend, etc.). Much cheaper than FM, and with the right equipment, quality just as good.
~
Wanna get down in a cool way
Picture yourself on a beautiful day
Big bell bottoms and groovy long hair
Just walkin in style with a portable cd player
No, you would listen to the music on the AM radio
Yeah, you could hear the music on a AM radio
Seconding the Album 88.5 love.
~
The FM dial around DC is pretty much full, wikipedia or not. That means the only way you'll get a new FM signal on the air here is either 1) LPFM (which, as noted, is pretty much useless) or 2) getting carried on an FM sideband (i.e., the HD option listed here). Since both of those will result in tiny potential audiences for the forseeable future, we look to other options.
Well, you can, as the article notes, try to buy an FM station. According to a rumour passed on my DCRTV, the old WGMS (104.whatever) may be up for sale. But the amount of money here goes well beyond whatever any community supported station (or even a few well heeled investors) could ever raise. So what to to?
AM. Seriously. There are a number of AM stations in the DC area that seem to perpetually be up for sale (at least, the owners are willling to listen for the right $). This solves the potential audience problem (we ALL have AM radios). Even if you didn't want to buy a whole station, there are plenty of stations that will sell you time (e.g., use of the station between 7pm and midnight on all weeknights, or all weekend, etc.). Much cheaper than FM, and with the right equipment, quality just as good.
~
Wanna get down in a cool way
Picture yourself on a beautiful day
Big bell bottoms and groovy long hair
Just walkin in style with a portable cd player
No, you would listen to the music on the AM radio
Yeah, you could hear the music on a AM radio
If/when HD Radio finally takes off, we'll likely see music make a comeback on the AM band. Digital AM is static free, in stereo, and sounds almost as good as FM. The potential is there. Now all we need are affordable, and portable, HD-capable radios.
We either have another FCC attorney or Ibiquity investor here :)
Ron --
Doesn't Radio CPR have one of those low-power FM licenses that the FCC started awarding recently? Not sure how they got by as a pirate station before, but these days, I believe they're legal.
The Twin Cities has an exceptional indie radio system to look at for D.C. There's the Current, a indie-crock TripleAAA form station run by Minn. Public Radio. There's KFAI-FM, a free form type station with rockabilly to bluegrass and Amy Goodman. Then there's Radio K, 770, on the AM dial. A great college radio station that also uses a low frequency FM number for just mpls. If DC could do something like this third option, it would at least have one cool radio station.
Right now, we have C-SPAN radio as our unique offering -- how inspiring and interesting!
WPFW doesn't get mentioned nearly enough in these conversations
and let's not forget 96.3 whur, howard university's station. it's very much a part of the dc community, much appreciated, and with good reason: it's an excellent radio station.
and let's not forget 96.3 whur, howard university's station. it's very much a part of the dc community, much appreciated, and with good reason: it's an excellent radio station.
Oh i love your article... It forced me to reminisce the hay day of progressive underground that was WHFS.. Originally Listener supported then fused to become the dry gulch of pop crap churning out audio ad space for the critical, and completely indifferent, masses..
A false alarm there was heart here !! There isn't.. No ones from here, therefore no one can be that nostalgic to what comes from here.. Its' a nice thought but forget it..
Good luck though, i'd be happy to be proven wrong.
do people not have 89.3 available on their radios? hello? wpfw - the messenger? i've noticed that dcist is full of indie-rock fans and one classical junkie based upon their music reviews, but wpfw has one of the best lineups i've ever heard - and i've lived in new york, boston, and los angeles. listen on sunday from 9am to midnight and you'll hear a mixture of modern, classic, and avante garde jazz followed by real hip-hop (2k nation begins at 9pm) - not the pre-packaged baloney that clear channel and the record companies sell to rich suburban kids (of all races). hello? amy goodman's democracy now and war and peace report? every day? and last week (or two weeks ago) her show featured this very topic - radio station proliferation (or the lack thereof) and how to obtain low-power FM licenses during this round of applications (get involved by calling the Prometheus Radio project if you're interested).
Come on, DCist. There might not be that much indie rock in town, but, like you always forget, the entire world doesn't listen to indie rock...
Where's the love for WMUC 88.1FM at U-MD College Park?
Yeah, ok, its signal is only 10 watts and it's hard to receive that signal beyond Northern PG County/NE DC, but they've been doing the alternative/indie/freeform college radio thing for years. It can be a bit amateurish at times, but you'll hear some stuff that you generally won't elsewhere.
You can listen to them online, too.
And don't forget about the great classic R&B that WPFW plays on Saturdays. Their DJs have real personality, too.
I guess I should have said in the post that I was referring more to rock/eclectic type radio without much talk, like the ones I cited, KEXP, WFMU, WRNR, WNRN, Indie 103.1 and so on. It looks like WPFW is a great independent choice for jazz and hip hop fans though.
Plain and simple- the US government really doesn't want students, or independents, to have a voice. In recent years they conservatives have even attempted to take away education- for fear that an educated populous will vote them out. Guess what, they were right! DC is no different than many other cites, like in Denver. Albeit we have a TV station broadcasting on channel 6, knocking out most non-com frequencies, the few that are on-air all offer repetetive and duplicative NPR broadcasts in the morning and evening, and classical music all day. Who the heck listens to that anymore? Not students!
The issue isn't entirely that people only want for "indie rock", although I hear what you're saying, Dizzy.
The issue is that there isn't any outlet for an intelligent DJ-driven mix of virtually any genre or mix of genres (beyond jazz and weekend soul and hip-hop on WPFW and possibly the new WETA classical). Indie rock, sure, but also soul, oldies, folk, country, world, etc. What there is of these genres on the airwaves is highly siloed and programmed repetitively to the absolutely lowest common denominator.
And most major metropolitan areas have a free, over the air public or college station filling this need to some degree (off the top my head, WTMD Baltmore, WFMU NY, WXPN Philly, WYEP Pittsburgh, WNRN Charlottesville, The Current Minneapolis, KEXP Seattle, KCRW Los Angeles, etc.).
Sure, you can get Sat/HD/MP3 player/etc, but there is something special about the communal experience of a halfway decent pop/rock/soul etc. music radio station in town. It's good for the music community.
indiefolkforever, i'd argue that whur, howard university's station, is an intelligent, dj-driven mix of r&b, soul and other music. it has been thus for a few decades now, and is an important part of the dc community. whur pioneered the "quiet storm" evening format that's been picked up by r&b stations all over the united states. plus it plays great gospel music on sunday mornings and afternoons, and caribbean/calypso on saturday nights. where else do you find that mix on your fm radio dial?
DC has a bunch of great radio stations. They're on XM. I'd rather give my money to them.
Dear factchecker: WFMU is based in Jersey City, NJ, though its listening area includes NYC.
WTMD is all you need gang. For less than $125 you can get an HD Radio and listen to WTMD on WAMU-channel 2. WTMD just counted down the Greatest 897 Songs of All Time. The list is as wtmd.blogspot.com Plus, the station hosts 6 free concerts with indie bands every summer. They've broken bands like The Slip, TV on the Radio and others.
I can't believe everyone has mentioned all these stations around the country when we have a great station in Baltimore on regular radio and in DC on HD Radio. They have a Local Band show, Baltimore Unsigned, that highlights artists from PA to DC. This week Hampsterdam is on the show. They are a Hip Hop duo who are going to be on The Wire next season.
WHFS used to be awesome back in the 80s. Truly a progressive station before they turned into bullshit, then disappeared completely. Towson University's old station WCVT (89.7fm) used to kill it. Industrial, old school punk & oi, reggae/dub, weird communist talk shows. They went off the air in 1991 I think.
89.3fm WPFW still sports the most liberal programming in the DC area, although their evening weirdness (esp. on weekends) is considerably less weird than it was 10-15 years ago. East Coast Sound Patrol used to do a wicked hip-hop show on Friday nights, and Bobby Hill still holds down Saturday nights with an always interesting playlist. And every Christmas Eve/NYE he still does the Bomb Squad B-Sides special, playing nothing but instrumental Public Enemy, Ice Cube and other Bomb Squad productions. About DC being an affluent area, those affluent people aren't really supporting independent radio stations. They are spending their money on cars and shit, or investing. WPFW can barely make enough to survive, and they've been around for a long long time.
forgot to mention WPGC's sister station back in the 90s - 1580AM. That was a great AM station. We used to always have it playing on this clock radio we had in our kitchen. They would play nothing but ruffneck hip-hop, go go and dancehall/reggae. No r&B and no pop. I can't find ANYBODY who has tapes of 1580AM. I would flip out if I ever came across some of that action.
London currently has about 70 pirate FM stations operating, which probably accounts for about half of all pirate FM stations in all the UK. They have the DTI to reckon with, but obviously they don't pose nearly as much a threat as the FCC does here. The Pirate fm scene in London and the UK has played a major role in the evolution of underground music/culture for many years. Just think what even FIVE pirate stations would do for the DC area.