Although my Spanish is pretty rusty I'll be very interested to listen to the Zapatista's Radio Insurgente on radioActive San Diego. I hope they can archive the program for those who miss it live, or might want to air it on other stations.

Update: lotu5 from radioActive informs me that the program is already archived at RadioInsurgente.org.

These are the news headlines as read on the 5-27-05 edition of the radioshow: DTV Deadline to Fund Deficit; DO IT Act to Fund Education and Public TV; Clear Channel Co-Opts Pirate Rhetoric

DTV Deadline to Fund Deficit
According to the chair of the House Commerce Committee, Dec. 31, 2008 should be the firm date when your analog TV becomes legally obsolete because all television broadcasts must be digital by then. Representative, Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, said that the Dec. 31, 2008 date is “pretty much frozen” into a draft bill being worked on in his committee.

Barton also said that he would support some kind of subsidy for digital converter boxes for low income households that can’t afford new digital televisions, although no such provision is yet in the draft legislation.

Committee members have not been able to agree on digital broadcasters’ public interest obligations, multicast must-carry , how cable companies will provide digital TV to analog subscribers, and how to treat consumers fairly when the government renders their analog TV's inoperable.

Chairman Barton has been charged by the House Budget Committee to find $4.7 billion and it looks like he sees dollar signs in the analog broadcast spectrum which TV broadcasters are supposed to abandon. As a result, he plans to attach the digital TV legislation to a budget reconciliation bill.

Ranking committee Democrat John Dingell of Michigan said the bill must address two questions: "Why should ordinary citizens pay more because of a governmental decision that makes their television sets obsolete?" and "Why can't the proceeds from the sale of spectrum, which is a public good, be used to reimburse citizens for their transition costs and for other important telecommunications and public safety needs?"

DO IT Act to Fund Education and Public TV
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has joined a bipartisan group of legislators in introducing a bill to create a trust fund that will benefit public television and education. The bill is called the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act and would provide funding to support the digitization of collections and other significant holdings of the nation's universities, museums, libraries, public television stations, and other cultural institutions. According to the bill’s language, the fund would also support “basic and applied research, including demonstrations of innovative learning and assessment systems as well as the components and tools needed to create them.”

Twenty-one percent of the trust fund’s investment revenues would be reserved for public television stations that are qualified to receive funding from the corporation for public broadcasting.

The trust would be operated as an independent non-profit corporation, without direct control from the federal government. However, the board of directors will be appointed by the president, with confirmation from the Senate.

Clear Channel Co-Opts Pirate Rhetoric
Demonstrating that nothing is safe from crass corporate media co-opting, this week Clear Channel got outted as the force behind a supposed new pirate station in Northeast Ohio it calls “Free Radio Ohio.” Other Clear Channel stations in the area were allegedly being interfered with by the new pirate, with promos for it showing up on these stations sounding as if they had been inserted surreptitiously.

According to Crain’s Business Cleveland, the buzz started on the Cleveland message boards at radio-info.com, where the first post about a web site called RadioFreeOhio.org showed up May 19. The message mentioned that Clear Channel-owned WTOU-AM 1350 was “interrupted” by a purported pirate radio broadcast touting the Radio Free Ohio site.

Within a day, another post claimed the site’s Internet protocol address was registered to none other than Clear Channel Communications, but offered no supporting facts. Since then Clear Channel’s registration has been confirmed by the weblog for the independent media magazine, Stay Free.

The Free Radio Ohio website attempted to poorly assimilate the rhetoric of media reform critics and free radio activists. Scathing reviews of other Cleveland-area stations, including ones owned by Clear Channel, were posted. The list of reviews was headed by the statement: “The following is a list of radio stations in Northeast Ohio that should be forced to turn off their transmitters and turn their licenses over to the Federal Communications Commission.”

For example, the site said that talk station WHLO is, “obviously operated by communist.” But paradoxically goes on to say that WHLO, “consists of nothing more than right wing rhetoric dispensed at toxic levels. WHLO features overbearing personalities that have little or no knowledge of actual facts.”

Now that Free Radio Ohio has been outted as a tool of Clear Channel most of the site’s content has been taken down, including message boards where listeners were encouraged to complain about Cleveland-area radio. However discussion quickly turned to criticism of Clear Channel itself, especially deriding its guerilla marketing scheme and homogenizing domination of Cleveland’s airwaves.

There is no evidence of an actual pirate station called Radio Free Ohio operating on the Cleveland airwaves, nor is there any evidence that the supposed interruptions appeared on any stations not owned by Clear Channel.

I know I'm a few days late on this, but I want to send congratulations to Textfiles.com guy Jason Scott because his enormous BBS Documentary DVD project has just started shipping.

I haven't yet seen it (guess I'd better get my order in), but I can only guess that this is an important historical documentation of a phenomenon that laid the groundwork for the modern internet and many of the principles of free communication that we're trying to preserve today.

I spoke to Jason about his archiving activities and the documentary on the Feb. 4 edition of the radioshow.

I'm glad to announce that the mediageek radioshow has now gone global, with Flirt FM 105.6 in Galway, Ireland picking up the show to air during its Kaleidoscope slot on Wednesdays from 12:30 - 13:00.

My friend and fellow ICR student Andrew O'Baoill is a founder and alumnus of the station, and it appears that folks at the station found mediageek because Andrew had been a guest some months back to discuss community radio in Ireland.

Andrew has promised to help out by feeding me some media news from Ireland and elsewhere in the EU.

This brings the total number of licensed mediageek affiliates to three. The unlicensed affiliates are a little harder to count, due to the fact that their scheduled can be more erratic -- but they're just as welcome.

Contact me if your local station might be interested in airing the program.

As you may know, this past weekend I was in St. Louis at the 2nd National Conference on Media Reform. I've got a lot of audio and thoughts, and will post much of it here in the coming days (and at the BeTheMediaBlog, which has lots of other people's thoughts, too).

Drew and I called in to WEFT Friday to do the radioshow live via phone and report our impressions of the first day of the conference. There's also a couple of audio clips from Naomi Klein's and Amy Goodman's appearance in Urbana earlier in the week.

The show is ready for download now. You can expect more about the conference, including some selected conference audio, in the coming weeks.

We've got a "new" radio station in Champaign-Urbana. New, in that the old Oldies 92 has flipped format to be called "The Chief." The change mostly means the addition of the 80s to the oldies line up. Oh, and the firing of all airstaff and more automation.

I really haven't listened much, and have only heard the spots with the deep voice saying, "If you owned a radio station, you'd play what you want. Here, we play what the Chief wants."

Normally, a minor radio format change wouldn't merit mediageek coverage. But here in Champaign-Urbana, "The Chief" is a loaded term.

You see, the Chief is shorthand for Chief Illiniwek, the University of Illinois' racist mascot. The Chief is a big controversy here, since progressive minded folks and native americans would like to see him gone, while the Board of Trustees and others appeal to "tradition" to keep him. Nevermind that the Chief bears no actual similarity to any native american tradition or tribe of any sort -- the closest relation to the Chief are the native american stereotypes I saw in old Loony Tunes cartoons as a kid, which I think Warner Brothers pulled from circulation back in the 80s.

See, even the big media conglomerates can be more progressive than the U of I.

So, naming your newly automated station after a controversial university mascot is a ballsy move, and I wonder what's motivating Saga, the corporate owner based in Michigan.

Frankly, it seems more like a cheap shot to drum up some controversy and publicity than any sort of long lasting station identity. But, to me, that's like courting controversy by naming your Brooklyn based station, The Heeb.

The station has been dropping in the ratings over the last few books, so I guess Saga felt like it had to do something. However, the thing that most made the station drop was Saga buying it in the first place, and screwing up a station that had a very loyal local following by ditching the personalities and qualities that made people like it in the first place.

So, once again, a big radio owner makes the race to the bottom rather than actually provide quality programming and local service. I'll be investigating this further when I have more time and the Media Reform conference is over.

The Conference starts officially today, but last night there was check-in and the Academic Brain Trust. Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic in Metro East and then my car died right when we got to the hotel -- which is the best place for it to die. It's just a battery problem, so we're not stranded in St. Louis, but it made us a little too late to participate in the Trust.

Last night we went to a party/benefit for the St. Louis community station, KDHK, called Midwest Mayhem, held at a place called City Museum, which is really just a big jungle gym for adults... with alcohol. There was a big ball pit, lots of spiral staircases that end in big slides, and a strange metal tube catwalk that takes you above the outdoor area 3 - 4 stories into old planes suspended above. It was a good way to let loose just before the conference begins, but after those of us from Champaign-Urbana already had a couple days of the Media Consolidation conference.

We're about 20 minutes away from the opening session and plenary, which I will probably blog at the Be The Media Blog.

The nice part about conferences that you go to more than once is catching up with people you haven't seen in a while, like IMCistas from Michigan, NYC and Madison and folks from Prometheus. So last night was mostly social and today it's back to the business of media reform.

Tonight was the opening night for the short Media Consolidation conference here at the U of I, with Seymour Hersh giving the keynote. Drew wrote a nice, concise summary of Hersh's talk at BeTheMediaBlog, and Andrew has already posted the audio.

Rep. Bernie sanders gave a rousing speech, unafraid to utter words like "working class" and "socialism," and also not afraid to point out the topics the corporate media is unwilling to cover, such as the erosion of the financial security of the middle class. I'll probably have this audio posted within the next day.

Naomi Klein gave a somewhat rambling overview of her experiences in Iraq, which were nonetheless interesting and engaging. For instance, did you know that most American reporters have Iraqis doing most of their data gathering for them, including interviews, pictures and video? That's because even the "green" zone is pretty dangerous. However the Iraqis doing the real reporting don't get credit, ostensibly in order to protect their safety.

Wrapping things up tonight, Amy Goodman gave a typically rabble rousing speech that touched on many of her stock anecdotes, like her experiences in East Timor 14 years ago, but also playing to the home crowd, giving mad props to the independent media scene in Champaign-Urbana.

We'll have some highlights on Friday's radioshow, and the full audio of everything will become available via links either here at mediageek or at the Be The Media Blog.

I'll be participating in a little session during the lunch break at the Wednesday Media Consolidation conference along with some of my comrades in independent media from the 'hood. It happens at 12:30 PM in the Krannert Center Lobby, between the session featuring Phil Donahue, John Nichols and Naomi Klein and the one featuring Len Hill, Dennis Swanson (Viacom), Paul Jay andRoberta Baskin (Center for Public Integrity).

John K. Wilson is the guy who put this session together. He was the primary motivator getting the Bloomington-Normal, IL independent newspaper, the Indy, off the ground. That paper is the product of a student group at Illinois State University, and John is spearheading an effort to do something similar at the University of Illinois called the Campus Journalism Project.

The rest of the details on this session are after the jump:

Representatives from local alternative media discuss urbana.indymedia.org, independent radio, community wireless, and progressive newspapers.

Wednesday, May 11
12:30pm-1:30pm
Krannert Lobby
A brownbag lunchtime workshop during the Illinois Initiative for Media Policy Research conference at the U of I

Free and open to all

Participants:
Bill Taylor, Primary Communications Project
Sascha Meinrath, Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network
Mike Lehman, WRFU
Darrin Drda, public i
Sandra Ahten, WEFT
Paul Riismandel, Urbana.indymedia.org (and WEFT)
John K. Wilson, Campus Journalism Project (new U of I student newspaper)

Learn more about these alternative media outlets and discover how you can get involved and become the media!

Email John K. Wilson at cjp@indypress.org for more information.

With just a few days to go before the big Media Reform conference the Be the Media Blog is starting to see some action. This blog is a continuation of a project begun at the first Media Reform conference back in 2003. It's a venue for grassroots and independent media makers to comment, report and reflect from a perspective that may differ somewhat from the mainstream of the media reform movement.

Madison-based media activist Kristian Knutsen strated the blog in 2003. I took over hosting for this year's conference and restored the archives from 2003.

If you're an indymedia-affiliated or grassroots media maker who's going to St. Louis and you're interested in participating in this group-blog, drop me a line.

This week there is a one-day pre-conference of sorts to the National Conference for Media Reform: Can Freedom of the Press Survive Media Consolidation? Several big-name speakers will be here, like Seymour Hersh--giving the Tuesday evening keynote--and Danny Goldberg, the new president of Air America. Also in attendance will be several left media luminaries who will also be at the Media Reform shin-dig this weekend, such as Democracy Now's Amy Goodman --who will be broadcasting the show live from the studios of our local public TV station--and Naomi Klein.

I'll be attending the Media Consolidation conference, which is being put on by the Illinois Initiative for Media Policy Research, headed up by Robert McChesney, professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, which is also my academic department. I intend to record it all. Some of it will air on the radioshow this Friday. I will probably post raw audio of everything for those who can't be there.

Jack Brighton, who heads up internet operations for local public station WILL, plans to videotape everything and put it on-line in streaming video.

Then Thursday I'll be off to St. Louis for the big one, to record, interview and see where this media reform thing is taking off to.

Drew and I will do part of Friday's radioshow live from St. Louis by phone, while fellow WEFTie Jeff Nicholson-Owens sits in for us.

Rather unexpectedly, today the DC Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCC's Broadcast Flag, which would have required all digital TV receivers to implement copyright protections invokeable by content producers and broadcasters. In a unanimous decision, the three judge panel simply said the FCC has no authority issue such a regulation:

The broadcast flag regulations exceed the agency's delegated authority under the statute. ...

The FCC has no authority to regulate consumer electronic devices that can be used for receipt of wire or radio communication when those devices are not engaged in the process of radio or wire transmission.

Of course, this doesn't mean the imminent death of the broadcast flag -- it remains in suspended animation while the MPAA lobbyists sprint to the Capitol to shower our Congresscritters with promises and campaign cash in exchange for reanimating it.

But, for the moment, we will be able to record, store and fairly copy broadcasted programs (provided you have the technical means) and buy equipment that will do this.

The tech lobby was against the Flag, too, so it could be an interesting fight in Congress if it decides to oppose the Entertainment Cartel on this issue.

I just finished an interview about an hour ago with Shawn Ewald, the programmer and one of the volunteers behind the A-Infos Radio Project, which has been archiving and serving up radically independent radio content for an amazing nine years.

Shawn just opened up the source code for the software behind the Project, which I hope will lead to more indy programmers adding their talents to it.

The interview will air on this Friday's radioshow, 5:30 PM on Community Radio WEFT 90.1 FM, archived here (and probably here and there) thereafter.

The always informative WFMU's Beware of the Blog led me to Project C-90, a Russian on-line museum of blank audiocassettes. FMU's Kenzo says:

I didn't THINK this would get me so excited, until I stumbled onto images like the one at the right, sending me back to forgotten early childhood memories of making little home radio shows on my portable tape recorder, taking apart and unravelling the cassettes, and marvelling over how quickly the audio quality deteriorated in such a distinct way.

I still have a closet full of cassettes that I've winnowed down from an even larger stash. The pared down collection contains lots of stuff that's hard to replace (like live shows, mix tapes, gift tapes, bootlegs and airchecks) and original pre-recorded cassettes of material that either isn't easily obtainable in other formats or I don't care to try and replace because the tape is good enough for me.

The 3M brand tape at right brings back memories because it's the brand of tape we used at the university A/V facility where I've worked for the last 11 years. Until about 2000 when I took over the audio production area, our language lab only used analog equipment and distributed all programs on these 3M cassette tapes.

Every semester or so we would cycle through the tapes used in the old-school language lab and bulk-erase them. The old woman who had run the lab for the last twenty-plus years then just stashed them away, but eventually ran out of room. So I kindly offered to take them off her hands.

Then I became the tape-fairy with hundreds of used blank cassette tapes to bestow unto friends and colleagues. I used to dump 50 or so at a time at our community radio station's production room for anyone to take or use and they would all disappear within a week's time.

I made many a mix tape or tape for the car with the trusty old 3Ms. Many a lucky pal got albums taped onto them.

Unlike the Walgreen's 3-for-a-dollar tapes these 3M wonders were built to last with reasonable fidelity, provided you weren't expecting top-of-the-line TDK metal-tape performance.

I never recorded anything too critical on them, but often used them to record random audio bits for background and insertion into my late-night radio show. Those are the specimens that still remain in my archives.

Like many folks around my vintage, the lowly cassette retains some charm in the face of obsolescence and degradation. I do dust them off every so often and maintain several working cassette decks so that I can still listen. I even chose my most recently purchased mini-system, located in the kitchen, because it has a pretty decent cassette deck for this type of stereo.

Now that I've seen Project C-90, I'm kind of surprised that I've never seen a cassette gallery on the 'net before. Deadhead tape collectors could be fanatical about tape types and brands, and debates about cassette quality and fidelity filled countless threads on Usenet.

Minidisc is a much newer and less profligate technology, and there are numerous galleries of blank MD media to be found.

Ah, but the MD-heads are children of the internet. How many of the diehard cassette enthusiasts do you reckon still refuse to let the internet infect and destroy their lives?

The declining fortunes of rock format radio has been a topic of discussion recently. My pal Andrew at funferal has some observations based upon a discussion with staff at our local student-run commercial radio station that recently switched from a basic modern rock format to a more freeform approach they call "No Rules Radio."

He mentions that the DJs there are not paid, which is news to me. I think this might be a change that accompanied the format switch. At least as of a few years ago DJs were paid, though not well. I believe it was a sub-minimum-wage justified by calling the positions internships.

But that was when the station was as tightly playlisted as any other commercial rock station and DJs--aside from a couple of specialty shows--had no more autonomy than the voice-trackers on a Clear Channel station. Now that the DJs have much more flexibility and freedom I guess the station figures it no longer needs to pay them, in that the work is the reward. Whereas, there's little reward in pushing pre-programmed buttons with no more free will than an automation system.

I will say that I've listened to that station a lot more since it changed formats last year. There's a lot less repetition, a lot less nu-metal and more alt. rock classics from my college radio years. In fact, the station sounds a heck of a lot more like good old fashioned college radio, which is a good thing.

Except, too many DJs still try to sound "professional" and the commercials are just as annoying as they ever were. It's disconcerting to hear a track from Spearhead right before a sexist ad for a campus frat bar pushing binge drinking specials.

Eh, it's better than more Linkin Part and Limp Bizkit.