Radio as it should be
According to documented evidence, there are 15,445 commercial radio stations in the United States as of the year 2020. That does not include the several hundred others that are under the title of LSR. Listener Sponsored Radio.
LSR grew up in the mid 1960’s and has since grown in number and popularity. The simple idea behind these radio stations is that they need not maintain a balanced programming schedule. There are no sponsors to bow to, while the audience is for the most part in agreement with the station’s content.
As a young man growing up in NYC, I listened to WBAI. In the 1960’s, the commercial radio stations played music/songs that were no longer than three minutes, and they surrounded the music with a large bed of commercials. WBAI did neither.
It was here that one morning the disc jockey announced he would play a Raga by Ravi Shankar and during it he would take a coffee break. He then did so. After the first 11 minutes I realized he could have gone out for dinner. There were no time restraints, there were no commercials and the content was whatever the disc jockey wished to present. A favorite around Thanksgiving was the Arlo Guthrie recording of Alice’s Restaurant, which took longer than the actual Thanksgiving Dinner.
In an age before talk shows and talk radio, LSR had a constant stream of listeners calling in their opinions on everything under the sun. Usually it was a gripe about the government. I can remember a disc jockey asking the audience how much a Thanksgiving turkey was by the pound. A close friend of mine called in and mentioned a price he had seen. This led to several others contradicting him, and yet still other contradicting them. Finally the disc jockey shut it all down with the playing of a Chopin Etude.
Now that was good Radio!
The idea behind these LSR stations is they allow the audience to migrate to subjects they relate to and to keep advertising off the channel. It’s the forerunner of what we now have on television. The large media corporations are designing “packages” consisting of networks they feel go well together and fit a ‘captured demographic’. The big difference here is that the large conglomerates are in it for the money, while LSR is in it for the content. Although the radio stations usually hold ‘fund drives or fund raisers’ you do not have to pay to listen.
Many of these radio networks, Pacifica being one, term themselves “Grass Roots Radio.” The beauty here is that if a listener wants a certain style of content and does not have the means to pay for it, it can always be found on her dial with no charge.
The thing I like most about this is the ability to interact with like-minded folks. We all have had, and by now are tired of, these lengthy political discussions with members of the other camp. (Which do nothing, to change minds but rather waste a hell of a lot of time.) I could care less about their stupidity and I am sure they feel the same way about mine.
If you have a yen to visit an established LSR, a good start would be WBAI.ORG.
That’s on the East coast, or kpfk.org in the City of the Angeles.
Many of the old time pioneers in the field are gone but the new kids coming up are still beating that old lefty drum…
