“It would be challenging for the Commission to set a date certain to convert AM stations to all digital broadcasts,” Littlejohn replied, “given the investments necessary for such a transition by broadcasters, and on the reception side, the large percentage of analog radios in the market.”

The idea of transitioning AM to digital has been in the air, so to speak, particularly since a CBS Radio veep pushed the idea at a recent National Association of Broadcasters conference. This proposal has plenty of skeptics since a likely digital standard would be HD Radio, thus far unpopular with consumers.

I asked HD Radio critic John Anderson for a response to the comments. ”Clear Channel’s really backed away from HD in general, in part (I think) due to the company’s over-leveraged debt position,” Anderson noted.

Pai brought other AM related matters up. What about “across-the-board power increases for AM stations”?

Littlejohn explained Clear Channel’s opposition: “when the Commission implemented such a power increase for Class IV stations in the past, it resulted in a sea of interference surrounding islands of service,” he explained, then offered some other suggestions:

Mr. Littlejohn noted that other spectrum, such as the Channel 5 and 6 bands, could be an eventual location for AM, LPFM and educational stations, with an engineering solution for incumbent TV stations in those bands. In the interim, FM translators would serve as a bridge until the transition to new spectrum and/or the transition to all digital AM broadcasts.

Looks like this digital conversion business has Pai’s full attention. Here’s the full summary of that portion of their talk:

Other Topics Discussed. In response to a question from Commissioner Pai, Mr. Littlejohn stated that it would be challenging for the Commission to set a date certain to convert AM stations to all digital broadcasts, given the investments necessary for such a transition by broadcasters, and on the reception side, the large percentage of analog radios in the market. Mr. Littlejohn answered Commissioner Pai’s question regarding the feasibility of across-the-board power increases for AM stations, by noting Clear Channel’s opposition, explaining that when the Commission implemented such a power increase for Class IV stations in the past, it resulted in a sea of interference surrounding islands of service. In response to Mr. Berry’s inquiry regarding the proposal of replacing the AM minimum efficiency standard with a minimum radiation standard, Mr. Littlejohn noted that any such change would need to be carefully designed to prevent additional signal from entering into the skywave, which would create more interference. In response to a query as to anti-skywave antennas, Mr. Littlejohn stated that international testing to date had not proven their effectiveness. Mr. Littlejohn responded to an inquiry regarding potential alterations in the timing of AM daily power reductions, noting that such requirements are based in physics and should not be altered without considering the impact on interference. Mr. Littlejohn noted that other spectrum, such as the Channel 5 and 6 bands, could be an eventual location for AM, LPFM and educational stations, with an engineering solution for incumbent TV stations in those bands. In the interim, FM translators would serve as a bridge until the transition to new spectrum and/or the transition to all digital AM broadcasts.

KFJC Record Library Legend Sign (photo: J. Waits)

Wrapping up the radio station scavenger hunt for this week, I’m sharing one more music genre color code sign. This “library legend” sign comes from KFJC, where I’m a DJ. In my travels, I’ve seen incredibly complex systems for categorizing music libraries. There are often many sub-genres and different colors of tape are sometimes affixed to an album or CD to indicate that it is industrial or folk or IDM.

KFJC embraces a much simpler genre classification system, with all of the music filed into a small number of categories: A library, B library, soul, jazz, blues, soundtracks, comedy, country, hip hop, reggae, classical, international, and new age (really!).

Come back, next week the radio station scavenger hunt will resume with another item.

WEFT CD color code sign (photo: J. Waits)

Mid-way through my week of radio station genre charts, I started to realize that “charts” isn’t really the most accurate way to describe the music genre signage that I’ve spotted at various radio stations. I guess it’s more appropriately a music genre categorization schematic or a legend or a key. Genre “charts” are more likely to be the top 10 lists that stations submit to CMJ or other publications.

In any event, I’ve seen many similar-looking genre category signs in my travels. Here’s another one. This “CD color code” sign is from community radio station WEFT-FM in Champaign, Illinois. I visited the station last summer during my trip to the Grassroots Radio Conference. Tomorrow I will feature one more music genre sign and then next week the radio station scavenger hunt will continue with a new item.

Family Radio’s Record Library Designation List (photo: J. Waits)

I was probably the only person who visited Family Radio headquarters during the pre-Judgment Day media frenzy in May 2011 who was interested in seeing the guts of the network’s radio station. I got the grand tour and was intrigued to see that the long-time Christian radio network had a large collection of music. In fact, portions of the broadcast day at Family Radio are made up of religious music. I was also told that the network used to air classical music blocks and there are still quite a few vinyl classical albums in various parts of the station.

In this “record library designation” sign, one can get a sense of some of the categories of music that Family Radio currently plays. Although there’s a reference to a color-coding system (and one can see colored tape on vinyl throughout the station), I don’t have details about what color tape corresponds to what type of music.

KZSC Genre Chart (photo: J. Waits)

As part of my new Radio Station Scavenger Hunt series, I’m highlighting music genre charts this week. Yesterday’s charts were from KBOO-FM and today I turn to some equally detailed charts from college radio station KZSC-FM at University of California, Santa Cruz.

KZSC Genre Chart Disclaimer (photo: J. Waits)

Although I’ve visited KZSC twice now, it was on my last trip (for the UCRN college radio conference last month) that I noticed just how complex the station’s genre chart was. Located in a couple of places in the station, the chart has gone through some revisions (as evidenced by the post-it note in the second photo). Some of the categories include queer, ska, gothic/industrial, lounge, Brazil, and zydeco/cajun.

It certainly seems like it will do so in the case mentioned by the FCC: station KIGC-FM of William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Because of its apparent violations of various rules, the University was potentially looking down the barrel of a $20,000 forfeit, which is around three times KIGC’s annual budget.

But now the Commission says it is going to focus more on the larger, public interest picture. “Student-run radio stations play a unique role because they are incubators for talent as well as media outlets,” the agency’s Policy Statement and Order declares:

At the same time, increasing numbers of educational institutions facing daunting fiscal challenges have made the difficult decision to sell their valuable NCE radio stations. For example, in recent years, the University of San Francisco, Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Barry University in Miami and Bard College in the Hudson River Valley have sold their stations. . . . We are concerned that imposing forfeitures at levels that are likely to exceed the annual budgets of student-run radio stations could exacerbate this trend, foreclosing opportunities for the education, training and real-world experience of current and future student volunteers by these stations.

Bottom line: the FCC has negotiated a $2,500 voluntary consent fee for KIGC, reflecting the uncertain fiscal situation in which the station finds itself. The fine is “substantially below the level indicated in our forfeiture guidelines for such violations but appropriate in light of the totality of circumstances presented,” the Commission notes.

More from the FCC’s Policy Statement:

[William Penn] University’s operation of the Station is a good example of the important role that an NCE [non-commercial educational] radio station can play in the educational mission of a school. The University is a small liberal arts institution of higher learning founded by Quakers and located in Oskaloosa, Iowa. The University’s mission statement calls for an educational experience with a focus on leadership, technology, and the Quaker principles of simplicity, peacemaking, integrity, community, and equality. To advance the school’s commitment to technology education, the University has been the licensee of the Station for more than 30 years. The University makes use of the Station in conjunction with its digital communications degree program, which affords students the opportunity to learn the skills needed for employment in both traditional and new media. The Station is staffed entirely by students and overseen by a faculty advisor. In recent years, the Station’s annual budget was $7,000, but this year it was reduced to $6,650, which reflects an across-the-board five percent reduction for many University operations. The Station transmits its signal with less than 250 watts of power.

The FCC says it isn’t changing its policies regarding rule compliance, but adds that “in the particular context of student-run NCE stations, where high student volunteer turnover and limited resources for training and oversight are endemic,” this adjustment will encourage better adherence to Commission rules.

Hopefully it will also convince a college administration or two not to sell their student run frequency to the highest bidder. We asked long time public interest advocate Andrew Schwartzman for a comment on the decision. “Sensible,” was his reply.

KBOO Genre Chart

Last week I started my new Radio Survivor Scavenger Hunt series, in which I’m sharing pictures of items that I’ve spotted at radio stations during my travels.

The first week focused on station graffiti and this week’s quest will reveal a range of music genre charts that I’ve seen at stations.

Interestingly, many non-commercial stations have similar methods for categorizing music genres. Often colored tape is affixed to the spine of vinyl records and CDs. Some stations have simple systems with only a handful of categories, whereas others have sub-genres that call for several strips of different colored tape.

KBOO Genre Chart

Today’s photos are from community radio station KBOO-FM in Portland, Oregon. I visited the station during my trip to Oregon for the What is Radio? conference last month.

One of the highlights of my station tour was getting to see the expansive record library, which is full of vinyl, CDs, cassettes, and reel-to-reel tapes covering a wide range of genres. The highly detailed genre chart points to the care taken in cataloging the music library into very discrete categories. Because of the complexity of the chart, I’ve included two photos today so that you can see some of the sub-categories.

Bernhardt was originally scheduled to do his regular 2-hour show from 8 to 10am and had planned to do a tribute to the recently deceased musician Scott Miller (Game Theory, Loud Family). As the lockdown dragged on, he decided to stay at the station as both a safety measure and as a way to provide music to WMBR listeners who might want an escape from the scary news outside their doors. Not only did he fill in for programs similar to his, but he also had to quickly select music for shows (including a jazz program) that were outside of his area of expertise. I interviewed him over email in order to get more insight into how he handled his unplanned 8-hour shift.

Jennifer Waits: How long have you been a DJ at WMBR?

Jon Bernhardt: I joined WMBR at the start of my sophomore year at M.I.T., in September 1983, hosting a call-in show called “Flame Session” as well as a late-night freeform experimental music program cleverly titled “Late Night.” I settled into my current morning rock show, “Breakfast of Champions” [BoC], in June of 1984. It airs weekdays from 8 to 10 am, with a different DJ each day. I host the Friday edition.

Waits: Tell me about the Scott Miller special. Did that go as planned?

Bernhardt: Scott Miller passed away on April 15. As my show on the 19th approached, I noticed that no one on WMBR had acknowledged it and thought it would be a good idea to rectify that situation. I selected about 35 minutes worth of his music — some “hits,” some rarities — that I intended to play during the last 40 minutes of my 2 hour program. I almost postponed the tribute, although not for the reason you might think. Each week, a different BoC DJ picks a “Band of the Week” that all the other DJs have to play at 8:30am (typically 1 to 3 songs with no repeats during the week). Late Thursday, the DJ whose turn it was, announced that his pick for the next week would be Scott Miller! I didn’t want the other DJs to think I was bogarting all the good songs a few days early, but none of them cared so I went ahead with it.

As Friday morning’s events unfolded, I *was* briefly concerned that honoring a dead California musician might be awkward given the larger local tragedy. But, in the end, I decided to just acknowledge the thorniness on the air and go forward. Postscript: by the following Friday, there were still plenty of rarities that hadn’t been played during the week, so I programmed another half hour of Miller’s music from 8:30 to 9am!

Waits: What normally happens when DJs can’t make their shifts?

Bernhardt: Typically DJs have some advance notice that they can’t make their show. In those situations, we have a listserv where substitute station members can be solicited. On the day in question, I sent an email to the list, but no one (probably wisely) wanted to leave their homes. The station’s General Manager, Elliot, who was staying at the dorm next door to the radio station and who is also another BoC host, stopped by before 8am to check in, but he told me he’d been up all night and needed to get some sleep. My choices were to continue on or turn off the transmitter.

Waits: What prompted you to stay and how long would you have stayed?

Bernhardt: I chose to stay because it seemed like the safest thing to do! Plus, my wife was insistent that I not leave the building. There’s a show change every 2 hours. I never knew for certain that the DJ for the next show wasn’t going to show up until maybe an hour before its start, but I had a strong suspicion that I’d be there for a long time. I stayed as long as I was physically able — until 4pm. At around 2:30, I gave Elliot a call and he promised to show up for the 4pm program. By then, the authorities were saying that, if you were at work, it was OK to leave and go home. So I did, although I biked home using a circuitous route. My normal path would have taken me right past the bombers’ Cambridge apartment where there was talk of “controlled detonations!”

Waits: I’m trying to remember how the lockdown worked. Could the DJs not come because of the lockdown? Were people being ordered to stay indoors?

Bernhardt: The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency was strongly recommending that people in Watertown and all its adjacent cities and towns (which includes Cambridge) “shelter in place.” You could go out — no one would stop you — but it was strongly discouraged. In fact, around lunch time, a friend who lives nearby (Mark Robinson of famed indie band Unrest, and founder of Teen Beat Records) did venture over to bring me some much needed snacks.

Waits: Is this the longest shift you’ve ever done?

Bernhardt: Back when I was an undergrad (over 27 years ago!) I remember doing a lot of air over the Christmas break, but it wasn’t consecutive — more like a few hours every day for four or five days. Since then I’ve done the occasional four hour shift, but even then, I had some warning. I’d never had to do anything close to six extra hours on the fly.

Waits: How much information did you provide over the air?

Bernhardt: From the beginning, I made a judgement call. I figured that if people wanted non-stop news, or updates every time a dog barked, they wouldn’t be listening to WMBR. If they were listening to me, it was because they wanted an escape from the 24 hour news cycle and wanted to be entertained. So I did my normal show but gave people the essential information (“Stay indoors!”) and promised to update them if there were any critical developments (there never were).

The responses I received, via phone calls, tweets, emails, IMs, etc., indicate that my instincts were correct. Not one listener response was a complaint. Instead, people cheered me on, thanked me, and called me a legend or a hero. Those last two are just a tad hyperbolic (and insulting to the real heroes!), but the support immeasurably helped me get through the day. Funnily enough, the only criticism came early on from a couple of fellow WMBR DJs who thought we should either sign off or preempt our regular programming for more news. But even they came around to my way of thinking later in the day and admitted I’d done a good thing.

Thanks to Jon Bernhardt for sharing with me all of the details of his 8-hour shift. If you want to see his playlists or listen to the show, you can do so from the WMBR website.

KZSU sign in 2009 (photo: J. Waits)

As I complete this week’s radio station scavenger hunt, my final station stop is to Stanford University’s station KZSU. When I visited in 2009, I didn’t see much graffiti. In fact, the station had a strong anti-graffiti policy as noted on the sign pictured above. At the time, graffiti seemed to be confined to this one sign.

Stick around as my scavenger hunt continues. In future weeks I will be on the look-out for other common radio station artifacts. If you have any suggestions, let me know in the comments.

The Yiddish Radio Project [yiddishradioproject.org/exhibits/history/]

Non-English broadcasting also gets overlooked by most radio bloggers, including myself. This is a big shortfall when you consider the scope and significance of Spanish language radio on the west coast, Florida, and elsewhere.

Having kicked myself and promised to make amends, I am enjoying Kelman’s account of how complicated Yiddish radio was in the 1930s, particularly when broadcast on New York City’s historic radio frequency: WEVD, named after the socialist leader Eugene Victor Debs (see my post on late-WEVD talk radio host Ed Koch). The station showed a “less than appreciative attitude” toward Yiddish radio shows during that decade, Kelman notes, yet it put them on the air, making the signal the “most beloved outlet for Yiddish radio in America.”

Established in 1927, WEVD almost mismanaged itself into extinction over the next four years. Finally the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper came, well, forward, with considerable monetary backing for the station. The signal’s principals then made a case for renewal to the government: sure, a brief acknowledged, the station would offer programs to minorities, but bottom line: “WEVD is a public forum open to the presentation of all viewpoints in matters of public interest.”

With that settled, a host of ethnic programs the media outfit had inaugurated in the 1920s received lower priority. The original multiethnic lineup included series like Seeing the Irish Cities, Hits and Bits of Scotch, and the Nestle Colored Club Art Hour. Now talk shows featuring the philosopher John Dewey and socialist leader Morris Hillquit took the evening stage, followed by lectures from Clarence Darrow and Bertrand Russell. “Gone were the more entertaining ethnic programs in favor of a more serious, more studious program schedule,” Kelman notes.

Yiddish programming continued to flourish at WEVD, but the station’s manager broadcast it during the day, not during the all-important evenings, when working class families listened around the dinner hour (“drive time” radio had yet to be invented). “Management considered Yiddish “a second-class language and hardly recognized either the growing creativity or contribution of Yiddish programming,” Kelman writes. And yet it was the Yiddish content that drew commercial sponsorships, allowing the station to support itself. Here’s is the author’s description of WEVD’s Yiddish lineup:

By mid-decade, WEVD had introduced Marc Scheid’s radio adaptation of the popular newspaper column, the Bintl briv (Bundle of Letters), Nukhem Stutchkoff’s first family dramas, dramatizations of Yiddish literature, and countless musical performances. It boasted a schedule of nearly twenty-five hours of Yiddish programming each week, supported by a healthy roster of sponsors.

Despite this, when the station moved to better digs in 1938, guests for the ceremony noted WEVD’s contributions to education and politics, “but none mentioned Yiddish.”

What are we to make of this interesting story? Why did the Jewish Daily Forward deprioritize Yiddish programming while depending on it for needed station income? Doubtless pressure from the emerging Federal Communications Commission played a role. Perhaps a desire for greater social legitimacy, informed by the “highbrow” versus “lowbrow” cultural assumptions of the period, also influenced WEVD’s policies.

Whatever the reasons, Kelman’s fine book reminds us that from the dawn of radio, community based stations have had to make difficult decisions about their audiences and the languages that they spoke. To this day, they still do.