WBAI

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WBAI

City of license	New York, New York
Broadcast area	New York
Branding	WBAI
Slogan	Your Peace and Justice Community Radio Station
First air date	1960
Frequency	99.5 MHz
Format	Community radio
ERP	50000 watts
Owner	Pacifica Foundation
Website	http://www.wbai.org

WBAI, a part of the Pacifica Radio Network, is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station, broadcasting at 99.5 FM in New York City.

Its programming is leftist/progressive, an admixture of leftist political advocacy tinged with aspects of its complex and varied history, such as Freeform radio, which WBAI played a role in developing, as well as various music.

Contents 1 Shows 2 History 3 Alumni 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Shows

Democracy Now! is WBAI’s most influential present offering. It also hosts Golden Age of Radio serials, Weaponry a show about military history and technology, Free Speech Radio News, Wakeup Call WBAI's morning drive-time news magazine presented by Deepa Fernandes and Mario Murillo, a regular science fiction program Hour of the Wolf presented by Jim Freund, Off the Hook, a program presented by the 2600 hacker group, and the economics journalism Doug Henwood. Music programming includes Jeannie Hopper's Liquid Sound Lounge on Saturday's and Chico Alvarez's New World Gallery on Sunday afternoons.

WBAI also offers ethno-centric programming targeted primarily towards ethnic/ socioeconomic audience segments that are typically underserved by most commercial media outlets. Radio Tahrir (supported in part by Islamic Center of Long Island), which is targeted primarily towards Muslim Americans and Asia Pacific Forum, which is targeted primarily towards Asian Americans are examples of such programming.

[edit] History

The station's origins began with WABF, which first went on the air in 1941 as W75NY and moved to the 99.5 frequency in 1948. In 1955, after two years off the air, the station was reborn as WBAI (whose calls were named after then-owners Broadcast Associates, Inc.). It was purchased by eccentric philanthropist Louis Schweitzer and donated to the Pacifica Foundation in 1960. The station, which was commercial up to that point, switched to non-commercial status from then on.

It played a major role in the evolution and development of the counterculture in the 1960s.

In 1973, the station broadcast comedian George Carlin's infamous Seven Dirty Words routine – see F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation for a detailed account of the court case that ensued.

The history of WBAI is long and contentious. Referred to in a New York Times Magazine piece as ‘an anarchist’s circus,’ one station manager was jailed in protest, and the staff, in protest at sweeping proposed changes of another station manager, seized the studio facilities, then located in a deconsecrated church, as well as the transmitter, located at the Empire State Building.

WBAI’s coverage of the turbulence of the 1960s and early 1970s in New York was a self-defining series of events, a deep resonance. Alice's Restaurant was first broadcast on Radio Unnameable, Bob Fass’s Freeform Radio program, a program which itself in many ways created, explored, and defined the possibilities of the form. The station covered the 1968 seizure of the Columbia University campus live and uninterrupted, as well as innumerable anti-war protests. With its signal reaching for nearly 100 kilometers beyond New York City, its reach, and its influence, both direct and indirect, were far greater. The station presented an annual 24-hour nonstop presentation of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, a marathon reading of War and Peace with celebrities reading various sections, held live performances of emerging artists in its studios, and produced and presented interviews with prominent figures in literature and the arts, as well as original highly-produced radio dramas.

With the decline of that particular arc of history represented by the 1960s and 1970s the station found itself turning against itself, a new board of directors determined a new agenda, and, against the staff resistance represented by what was known internally as The Crisis, and manifest in the seizure and occupation of the facilities, a different station emerged, one which attempted to offer an alternative perspective within the aesthetic sensibilties represented by mainstream commercial media rather than offer an aesthetic, a sensibility, fundamentally other than and a challenge to mainstream media.

[edit] Alumni

Alumni of WBAI include Bob Fass, Steve Post, Margot Adler, Chris Albertson, Yoko Ono, John Corigliano, and Leonard Lopate. The Apple specialist business Tekserve was originally composed of former WBAI employees David Lerner, Dick Demenus, and Mike Edl.

[edit] References

• WBAI Head Jailed in Contempt Case – New York Times, pp 1,2, 19720304
• Playing in the FM Band: A Personal History of Free Radio – (Steve Post, Viking Press)
• Insurgent Staff Members Take Over WBAI in a Coup – New York Times, pp 1,2, 19770212

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Unofficial site with station history and written archives