No More Mickey Mouse Microradio

Pete triDish is one of the driving forces behind West Philadelphia’s Radio Mutiny, and the founder of the Prometheus Radio Project. He’s got a very well-thought out way of thinking about the potential for legal low power radio. Read on:
There has been an ongoing debate in the micropower radio community as to whether or not a legalized micro-radio service should allow for locally owned, commercial stations. Advocates for allowing small-time businesses having stations raise a number of compelling arguments. One is that these small stations would be an excellent business opportunity for minority-owned stations which would serve markets that are currently ignored as a result of the artificially high hurdle to get involved in broadcasting. Indeed, we have already seen this in the example of a station like Hippolito Cuevas’s station in Connecticut – a station that was very quickly accepted by the Latino community, in a town where a fourth of the population is Latino and there is no Spanish language radio. Cuevas makes the argument that there would be no way for him to make his station work without some commercial revenues. He says that the commercials that he would take – for example, from local stores that could never afford the outrageous rates of regular stations – are in fact a form of community service. A growing number of entrepreneurs are becoming interested in this possibility, and the few hints that the FCC has dropped about what sort of proposal it might accept for a legalized micro service have mentioned minority entrepreneurship as a major factor. Continue reading “No More Mickey Mouse Microradio”

Radio Mutiny on Tour

Radio Mutiny, an east coast microbroadcaster, recently took its message DIRECTLY to the people. Instead of confining themselves and their acts of enlightenment and empowerment to west Philadelphia, Radio Mutiny took to the open road. Here’s their take on all the fun. This is the kind of proactive outreach that showcases all things good about free radio.
From January the Twentieth to March the Tenth, Radio Mutiny’s rag-tag band of buccaneers gallivanted from city to city up and down the Eastern Seaboard, leaving a trail of Free Radio in the twenty-five cities in our wake. We sailed the highways in our decrepit vessel, which broke down and needed repairs in more than a few ports of call, we braved the tempestuous weather, the scurrilous incursions of the highway patrol, and damned near contracted scurvy at sea on our diet of gas station junk food. In every town that we put in, however, the townspeople welcomed us with open arms, gave us their beds and properly victualed us, and made every effort to assist us on our journey. Over the course of our voyage, we had opportunity to meet with many hundreds of the ordinary citizens who have been banned from the seas of media by the policies of the wealthy. Continue reading “Radio Mutiny on Tour”