April 26, 2004

Low-Watt Community Radio

Cool Wired article on low-watt radio. Although the FCC licensed a small number of low-watt stations in 2000, they generally haven't developed into the sorts of community resources envisioned by their founders and backers. Some rare successes are worth learning from:
Harvey Twite, general manager of KEDU-LP in Ruidoso, New Mexico, broadcasts world and local news, music and the games of the New York Sharks, a women's tackle football team.

Twite jumped into community radio after spending 25 increasingly frustrating years running commercial radio stations. He thinks KEDU's success is in part due to its civic mindedness. The station mostly relies on live, local DJs, rather than the automated, satellite-fed programming that increasingly dominates commercial radio.

"We're bucking the trend because the trend needs to be bucked," Twite said.

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[Wired News] Posted by johndan at April 26, 2004 03:06 PM | TrackBack