Re: WCLV-FM Cleveland Makes Frequency Switch and Courageously AcceptsCriticism

[Sven Franklyn Weil <sven@gordsven.com>]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2001 Jibguy@aol.com wrote:
> 
> Is there a better way?   -   I can't imagine ALL stations doing "the WGBH 
> thing"....
> ----jibguy

I was thinking something along the lines of the Dutch system of
non-commercial broadcasting.  Five government owned radio stations (one
AM, one FM/AM, three FM) happily co-exist with a bunch of commercial
stations.

However, the government doesn't produce the programming.  This is left to
non-commercial programming companies who get air-time allocated on the
basis of membership (listeners become members of these programmers in the
same way WGBH or WBUR listeners become members of those stations).  The
more members you have, the more airtime you get.  If you want, I can
forward you the e-mail that a Dutch correspondent of mine sent to me,
explaining the whole deal.

I'm not calling for the total elimination of commercial radio.  I just
think there should be more genuinely non-commercial stations intermixed
with the comercial frequencies (instead of being shunted off to the
low-powered and extremely crowded bottom of the FM band).  I really wish
we had something like CBC or BBC or preferably the system in the
Netherlands.

-- 
Sven Franklyn Weil            "The needs of the many outweigh 
<sven@gordsven.com>                      the needs of the few
<http://www.gordsven.com/sven>                   or the one." 
                                                     -- Surak