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Re: WJUL-Lowell Sun LMA in Radio-info.com
At 05:33 PM 7/9/2003, Laurence Glavin wrote:
>On occasion, the radio-info.com/boston board can consist of
>top-of-the-head rants, but there is a seemingly authoritative post on the
>WJUL-Lowell Sun LMA right now. (Go to www.radio-info.com, select 'Boards'
>then 'Boston'. Remember the hyphen between 'radio and 'info';
>radioinfo.com is a different website.)
>
>Laurence Glavin
http://www.radio-info.com/mods/board.php?Post=13618&Board=boston
Starting with the followup post...I don't know who this person is, but
either they're VERY uninformed about current FCC rules and University
politics...or they're stumping to rally the less-than-informed to their
cause. LMA's between small college stations and larger news outlets (radio
stations and newspapers) are not uncommon at all. Although they are LESS
common around Massachusetts, I've noticed. I don't know of too many
commercial outlets pursuing an LMA with a non-comm station, but it doesn't
surprise me; the concept of a non-comm station has eroded a lot over the
past ten years and there's little difference now. In fact, an enterprising
commercial outlet knows they can target a lucrative audience in
public-radio listeners and therefore the advertising restrictions can be
worth it.
Also the FCC stopped requiring stations to prove they deserved their
license renewal a long, long time ago. There is no way an LMA is going to
be a severe enough violation to trigger a license revocation.
http://www.radio-info.com/mods/board.php?Post=13616&Board=boston
This is the original post. Apparently written by the current student GM of
the station. I suspect what's happened here is that you had a student
board that thought they had final approval on everything and the school
would consult with them for approval on every little detail. As such, they
probably weren't nearly as active as they should have been in the
process. On the other side, the administration probably should have been
more sensitive to that fact and in the process they've made a bad PR move
by stomping on the students' wishes. So they've ended up with a small but
vocal minority of students that are now feeling extremely disenfranchised
and are probably less than willing to work with the administration as the
process moves forward.
I should add that this post is no doubt written entirely from a student's
perspective. Most likely, it doesn't have the perspective of the
administration factored into it at all. So it's quite possible the tone is
overly alarmist. I have frequently noticed that student management view
any attempt to re-allocate authority into a professional position as the
end of the world as we know it. Most student managers (myself included
when I was one :-) never quite seem to grasp that there's a reason why
commercial stations don't have students run their stations...it's not a
political agenda, it's just that professionals are better at it. Doesn't
mean the school is making the station into little more than a PR arm of the
marketing department.
If thing really are that bad...then I do hope they get a station manager in
there who can bridge the gap...lest another WBUR actually happen. There's
no reason for this process to not result in a fabulous renaissance for
professionals and students (and community volunteers) alike. But unless
both sides really start working with each other, it's not going to
happen. There will be angry students, they'll marginalize themselves, and
10 years from now it'll only be professional staff and next to no student
involvement. And that'd be a real shame. Student DJ's can be really
fabulous when you give them a framework to build off of. Look at WERS - it
ain't perfect by a long shot, but it's pretty good at what it does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com Boston, MA