WBAI
Encyclopedia : W : WB : WBA : WBAI
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 orthodoxy tinged with aspects of its more complex and varied past, such as Freeform Radio, in the development of which WBAI played a critical role, as well as varied musical offerings.
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.
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.
Alumni
Alumni of WBAI include Bob Fass, Steve Post, Margot Adler, and Leonard Lopate.
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
External links
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