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WFMU

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WFMU-FM is a noncommercial radio station in Jersey City, New Jersey, broadcasting at 91.1 MHz FM using a freeform radio format. It is currently the longest running freeform radio station in the United States.

Contents

History

WFMU first went on the air on April 24, 1958, and was formerly affiliated with Upsala College, in East Orange, NJ. Shortly before the closing of Upsala College on May 31, 1995, WFMU purchased its license from Upsala, and is now fully independent. It relocated in August, 1998 to Jersey City, NJ, into a building which the station purchased with donations from listeners. WFMU's license is now owned by Auricle Communications, a nonprofit group made up of current and former WFMU staff members and listeners. WFMU has a relay station, WXHD, 90.1 MHz FM, broadcasting in the Hudson Valley, NY, the Lower Catskills, NY, Western New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.

Philosophy

WFMU has a stated commitment to "hype free", non-commercial freeform broadcasting. All programming is controlled by the individual DJ, and is not beholden to any type of station-wide playlist or rotation schedule.

Experimentation, spontaneity and humor are among the station's most frequently noted distinguishing traits.

Funding and Operations

WFMU refuses all corporate sponsorship and government funding ("on general principle"[Interview with WFMU Station Manager Ken Freedman], The Fifth Corner, WBAI 99.5 FM, NYC 3/15/90 (link to mp3 archive)), as well as any type of underwriting from private foundations and other educational or public institutions. The station's annual operating budget is approximately USD $1,000,000, and is fully funded by its listeners through an annual 14-day on-air fundraising marathon, as well as a Fall record fair and other events. All DJs are unpaid volunteers (except for the Monday-Friday morning DJ, Nachum Segal), a few of which have been with the station since the 70s and 80s.

Programming and Cultural Influence

WFMU's programming ranges from flat-out uncategorizable strangeness to pure rock and roll, lots of "alternative" (although no DJ on the station would ever call it that), psychedelia, experimental, obscure 50s-60s blues, unpopular jazz, R&B, soul, hot-rod music, 78's, 8-tracks, twee, indie pop, schlock-a-billy, hip-hop, electronica, hand-cranked wax cylinders, punk rock, exotica, downtown art music, radio improvisation, classic radio airchecks, found sound, comedy, call-in shows, anti-fascist lectures, off-kilter kids' music, interviews with obscure radio personalities, interviews with notable science-world luminaries, spoken word mish-mashes, Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtracks in languages other than English, Gospel and Good Ol' Country Music. The station also hosts a "Listener Hour" every Saturday morning, where any WFMU listener can try their hand at DJ'ing live on the air.

WFMU was named "Best Radio Station in the Country" by Rolling Stone magazine for four consecutive years in a row (1991-1994), and has also been dubbed the best radio station in either NYC or the US by The Village Voice, New York Press, and CMJ, among others. A New York Times Magazine feature article called WFMU "a station whose name has become like a secret handshake among a certain tastemaking cognoscenti", and cites Velvet Underground founder Lou Reed, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and playwright Eric Bogosian as avowed fans of the station.

Other notable fans and supporters of WFMU include Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum, screenwriter/director Ethan Coen, MAKE magazine editor-in-chief and Boing Boing co-founder Mark Frauenfelder, Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant, musician Suzanne Vega, indie rock superstar Ted Leo, Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore, The Cars vocalist/record producer Ric Ocasek and television talk-show host Conan O'Brien.

WFMU is credited for playing a large part in the early-90s resurgence of the Exotica and Lounge music phenomenon, via WFMU DJ Irwin Chusid and his role in the re-issue of the music of Esquivel. Chusid also popularized the acceptance of "outsider music" as a genuine musical genre, through his weekly (and now defunct) [Incorrect Music] show on WFMU. The discovery and popularization of "outsider" artists such as Jandek and The Langley Schools Music Project can be directly attributed to Chusid and his programming on WFMU.

The Air America Radio show The Majority Report had its origins on WFMU in 2003, when Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder appeared as guests on The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling, and as a result of the appearance, were later approached by Air America Radio to host their own show on the fledgling "liberal" radio network.

Although WFMU has traditionally eschewed news-oriented programming, the station volunteered its airwaves in September, 2001 to become the temporary home in the New York area for Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! program (which was renamed Democracy Now! In Exile), after it was "banished" from WBAI and the Pacifica Radio Network during a highly controversial "coup" of WBAI's station management by Pacifica's national Board of Directors.

In a similar example of its support of community broadcasting, WFMU began voluntarily hosting the webcast of legendary New Orleans Jazz station, WWOZ, when its studio and transmitter were destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. WFMU also took online donations on behalf of WWOZ, raising over $70,000 towards the rebuilding of the station.

WFMU also received worldwide attention in May of 2001, when national and international media outlets covered DJ Glen Jones's successful attempt to break the Guinness World Record for longest consecutive radio broadcast, staying on the air a full 100 hours, 41 seconds.

Notable WFMU DJs

The station's past and present on-air DJ lineup has included many notable people from the world of art, music and television, including: One other WFMU DJ of particular note was Danny Fields, who hosted a nightly show on the station in 1968 and 1969. Fields was an A&R man and fixture in the New York rock and roll scene, managing and signing acts such as the MC5, The Stooges and The Ramones. During that period, WFMU was the first station to play the music of The Velvet Underground, The MC5 and The Stooges in the New York area.

Online Broadcasting and Blogging

Along with its traditional radio broadcast, WFMU is also broadcast live over the internet in a wide variety of streaming formats (including Ogg), and all programming is archived on the WFMU website in 128k MP3 format for two weeks, then permanently thereafter in RealAudio format.

In 2005, WFMU expanded its online broadcasting efforts by offering 15 hours a week of Internet-only live programming ("free of the FCC's incomprehensible language restrictions", explains WFMU Station Manager Ken Freedman), as well as an independent 24 hour-a-day webcast of Nachum Segal's Jewish Moments In The Morning program.

In January 2006, WFMU announced that it is making the station's live stream and archives available to cellular phones and other Mobile devices running the PocketPC or Palm operating system.

Podcasts of 15 WFMU shows are also available.

The official WFMU blog, [WFMU's Beware of the Blog], was launched in 2004, and has become very popular even among non-WFMU listeners. Original content from the WFMU blog is regularly featured on the front pages of high-traffic sites such as Boing Boing and MetaFilter.

See also: Media of New York City

References

External links

 

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