Washington’s WAMU-FM, American University’s radio station, was built by fans of Bluegrass music. In gratitude, the station is burying Bluegrass in a big, deep hole in the air called HD Radio.
“HD Radio,” a trademark of the monopoly iBiquity Digital Corporation, is a system that lets today’s AM and FM radio stations broadcast two additional digital streams of alternative programming on top of their regular signals. HD signals don’t interfere with regular content because they cannot even be picked up by conventional radio receivers. And that’s the problem.
No one is buying HD equipment, and car manufacturers are stalling, so no one is listening to HD radio. No one is listening, so few stations broadcast in HD. Current HD doesn’t sound that much better than conventional FM radio, either. HD radio today is a big hole in the airwaves, so deep that WAMU’s Bluegrass music won’t even echo.
Bluegrass is not rural music, but the music of urban Appalachian migrants to post-WWII cities like Washington, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Detroit. Unique circumstances made DC a hotbed for Bluegrass: postwar building and Cold War defense booms offered good blue-collar jobs, and the growing government bureaucracy built an affluent, educated audience that had learned to love the music in college during the Folk Music craze. The children of both groups played Bluegrass and formed bands together. Love of Bluegrass music surmounted class and ethnic divides here in a way unknown elsewhere.
WAMU-FM Bluegrass broadcasts offered a focus and bulletin-board for live events and a rare meeting place for Town and Gown, the working-class and college fans. The unique and large listener base helped build WAMU-FM into a strong, powerful station. That is why the Great Bluegrass purge of 2001 was such a betrayal. That was when WAMU-FM first “served Bluegrass better” by removing it from the airwaves and streaming it on the Internet, a transparent way to clear the broadcast schedule of local programs and offer more syndicated fare. This is media consolidation, public radio style.
The current move of Bluegrass — and most remaining WAMU music programming –- to the “lonesome holler” of HD radio might be seen as an improvement. HD is, after all, a local signal, unlike the global Internet. There is only one slight catch: No one will hear it.
September 3, 2007 at 9:55 pm
I, for one, am sick to death of “Public Radio.” The programming stinks, and the attitude is 19th-century Robber-Baron style “the public be damned.”
I will not give money to “Public” radio or waste my time listening to it, either.
I have two possible recommendations for those who treasure the kind of musical heritage we as human beings (let alone Americans, or – heaven forfend! Southerners!) are heir to. Those two are: XM Radio, which is very good, if not exactly great, and is also DC-Local; and the always possible idea of new local AM radio. With some Angels, and a few grants, anyone can at least try for a small piece of the now practically empty AM bandwith. Volunteer radio is not completely dead, and (certain, but not around here) college radio proves it. I for one would be willing to invest time and fortune (what little of those two commodities I have) in such a venture. There are some local businesses and venues that may be interested in a little self-promotion by way of such a medium.
Is anyone else so inclined? I am eager to start a dialog. The music will always be there. If the interest of so-called not-for-pofit phony-balonys like AMU and the rest of the “Public” radio world aren’t interested, perhaps there is a constituancy for real mucic, even if it’s only AM After all, Bluegrass, Jazz, and Blues, not to mention Rock and Roll, which I personally treasure above all, ALL got their starts at media on the AM waves.
It just might be time for a revival.
Pete Kraemer
Last Gold Dollar Band
September 3, 2007 at 10:06 pm
This affects not only bluegrass programing but also the Dick Spottswood Show (sometimes refered to by its host as the Obsolete Music Hour). To yank Dick Spottswood off the main airwaves is absolutely criminal. Spottswood plays not only rural string bands, western swing, bluegrass, cajun and country blues but everything from ethnic music to old vaudeville, most of it recorded prior to 1945. His show is a beautiful window into our American history and the diversity of our culture; an incredibly entertaining look at where we’ve come from and where we’ve been. And I love not only the great music – most of it from Spottswood’s personal collection — but also the humorous and informative insights of Mr. Spottswood. Spottswood helped program many folk festivals and knew many of the performers such as cajun fiddler Dennis McGee and old timey musician Wade Mainer personally. We need less, not more, homogeneity on the airwaves. And Spottswood should have his show nationally syndicated like Nick Spitzer’s American Routes and the Eddie Stubbs Show. It is a national treasure.
September 3, 2007 at 10:29 pm
HD Radio is a farce and consumers aren’t buying into this defective technology:
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/
September 4, 2007 at 3:52 am
Like other cast-offs of “Public” radio, Dick ought to approach XM or another non-commercial, but clearly for-profit source.
It’s nonsense to think that AMU or virtually any other of these institutions are interested in anything else but corporate sponsorships, which by their nature must have their involvement monitured by ratings, rather than public interest. And why do you think WAMU is so invested in HD radio, a proprietary medium, if they are not getting backing from the proprietors?
Let’s be realistic: what corporate sponsor, hoping to get either publicity or some other free advertising by being a corporate sponsor of “Public” radio, is really going to take much stock in a show like Dick’s? General Motors? Phizer?
Give me a break!
If you want radio that reflects a particular sentiment or preference of the small percentage of the listening public, you have to have a singular and specific forum, and “Public” radio has been co-opted by private interests. “Public” radio stations are in and of themselves large corporate organizations with huge payrolls and budgets – not to mention commercial leases for the office spaces necessary to maintain and operate such giant corporate structures.
In short, they have out-grown the Public.
I recommend listening to subscription satellite services that have a commitment to diversity. After all, on Sirius or XM you can get everything that’s on “Public” radio – news, talk, sports, local traffic and weather, and also the things “Public” radio doesn’t have time for any more: roots music, foreign broadcasting, non-professional sports, Bluegrass, Blues, Jazz, and classical music where they play the whole damn piece, like they used to!
That or start your own local station, either on a cheap medium like AM, or on the internet.
Let’s let “Public” radio die the slow death it has chosen for itself by becoming a populartiy-driven medium, rather than an information medium.
And no more kidding ourselves: if you can’t make contributions in the multi-millions of dollars you have no public voice on “Public” radio.
September 4, 2007 at 4:24 am
HD is a poorly conceived, shoddily executed, long obsolete, ‘carny shill’ which is serially superseded by superior technologies. HD is BigRadio’s answer to radio’s non-problem. Many people listen to regular stations. But BigRadio’s rising revenues belie the dull reality of dwindling listeners.
Simple to understand. BigRadio fired talent ostensibly to reward shareholders. Yeah. Right.
HD promises ‘CD’, and delivers ’seedy’ audio. HD promises ’streams’. Those few which exist sound like ‘lousy webcasts’. HD range is short, but it jams good analog stations many times distant. HD radios are costly, tempermental, seldom purchased, and generally returned by disappointed listeners.
Why the coercion to implement HD? HD does one thing well – it jams. HD jams up to four adjacent radio channels. That means you can’t hear your favorite stations because some non-locally owned BigRadio HD station jams it with shrill, busted-steampipe noise. Heard a Rattlesnake hiss? Then, you know the sound. Jamming, rather than good programs, gives BigRadio its ‘competitive edge’. Jamming drives listeners into submission and competing broadcasters off the air.
Everything about HD is a lie. First, HD promoters denied it interfered at all. Now, as their much salivated-over September 14 date approaches, upon which they’ll unleash HD’s screaming white noise upon nighttime listeners not only in the United States but as well in Mexico, Canada, and those at sea who count upon clear reception, they admit HD does cause destructive illegal interference. But, not to worry, claims the HD gang, because so few HD stations exist, the interference will be minimal.
Well, which one is it? Does it not interfere at all? Or, only a little, due to few HD casters? And, if there’s only a few HD stations, why bother at all?
The more the HD gang talks, the more they give away their gag. Thank goodness. BigRadio’s noisy little gag is no joke. HD loots your airwaves and denies you choice. In emergencies, you could well be denied vital information from your local station because some nighttime BigRadio HD jammer is shrieking it into oblivion.
BigRadio tells us, “HD a done deal. Get over it.”
They stink of fear. They know this isn’t on the level. They know they’re violating interference laws which, for some odd reason, the FCC, due to public silence, has for the moment overlooked.
Our influence counts. Let’s use it.
Dr. Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasota Key, Florida
03 September, 2007
September 4, 2007 at 9:47 am
While I agree with Pete Kraemer that satellite radio holds some promise, I cannot afford to subscribe and believe that a lot of the bluegrass enthusiasts would not be able to subscribe either.
From all I have heard, bluegrass actually commanded high ratings on WAMU so the commercial interest is a litle more subtle. I gather NPR wants to market its upscale, highly educated demographic and bluegrass does not fit in with that profile.
Tonight on WAMU, I heard one hour of Doc Watson and Jean Ritchie as part of their labor day celebration. While it was lovely to hear them, it was also apparent that the people who put on this show had little understanding of this sort of music and the program was, frankly, awful. It was followed by a great program by Spottswood celebrating and commenting on occupational songs. What a joy!
September 4, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Actually ,I can’t wait to get HD tuners for my office background music. (I am tired of my 300 disc cd player ), and my car. Isn’t this better than xm and cirrius? 24–7 bluegrass free?
September 4, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I hope some of the folks at WAMU read these comments.
September 7, 2007 at 10:11 pm
I used to support WAMU annually. When it took bluegrass off its weekday programing, I stopped contributing, protested vehemently to the station, and increased my donation to WPFW by the amount I had been giving to WAMU. WPFW, while it doesn’t have bluegrass, has regular blues and other “non-commercial” musics. I told WAMU what I was doing and why. I have continued to protest, as it has continued to cutback on its “traditional” music programming. The station is now just like any other NPR yap-yap all the time station. I can get my news and talking heads elsewhere. So should you.
November 21, 2008 at 1:06 pm
[...] Bluegrass radio is on the air in Northern Virginia. Why is this news? The transmitter, mighty 250-watt W288BS-FM (105.5 MHz), is the “translator” or relay station for Washington’s WAMU-FM which, after 47 years, deleted Bluegrass from its programming during the Great Bluegrass Purge of 2001. The American University public broadcaster put Bluegrass out to pasture way beyond the North 40, in the sideband Siberia known as HD Radio ™. [...]