What is the future of radio?
Will you help me
build a $5,000.00 home studio? Human-crafted
radio brings people together and builds community.
What is the future of radio? Will I be able to continue to be a part
of it?
I never thought about being a radio personality. My life took me
other places: acting, make-up artistry, motherhood, and eventually nursing
school. But when a beloved radio station went off the air and got moved online
I was sad and irritated. Little interesting music left on the FM dial.
The fun spontaneous DJs and free form playlists I had grown up with were disappearing.
Then I began listening to one of WBCN's founders, Sam Kopper, do his
show online and I was hooked. He's been in every corner of broadcasting for
decades and his show not only embodied everything that I missed about radio, but
it inspired me to get involved. The cause of preserving the human element in
broadcasting is something that I find so important!
Great radio is all about community, people drawn together around
inspired air personalities, their ideas, their emotions, and music. What we as
consumers have now is spoon-fed "safe" playlists and disc jockeys
that must adhere to scripts and the advice (directives) of "consultants." What
happens when people disconnect from each other and only allow robot playlists
to entertain them? I don't know but I am not interested in that version of
radio. So:
My husband and I were part of a small group that rallied around Sam
to help build the live broadcast/music mixing mobile unit he calls the "Gypsy
Dancer," which he decided to build to aid the WBCN Free Form Rock project. The next thing I knew, and utterly surprising
to me, Sam told me that he thought I have the "innate talent to be a great air
personality". Long story short "“ he got me added to the small team CBS has
gathered to keep a WBCN presence on the Internet and HD Radio in Boston. So,
for the last two years, I've been driving 150 miles round trip once or twice a
week to do a live radio show out of Sam's home-based studios (the mobile unit
and his basement).
I'm being mentored by Sam; and I'm on WBCN Free Form Rock. This is an opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime. BUT, there's a catch and
here's the "rub:" between having just had a beautiful baby daughter (my third
child), Sam needing to move from his current home (to a distance way too far for
me), and my needing to help support my family via my registered nurse on-going
training and work, I just cannot continue to make the weekly trip.
The only way for me to continue being a part of this new frontier of
Internet radio is to build a home studio. If you could help me I would be so
appreciative and grateful!
