http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/0 ... y_her.html
Hey now
Great Irony Here: New York Pirates Rebroadcasting Howard Stern Free
Brad Kava, 09:44 AM in Brad Kava, Celebrities, Radio
Pirate broadcasters in Brooklyn and Queens are rebroadcasting Howard Stern's satellite radio show onPirate conventional FM frequencies, and the irony on this one is sweet.
Will the FCC, which chased Stern off the public airwaves now crack down on the pirates? The agency needs a complaint to begin an investigation. Will Stern or Sirius be the complainer?
Stern's Sirius may have started a revolution it hadn't planned on.
For those unfamiliar with pirate radio, here are the basics: The airwaves are regulated by the FCC, the Federal Communicaitons Agency, which was created to apportion and license spots on the radio dial, making sure signals didn't bleed over.
The licenses are now worth fortunes, $20 million to more than $100 million, for a good signal. But there are still small holes on the dial, which pirates fill using transmitters that can be bought for as little as a few hundred dollars.
The so-called pirates, who call themselves "free" broadcasters, and see themselves as freedom fighters, have often come up with programming that is ignored by conventional broadcasters.
For example, now in San Jose, you can hear a number of good heavy metal pirate stations (sorry I can't reveal the frequencies here, but hunt around, it's not hard). Why? Because commercial radio broadcasters decided it wasn't in the interests of its advertisers, or lucrative enough for them, to program for people who want rock or metal.
So, kids in their bedrooms, or older people with some ingenuity, are broadcasting metal, punk and noncommercial music, sometimes for years, before the FCC gets wind of it and breaks down their doors.
The FCC will only begin an investigation if someone complains. Usually the complainers are commercial broadcasters who claim the signal is causing interference. Sometimes cheapo transmitters cna cause problems. Usually, though, the biggest interference is of cash flow. The broadcasters are threatened by the idea that someone would listen to something that they don't get advertising revenue from.
The radio dial, with impossibly high prices, is basically a government-controlled monopoly, filling the pockets of the large corporations who are the only ones that can afford a signal.
In Chicago there are celebrated pirates in slums, who are giving local news, issues, health programs, and programming content that is absolutely ignored by the corporations who market to the rich. In the Bay Area stations will no longer play music for the young or old, because they aren't in the more lucrative advertising demographic, adults 25-54.
Rebroadcasting Stern's show is especially egregious because it is filled with swear words and because it is a pay service. These pirates are like Napster, and we know how long that lasted before the record companies shut it down.
But they show a form of radio Darwinism. When people want to hear something and the corporations don't provide it, they will find a way to pirate it for the community.
Sirius has been marketing itself as the radio revolution, which it is. It is a true alternative to the stale, limited programming on the conventional dial.
But these pirates are the real revolutionaries. They are giving it away free. What would happen if pirates all over the country started broadcasting Howard's show? A real revolution would begin.
If Stern tries to shut them down, he'll end up in the same position that Metallica was in when it worked to close down Napster. My guess is Sirius will complain, but use proxies to file the complaints, the same way religious groups used shills to complain to the FCC about Stern's vulgarities when he was on commercial radio.
There's a hell of a battle shaping up and it will make for radio history before our eyes.
