New York & Brooklyn Radio 2022 - Legal, Illegal and Fragmented

 

In April 2022 I visited New York principally as a holiday but having visited all the major tourist sites in the past, this visit I concentrated on the media aspects of the Big Apple. I organised a visit to the Paley Centre formerly known as the Museum of Radio and Television located near 30 Rock. It is a fascinating place to visit and the staff are so accommodating and friendly. The main exhibition at that time focused on the achievements of the black stars of television. Their inventory of archives from radio and television is extensive and easily accessible. We could learn a lot here from their work. (My personal thanks to Jane Klain). I also happily had a ticket to attend a recording of the Stephen Colbert Late Show at the Ed Sullivan Theatre located on Broadway. You can read more about that visit HERE.

 

Radio though is my first love and one of my first pieces of business was a proper band scan in the borough of Queens where I was staying. I was able to hear stations in New York, some from New Jersey and even Connecticut. To help me identify the stations, I looked up the list of FM stations on  

https://worldradiomap.com/us-ny/new-york

There were 42 FM stations on my dial. What I wasn’t able to receive except when I was in the car was the HD additions for some stations. FM stations can divide their data stream into sub-channels (e.g., 88.1 HD‑1, HD‑2, HD‑3) of varying audio quality. For example, WPLJ which describes itself as a Christian Contemporary station broadcasts on 95.5mhz FM but had three further sub channels on that same frequency.

According to the website statista.com:

Radio is one of the most powerful mediums in the United States, with a weekly reach of around 82.5 percent among adults. There are over 15,445 radio stations in the U.S., all competing for a piece of this massive market. WTOP, a station operating out of Washington D.C. is the largest of its kind in the U.S., pulling in 69.8 million U.S. dollars in yearly revenue. Online radio is also playing an increasing role in the radio market, with an estimated 974 minutes spent listening to online radio on a monthly basis in 2021. IHeartRadio is the biggest online radio company in the United States by a significant margin, boasting an average active sessions figure over 300 thousand. American radio stations generated total revenue of over 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, of which 940 million dollars was generated through online radio streaming. In addition to the massive national stations and broadcasts, local public radio stations also appear to be thriving. Public radio station revenue has increased from around 624 million U.S. dollars in 2009 to over 970 million in 2020. ‘Country’ is by far the most popular format, with 2,200 individual stations broadcasting music from this genre. As of 2020, Americans averaged 99 minutes of radio listening time per day, with much of this time being spent while commuting.

One of my major observations was the amount of advertising per hour on the commercial stations as compared to Irish radio. While listening to alternative rock station WBMP-FM ("ALT 92.3 FM") for one hour there was one ad break that contained 8 advertisements lasting seven minutes. In total there was 16 minutes of advertisements on the station in one hour. It is estimated by advertising agencies that news/talk shows drew an average of over 17 minutes of commercials per hour, compared to 14 minutes for music shows on stations like Z100. The other observations are the repetition of a contact telephone number in the add. 'Call 212-555-1234, that's 212-555-1234.' Then when medicines are being advertised, the list of reasons why a patient should not take that particular brand lasts longer than the original advertisement itself. 

For true freedom of choice you can check out 326 New York radio stations that broadcast on FM, AM and online at https://www.radio.net/city/new-york-city

I was then invited to visit the studios of WBAI located on the upper floors of a building on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn behind a plain brown door. The station is listener-supported radio. As a member of the Pacifica chain of radio stations, it provides a vast array of original programming to listeners in the Metropolitan New York City region and worldwide online. My guide was John McDonagh, the co-host of the Radio Free Eireann show along with Malachy McCourt. The station is still recovering from the pandemic restrictions with only one member of staff monitoring the output. The presenters do their shows remotely using an app called ‘Luci Live Lite’ (https://luci.eu/luci-live-lite/) which seems to provide excellent broadcast quality.

My next radio adventure was another visit to Brooklyn and my host Professor David Goren, who has created the excellent Brooklyn Pirate Sound Map which tracks pirate radio in that borough. It was definitely two radio ‘anoraks’ getting their fix discussing pirate radio in both the United States and Ireland, relating our archiving experiences. In his office on the upper floor of his beautiful period house in Brooklyn, we did a band scan on the FM. To my absolute astonishment, bearing in mind my Queens band scan identified 42 FM stations, in Brooklyn David and I identified 25 pirate radio stations broadcasting on FM in that borough alone. Most of the stations catered for listeners from the Caribbean areas including Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Grenada, there were also Jewish stations and local religious church broadcasts. There were also some pirates located in the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx but these were limited due to pressure from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). The problem in Brooklyn, explained Professor Goren, was that there were so many stations it was hard to close them all and when they did raid a station they were quickly back on the air. David then took me on a walking tour of the neighbourhood and was able to point out a number of FM aerials on roofs where these pirates were hiding in plain sight, and like a true anorak, he had a transistor radio with him and was able to tune in outside these buildings. One was located on Jean Jacques Dessalines Boulevard in the Church of Christ Christian Temple. The first photo was taken from Google Maps dated August 2021, while the second photo is one that I took in April 2022 with a new folded dipole added. (see 96.5mhz on the list)

87.9 Radio Lumiere (H) —dead carrier
88.5 Fierte Haitienne (H)
88.7 Kol Hasholom
—dead carrier for Jewish Sabbath observance
88.9 Radio Telemiracle (aka Radyo Tele Mirak La)
90.1 S & S H
90.5 Radio Comedy (H)
90.9 Radyo Independans (H)
91.3 Brother Gary’s station (aka The Carribean)
91.7 La Voix du Peuple (H)
91.9 In the Street Radio
92.1 Grace Deliverance Radio aka GD radio
92.5 Krystal FM (H)
92.9 Unknown religious station

95.3 New York Kreyol FM (H)
95.9 Boom Station

96.5 Christ Christian Temple Radio

98.5 Yawd Vibes Radio

98.9 Radio Gospel Train
99.3 New Radio
99.9 Triple9HD
100.7 Irie Storm
101.5 Brooklyn Mix
102.3 Red Hot Radio
105.5 Crossroads Family Radio
106.3 Wild FM
107.9 JWonder FM
(H) denotes broadcasts aimed at the Haitian community in Brooklyn

In Queens, the only pirate I identified was a weak signal reaching me from Triple9 Radio.

 

This pirate activity is extensive, regular and popular. This does not end radio choice for the citizens of Brooklyn, a diverse borough (2.6m residents at the last census 2019), as on Streema you'll find a further 160 online stations including one I visited the last time I was in New York and Brooklyn 'KPISS, The Golden Stream'. Some of the Streema stations while saying they are web based were also pirates identified by myself and Professor Goren on my visit to the borough. There are further radio stations (with full daily scgedules of live programming) on the Radio Garden App including Brooklyn FM which is aimed at the large Russian immigrant community that live near Coney Island in Brooklyn. Other stations are aimed at the smartphone generation including WRSR 108. Their acronym stands for 'We Are Smartphone Radio' and according to their website, 

WRSR 108 is a faith and family forward radio station. 

FUN FACT...did you know that 70% of radio listeners tune in on their smartphones? 

WRSR is an acryonym for We.ARE...Smartphone.Radio.

Our broadcasting day is full of family fun programming  and music that will uplift and take you all the way, to back-in-the-day. 

 I’ll discuss the New York AM radio band in a later post.

My thanks to Professor David Goren, John McDonagh, WBAI, the Paley Centre, Triple9 Radio, the Brooklyn Pirate Sound Map, Brooklyn Free Radio & DJ Wonder

The Irish Language Pirate Radio Stations

 

When pirate.ie (Read Here) posted on their excellent website about the opening of Irish language pirate radio station Saor Raidio Chonamara (Free Radio Connemara) in April 1970, as activists campaigned for an Irish language radio station, it brought to mind another attempt at Irish language pirate radio in Dublin in 1979.

Radio Na Phobail (translates as 'Radio of the Public') opened on October 16^th 1979 broadcasting on 200mMW and in a blaze of publicity. The Irish language station was operated by Conradh na Gaeilge from a garage on the southside of the city. Conradh na Gaeilge is a social and cultural organisation which promotes the Irish language in Ireland and worldwide. The organisation was founded in 1893 with Douglas Hyde was its first president. Hyde would officially open Ireland’s first official radio station 2RN in 1926 and would also serve as the first President of Ireland.  

Initially the station only broadcast for a and hour each evening between 9pm and 10pm with announcements and music before this was increased to a couple of hours each evening. According to Conradh at the launch they said that the station had been set up,

‘Primarily as a protest against the continuing failure of RTE to provide an adequate service in Irish on radio and TV and to scale down the Anglo-American domination on RTE programming’.

They said that the station would be staffed by 20 members of Conradh na Gaeilge and the station was financed by several branches of the movement. They revealed in the press that the 50watt transmitter had cost nearly £1,000. The transmitter and much of the ancillary equipment was purchased from a defunct station in Galway city.

The station operator said that they would not be relying on advertising, as it was advertising that was forcing RTE to broadcast Anglo-American programmes and they saw that as anti-national.  and that the cost of running the station would be borne by the formation of a ‘Club Tacaiochta’ or ‘Support Club’.

 

Unfortunately, the station suffered from low power and technical setbacks which included frequency changes to 245m and later 215m. Raidio na Phobail had disappeared from the airwaves by the summer of 1981. Dublin would not get a Irish language only station until 1991 when Radio na Life was licensed initially on a temporary license but then acquired a full time license. Conradh na Gaeilge got back into the radio business with the launch of Radio RiRa.

 You can hear some of Radio Na Phobail test transmissions here:

 https://soundcloud.com/user-111680633/radio-an-phobail-tests?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 In April 1970, when that group of activists began illegally broadcasting from a caravan near Rosmuc in County Galway, Raidio Saor Chonamara was a publicity stunt that shone a light on the demand for more Irish language on the airwaves to cater for the Gaeltacht areas of Ireland. The stunt worked as two years later Radio Na Gaeltachta took to the airwaves. Originally broadcasting solely to the Gaeltachta areas on the west coast of Ireland, in 1973 with the addition on an FM Network, RnaG went nationwide and continues successfully today.

 

But how far has Irish language broadcasting some. An interesting study of Irish language radio was conducted by John Walsh of NUIG and can be read HERE. There were a number of pirate operations in Dublin before Raidio Na Life came on the air in 1991 as a temporary license and a full time license was granted in 1993 and broadcasts on 106.4mhz FM. But traditional radio is now augmented by stations available online only through apps like Tune-In and DAB.

The stations available today are

Raidio Na Gaeltachta available on FM - online

Raidio na Life on FM - Radio Garden & radio.ie

Raidio Ri-Ra – Online – radio.ie - Radio Garden and the occasional temporary license from the BAI. It is a chart music station that broadcasts links in Irish. The station is operated as an arm of Conradh na Gaeilge who operated the pirate station Raidio na Phobail back in the 1980’s

Ceol FM. Available online through TuneIn and Radio Garden There are a range of sub channels available from Ceol FM including Ceol FM Energetic and Ceol FM Soothing

Raidio Siamsa available on radio garden or through its own app. According to their website

Radio Siamsa is an Irish online radio station broadcasting Irish traditional music from Dublin. We broadcast only Irish traditional music mainly Irish tunes, interspersed with occasional songs.

Saor Raidio available on FreeDAB, the pirate DAB system with scrolling text announcing it was ‘ar fud na hEireann’

 

North of the border in Belfast, Radio Failte first went on the air in the spring of 1988 with studios located in the Conway Mills complex on the Falls Road, Belfast. In January 1989, the station announced it was leaving the airwaves to pursue a license from the authorities. The station was back on the airwaves illegally broadcasting from New Year’s Day January 1993 and now located in the McAdam O’Fiach Cultural centre on the Falls Road.  but they received a RSL (Restricted Service License) from the radio authority (now known as Ofcom). They were allowed to broadcast for 28 days from Monday June 7th 1993.

Listeners were able to switch on to the opening broadcast at 7am and early birds enjoyed the lulling strains of Irish singer Albert Fry with his rendition of a Donegal folk song. A permanent licence granted 15 September 2006 and the station was officially opened by the then President of Ireland and Belfast native Mary McAleese. In October 2018 the station moved to a state-of-the-art new building on the junction of the Falls Road and the Westlink motorway designed by McGurk architects

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2018/0531/967293-raidio-failte-belfast/

Conway Mills was the home to another Belfast station that broadcast predominately in the Irish Language. Féile FM was a community radio station  based at Conway Mill in Belfast’s Gaeltacht Quarter. The station first went on air in July 1996 on a 28-day RSL, operating for the west Belfast community festival Feile na Phobail. Within two years, Féile FM began broadcasting for two four-week periods each year, providing a build-up to Feile na Phobail and St Patrick’s Day.

Over the first nine years, Féile FM broadcast on 106.2FM. This frequency changed to 107.7 FM for the radio broadcast in July/August 2005. Although the station was broadcasting from various venues, it returned to Conway Mill in February 2004 to a purpose-built studio with a full studio and modern equipment and broadcast online. In October 2005, Féile FM was granted a full-time community radio license by Ofcom. After the period of two years, Féile FM was granted permission to broadcast throughout the year as opposed to its previous restrictions on broadcasting only in the run-up to St. Patrick's Day and the West Belfast Festival. This allowed the station to provide a full-time community radio service to the entire city of Belfast. By 2007, Feile FM was on 103.2mhz but the recession forced the station to close at 4pm on Friday 25 March 2011 owing to financial difficulties and increasing overhead costs.

Sources

The Irish Independent

The Sunday Press

pirate.ie

radiowaves.fm

Radio Failte 

BAI

OfCom

Stephen Colbert's 'The Late Show' Exposed as a TV Program in March 2022

 

For many years as a politics junkie and a lover of political satire, I enjoyed clicking onto YouTube and finding the latest episode of Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ on the Comedy Channel. One of the stalwarts of the show was contributor Stephen Colbert. In 2015 Stephen departed his highly entertaining and funny ‘Colbert Report’ to take over from the legend David Letterman on the popular late night show ‘The Late Show’ on CBS, I wasn’t sure if the move would suit the comic presenter.

 

Thankfully, despite the fact that I lived three thousand miles away in Dublin, the good people of YouTube were yet again on hand to provide the conduit whereby the Late Show could upload clips of their nightly show. I fell in love. Stephen’s opening monologues were pure genius, hilarious, stinging and on point. This was helped by the fact that his taking over the big shoes to fill of Letterman, the former President of the United States (who will not be named by Colbert on his show) announced his unorthodox candidacy for America’s highest office. The show went from strength to strength. The quality of the monologue, the guests and the musicians on the show, led by Grammy winner Jon Batiste, made the show compulsive viewing.

 

Every night I would come in from work (I was a bartender), head up to bed and lay quietly in the darkened room and watch the recent uploaded clips, tears of laughter falling to the pillow and it was as though everything was right with the world. It would be a huge disappointment as suddenly a week would go by with no shows. When the pandemic struck, Stephen and his team adapted, broadcasting from his home, originally fully dressed in the bathtub but then, with his family acting as his crew, from an spare room in his own house. I have many favourite musicians and bands, that I have paid money to see in concert, but getting a chance to visit a TV show like the Late Show seemed a forlorn dream.

 

 Following the lifting of many Covid imposed restrictions in Ireland and the US, I managed to buy a ticket to New York to visit with my aunts and Uncles over there but on a whim, I applied for a ticket to be in the audience of the Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show. It was like opening a Christmas present that I had pleaded with Santa to put under the Christmas Tree when I got an email from ‘1iota’ offering me a ticket for the show at the Ed Sullivan theatre, on the famous Broadway in New York, on Thursday March 31^st 2022. It is hard to find the words for the excitement I felt.

Fast forward to 5pm on that Thursday and I’m already feeling extra special and loved when I discover that not only is Stephen recording one show but two as he is also recording Friday’s show and this was not an April Fool’s joke. The queue outside the Ed Sullivan theatre stretched around the corner or as they say in the Big Apple, around the block, and the first thing that struck me was the amount of ‘meet and greet’ staff the show had, all miked up, taking each attendees details. This included my passport details (yes that famous Irish passport) and my documentation stating that I was vaccinated and boosted against Covid 19. This was a well-oiled machine, very impressive and all so friendly. 

Occasionally a member of staff would travel down the line reminding us that once we entered the theatre, we must wear our masks at all times and also making us raise our arms in the air to prove we were in possession of the blue wrist band that guaranteed entry. They entertained the crowd now slightly dampened by a squally shower of rain but spirits were high. The doors opened just before 5pm and this was my first experience of such tight security at an entertainment venue. I had attended numerous live recordings at RTE’s headquarters at Montrose and the nearest to a tight security was a polite request to leave our wine glasses behind in the reception area as we entered the studio to be seated. There was an explosives sniffer dog at the door and then a metal detector that we had to pass through but the line moved quickly and efficiently. I was ushered to my seat on the ground floor, four rows back from the stage. Could this experience get any better? To comply with Covid advice, fresh air was continually being pumped through the theatre, which gave it a bit of a chilly feeling, so the jacket was coming off any time soon.

Eventually, once the theatre was full of ticketed and stand by attendees for no shows, a warmup act took to the stage and despite the fact that he invited a fellow Irish person, a lady from Cork, onto the stage, the less said about this warmup act the better. I wish him success in his comedic career, if he decides to pursue it. We were then given one opportunity to visit the bathrooms, as the shows recording would take almost three hours. I felt quite guilty as the queue for the ladies was five times as long as that for the gents, but needs must. The stage manager Mark came out and was far more entertaining and to be fair on par with the floor managers at RTE’s late night chat shows like the Saturday Show or the Ray D’Arcy Show. Waving his rolled up script in the air as an indication when we were to clap, stand amd clap, cheer or laugh, he reminded me of the unofficial parking attendants on St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin who would wave a newspaper at the reversing drivers screaming ‘lock hard’. Ah the good old days. Mobile phones were to be turned off and staff moved through the aisles checking to make sure no extra recording was going on. (oops)

The next thing I noticed was the presence of professional looking black suited security guards at the sides and at the edge of the stage. No chances were being taken that a audience member might attack any of the stars of the show. 

The LSSC house band ‘Stay Human’ then took their places, minus Mr. Batiste was he was in LA collecting multiple Grammy awards and entertained us with multiple solos including one from the temporary band leader Louis Cato. Great fun. I was smiling from ear to ear.  Then 49 minutes and 12 seconds after we took our seats in the impressive theatre, out came the great man himself, Stephen ‘The Genius’ Colbert. We were on our feet cheering and clapping. ‘Stephen Stephen Stephen’ went the chant. I was in awe. I was in the presence of one of my heroes. He told us it was a ‘chance to say hi to each other’ and that ‘we are one big happy family’. He teased us on the lower half that we were not getting a chance to see the wonderful dome that dominated the roof of the theatre. A camera panned up and that evening projection onto the dome popped up on the monitors hanging from the balcony for us to watch. Ah well, can’t have it all. He then generously spent twenty minutes answering audience questions. You get a once in a lifetime chance to ask a famous comedian, a star of US late night television (always in the battle for ratings with Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, but always winning) a question and what was the first question he had to field from a lady was

‘How because of your beliefs, do you reconcile your religion and science?’ wow, what a question.

Stephen’s answer was pure gold, ‘God made science’.  Then in keeping with real world events at the time and in reference to President Zelensky in Ukraine, a gentleman asked him ‘if we were to have a comedian here (the USA) as President, who would it be?’ Immediately answered by the audience with another extended chant of ‘Stephen Stephen’ but once again in keeping with the events of the day Stephen’s answer was ‘Chris Rock’ following his Oscar bust up with Will Smith where he was punched on stage by Smith. Next up was another deep and thoughtful question, ‘With the success in your professional and private life, what are your goals dreams and aspirations?’ was the next question. Stephen said he was doing quite well where he was, i.e., CBS, had a lovely wife (Evie) and great children but lamented what he would like was ‘abs’. We were eating out of the palm of his hand. Then he was asked would he consider writing his own autobiography but he moaned sardonically that would be a lot of work. After continuing to answer questions at ease, the final question was,

‘What have you learnt as a comedian during Covid?’

‘What I learned was how much I miss you’ gesturing to the entire audience

His folksy, North Carolina accent had us in raptures. We were his minnows, his followers, his sheep. We were his, and for that brief few hours, he was ours. ‘Let’s do it ye all’.

One thing I did notice and it has up to that point happened in every theatre and every TV studio I was ever in, and this was a bit of both, there were no ‘in case of emergency’ announcements directing us to the nearest exit. A shame, when everything else was so professional and rewarding. Safety of your patrons should be paramount. Rant over time for the show.

 

The credits roll and once again we are on our feet as Stephen takes to the stage as the eight, yes eight, cameras roll. This is the opening monologue from the Thursday taping.

To see that monologue delivered in person was just as funny even more funny probably because of the community of laughter in the theatre. Then the first and only slip came at the ‘Rocky’ film joke but pleaded us not to tweet his mistake as it would take away from the persona of being perfect all the time. Postproduction would sort it out. But to be fair, if we didn’t laugh loud enough on the evening, that too could be sorted in post-production.  Postproduction came to the rescue of the network when they would also bleep out the ‘what the fuck’ that we heard during his segment on the CBS hiring of former Trump staff member Mick Mulvaney.

 

Monologue one done, time to immediately move on the Friday night monologue and we had to pretend we were a different audience to Thursday. Thursday audience was good but this Friday audience is better. This is Friday’s monologue and one must marvel at the staff of writers that produce this kind of up to the minute quality nightly. Then the next monologue delivery interruption was when Stephen coughed, immediately declaring it wasn’t Covid (their staff are rigorously tested) but that it was a piece of celery string that had caught in his throat. Throat cleared and on with the monologue, postproduction once again to the rescue.

 

I think that was perhaps the worst April Fools ruse ever perpetrated on the US TV viewing public. Really Stephen ‘It’s Friday’? Alas fake news that Friday monologue was delivered on a Thursday. Now who’s the fool? (Let’s wee you try a Mr. T impression on that one)

The recordings then zipped along. James McEvoy, the Scottish actor was first and his interview was hilarious but a sneak peek behind the scenes were the ‘in and outs’ that Stephen recorded so that the show that night, broadcast at 11.35, could take a number of ad breaks during the interview. As the show was recorded ‘as live’ we watched the inserts that filled the show including the pre-recorded musical guests. Quickly onto show number two and this was flying by far too fast. The Friday night guests were Ken Burns, the documentary maker and Mandy Patinkin of Criminal Minds fame who had collaborated on and narrated a new documentary on Benjamin Franklin. Brilliant interview, funny, educational, relatable and entertaining. Then a pre-recorded segment with John C. Reilly, who had been the international Grand Marshall at the St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin the previous March. It was interesting to see, that even though Stephen was the interviewer, he was enjoying watching it back and chuckled away to the very funny actor as they discussed films that should have been made.

 

And in an instant, three and a half hours after I entered the theatre, it was over. I lingered a little but the ushering out had begun. It was over but I had been there, I had been within touching distance of one of my heroes of television (although a couple of burly men at the edge of the stage would have dealt with my attempted touching quickly). It was brilliant, entertaining, funny and an unbeatable experience for this Dubliner. The only downside, and I’m sure this is probably covid related but even at the smallest of concerts, in small venues, there is a merchandise stand. There was none. No chance to buy a mug, a memento of my visit, a signed photograph or a sweatshirt. Them be the breaks in showbiz. But my recommendation, if you are heading to New York, on a budget and you want some brilliant free entertainment, apply to the Stephen Colbert Late Show for a ticket, you will not be disappointed. Thanks to Stephen and your entire staff, I hope to be back some day soon.

All Rights to the Broadcast of Stephen Colbert's Late Show are reserved by CBS. 

All rights to be entertained reserved by me. (c) 2022