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