Mojotronica
Expect Irony.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Hale's radio station rules the airwaves -- even in New York
By DEBORAH BACH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Like any other radio station, Seattle's C89.5 FM has the occasional on-air gaffe -- like the time more than a decade ago when a news announcer stumbled over the word "integrated" and instead said former Seattle Public Schools Superintendent William Kendrick had "successfully incinerated all kindergartners."
Operations have become a little more polished since then at Nathan Hale High School's station, which recently topped the Best of New York 2003 list published in The Village Voice.
The non-profit station was the only non-local nominee listed by the venerable weekly alongside winners in such other categories as "Best Bar to Run Into Rock Critic Hags" and "Best Health Food Store that Employs Polish Goth Girls."
Josh Goldfein, a Brooklyn lawyer and writer who nominated C89.5, first heard the station while visiting a friend in Seattle a year and a half ago. He's been a fan ever since, regularly tuning in via the Web.
"They play records you're just not going to hear anywhere else, and sometimes they're way, way ahead of the curve," Goldfein said. "There's nothing comparable in New York."
Some 2,800 miles from the hip streets of Manhattan, Gregg Neilson was amused to learn about the nomination when a listener returned from New York and posted a message in the station's online guest book last week.
"For us to be in a New York paper that's credible ... it was fun," said Neilson, who teaches an introduction-to-radio class at Hale and has been the station's business manager since 1983.
The commendation may be amusing, but the station is serious business. What started in 1969 as a project to get students interested in electronics has evolved into a professional operation with an interactive Web site, online streaming, and a weekly audience of about 115,000.
"Those are huge numbers for a high school radio station, and it's even pretty good for Seattle," Neilson said.
Neilson has been with the station since 1977 and remembers students bringing their record collections and sleeping bags to the station in the early days, camping out because the school couldn't afford the technology for an automated overnight operation.
"The kids were really interested in broadcasting underground, alternative stuff, and the after-hours were really appealing to them," he said.
Over the next two decades, the station grew up along with technology. It went online in 1996 and began streaming the same year, but program director Jon McDaniel said finding the station's musical groove took time. A decade ago the station played mainly new wave and techno music, he says, but after listener numbers slid it switched to its current mix of dance and Top 40, playing artists ranging from Beyonce to Lucas Prata.
"That's bringing in the most listeners we've ever had, so it must be working," said McDaniel, a Seattle native who's worked at the station since 1986 as a student, an alumni volunteer and, for 13 years, a paid employee.
C89.5 operates on an annual budget of $350,000. The school district provides almost $100,000 to cover the salaries of Neilson and advanced radio teacher Judy Rudow, the station's operations manager. Another $50,000 is generated by selling non-commercial spots to companies such as The Bon-Macy's, and the rest is raised through two annual pledge drives.
An office manager and program director make up the rest of the paid staff, complemented by about 25 students who are on air from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day. Volunteers, many of them Hale alumni, fill in from 8 p.m. to midnight. The next eight hours are covered by "voice tracking" -- sets of songs with introductions recorded earlier in the day.
In accordance with Federal Communications Commission regulations, the station is monitored digitally from Neilson's home. In the event of an overnight problem, calls go out automatically to Neilson's home and several other locations. If there's no answer, the station automatically shuts down in three hours.
Students earn class credits for station duties, but must achieve at least a "B" in Rudow's class to work there. They're required to learn every job in the station and to achieve a perfect score on a test covering radio rules and regulations. "We're tough," Rudow says. "We're on-air, and this is a job."
The stringent requirements don't deter senior Marian Proctor, 17, who spent part of yesterday afternoon standing in front of the "dub station" with headphones on, critiquing station jingles recorded by students. Proctor said she's at the station every day after school and sometimes on weekends and enjoys building her job skills.
"It's really different from all my other classes and it's just a really great experience for me," she said.
Matt Cohn, a 16-year-old junior, broadcasts a show each Monday under the DJ moniker "Cam Johnson."
Cohn likes being on-air and takes satisfaction from putting together station promos, some of them voiced by a California DJ who did "teasers" for the television game show "The Weakest Link."
"It's definitely a unique experience," Cohn said. "There's nothing else like this anywhere."
Indeed, the station is the only one operated by a Seattle public school, Neilson said. Listeners tune in from as far away as Dallas and Pittsburgh, and McDaniel said he regularly gets e-mail from longtime fans.
"There's really a place in people's hearts for the station," he said. "It's been around for so long, and people have listened to it since they were kids."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local...adiohale13.html
Here's a link to the station's website:
http://www.c895fm.com/
Hale's radio station rules the airwaves -- even in New York
By DEBORAH BACH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Like any other radio station, Seattle's C89.5 FM has the occasional on-air gaffe -- like the time more than a decade ago when a news announcer stumbled over the word "integrated" and instead said former Seattle Public Schools Superintendent William Kendrick had "successfully incinerated all kindergartners."
Operations have become a little more polished since then at Nathan Hale High School's station, which recently topped the Best of New York 2003 list published in The Village Voice.
The non-profit station was the only non-local nominee listed by the venerable weekly alongside winners in such other categories as "Best Bar to Run Into Rock Critic Hags" and "Best Health Food Store that Employs Polish Goth Girls."
Josh Goldfein, a Brooklyn lawyer and writer who nominated C89.5, first heard the station while visiting a friend in Seattle a year and a half ago. He's been a fan ever since, regularly tuning in via the Web.
"They play records you're just not going to hear anywhere else, and sometimes they're way, way ahead of the curve," Goldfein said. "There's nothing comparable in New York."
Some 2,800 miles from the hip streets of Manhattan, Gregg Neilson was amused to learn about the nomination when a listener returned from New York and posted a message in the station's online guest book last week.
"For us to be in a New York paper that's credible ... it was fun," said Neilson, who teaches an introduction-to-radio class at Hale and has been the station's business manager since 1983.
The commendation may be amusing, but the station is serious business. What started in 1969 as a project to get students interested in electronics has evolved into a professional operation with an interactive Web site, online streaming, and a weekly audience of about 115,000.
"Those are huge numbers for a high school radio station, and it's even pretty good for Seattle," Neilson said.
Neilson has been with the station since 1977 and remembers students bringing their record collections and sleeping bags to the station in the early days, camping out because the school couldn't afford the technology for an automated overnight operation.
"The kids were really interested in broadcasting underground, alternative stuff, and the after-hours were really appealing to them," he said.
Over the next two decades, the station grew up along with technology. It went online in 1996 and began streaming the same year, but program director Jon McDaniel said finding the station's musical groove took time. A decade ago the station played mainly new wave and techno music, he says, but after listener numbers slid it switched to its current mix of dance and Top 40, playing artists ranging from Beyonce to Lucas Prata.
"That's bringing in the most listeners we've ever had, so it must be working," said McDaniel, a Seattle native who's worked at the station since 1986 as a student, an alumni volunteer and, for 13 years, a paid employee.
C89.5 operates on an annual budget of $350,000. The school district provides almost $100,000 to cover the salaries of Neilson and advanced radio teacher Judy Rudow, the station's operations manager. Another $50,000 is generated by selling non-commercial spots to companies such as The Bon-Macy's, and the rest is raised through two annual pledge drives.
An office manager and program director make up the rest of the paid staff, complemented by about 25 students who are on air from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day. Volunteers, many of them Hale alumni, fill in from 8 p.m. to midnight. The next eight hours are covered by "voice tracking" -- sets of songs with introductions recorded earlier in the day.
In accordance with Federal Communications Commission regulations, the station is monitored digitally from Neilson's home. In the event of an overnight problem, calls go out automatically to Neilson's home and several other locations. If there's no answer, the station automatically shuts down in three hours.
Students earn class credits for station duties, but must achieve at least a "B" in Rudow's class to work there. They're required to learn every job in the station and to achieve a perfect score on a test covering radio rules and regulations. "We're tough," Rudow says. "We're on-air, and this is a job."
The stringent requirements don't deter senior Marian Proctor, 17, who spent part of yesterday afternoon standing in front of the "dub station" with headphones on, critiquing station jingles recorded by students. Proctor said she's at the station every day after school and sometimes on weekends and enjoys building her job skills.
"It's really different from all my other classes and it's just a really great experience for me," she said.
Matt Cohn, a 16-year-old junior, broadcasts a show each Monday under the DJ moniker "Cam Johnson."
Cohn likes being on-air and takes satisfaction from putting together station promos, some of them voiced by a California DJ who did "teasers" for the television game show "The Weakest Link."
"It's definitely a unique experience," Cohn said. "There's nothing else like this anywhere."
Indeed, the station is the only one operated by a Seattle public school, Neilson said. Listeners tune in from as far away as Dallas and Pittsburgh, and McDaniel said he regularly gets e-mail from longtime fans.
"There's really a place in people's hearts for the station," he said. "It's been around for so long, and people have listened to it since they were kids."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local...adiohale13.html
Here's a link to the station's website:
http://www.c895fm.com/
