a youth movement....

[djsincere510]

SAN FRANCISCO — USING THE BACK of a rental pickup truck as their platform, 50 youths, activists and poets chanted in front of the Bay Area headquarters of the largest radio corporation in the United States.

As a dozen or so police looked on, they sang, read poetry and rallied using a single microphone running off a generator, trying to elicit some kind of response from Clear Channel Communications.

But the corporation, with 1.5 million listeners in the Bay Area and $9 billion in annual revenue, gave no indication that the protesters existed on this particular afternoon in September, except for the few curious employees who peeked through their office windows from above.

When protesters tried to deliver a letter signed by organizations such as La Pea Cultural Center, Media Alliance, Youth Movement Records and EastSide Arts Alliance, they were turned away by a security guard.

Most of the noise against Clear Channel comes from Oakland-based Youth Media Council, an umbrella organization composed of more than 20 community groups asking for better representation of youths in media.

And youths — the target audience of 106.1 KMEL-FM and 94.9 KYLD, or "Wild 94.9" — are challenging the company, accusing the stations of lacking community programming and leaving local artists at the door. In June, 94.9's hiring of controversial producer Rick Delgado sparked a fire in the anti-Clear Channel campaign.

It has been an ongoing challenge for the group after Clear Channel bought KMEL and Wild 94.9 in 1999. Two years later, KMEL, a local hip-hop station geared toward a younger market, fired its popular host and community affairs director, Davey D, and other employees, which sparked protests from local listeners.

So what's all the fuss about now?

Clear Channel, like all radio stations in California, is applying to renew its radio licenses this year through the Federal Communications Commission, an organization better known for slapping indecency fines against breast exposure at the Super Bowl and shock jock Howard Stern. The renewal process is one that occurs every eight years and consists of pushing paperwork through the FCC, an event that usually goes unnoticed by listeners.

Opponents know it is unlikely the FCC will yank Clear Channel's radio licenses, including those for the two most popular radio stations geared toward youths, KMEL and Wild 94.9.

But protesters want to make sure someone is listening.

Since Aug. 1, YMC has promoted an "Unplug Clear Channel" campaign. The public - since it technically owns the airwaves - has until Nov. 1 to comment either in favor or opposition to any radio station in California; all are up for renewal this year. By Dec. 1, the FCC will decide which stations' licenses will be renewed.

A radio industry representative says stations rely on the community to stay in business.

"Everybody's got a different idea of what they want in a local radio station," said Mark Powers, vice president of the California Broadcasters Association, a trade organization. "That's why there are so many types out there."

 

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Youths speak

But Meuy Saephanh, 21, of Oakland, a member of YMC for five years, says she likes the type of music the two stations play - she just wants them to be better. She still listens to 94.9 and KMEL - which is exactly why she is protesting them. The groups are asking Clear Channel to hire a community affairs director for each station, give local artists more airtime and include community affairs programming.

For listeners who don't tune into these two stations with an "urban" format, there are many choices, from iPods to satellite radio. Many young people at the rally, though, want these stations that are supposedly geared toward them to be better.

Leslie Santiago, a 16-year-old poet with Youth Speaks and student at MetWest High School in Oakland, says she is concerned that the way corporate rap radio portrays youths perpetuates stereotypes.

"Youths of color are already getting stereotyped," she said. "The music promotes too much violence. There's already enough violence on the streets. When someone listens to these stations, they might think all youths are like that."

"It's a serious battle over the airwaves and brain waves," said Chris Wiltsee, founder of Oakland's Youth Movement Records, an organization that works with teenagers to produce their own music and shows. "If you're 14 and on a steady diet of this corporate radio that's just all about sex and thugging, what does that do to your perception of reality about what's normal?"

Others complain that stations just seem to rotate the same few songs and that KMEL and 94.9 are beginning to sound more and more alike.

"A lot of people are dissatisfied and don't like how the stations are," said Chris Lyons, 17, a member of YMR. "It's hard to listen to these stations because it's repetitive. They don't give you too much selection."

A community affair

FCC's deregulation of media in 1996 has created near monopolies in regions such as the Bay Area. In 1996, Clear Channel owned 40 radio stations in the United States. By 2002, it controlled 1,200.

Former FCC Chairman William Kennard said the 1996 laws "unleashed a frenzy of consolidation in the radio marketplace and forever changed the economics of radio station ownership." Activists say they deserve better than "cookie-cutter radio."

Their goal is to have each station add a community affairs director, which Clear Channel eliminated when it bought the stations. Currently, there is one community affairs director for all 11 Bay Area stations Clear Channel own, which range from conservative talk-radio station KNEW-AM 910 to Al Franken's liberal talk-radio KQKE-AM 960, plus KMEL, 94.9

 

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and seven others. "Anybody who owns a station is committed to that particular geography to try to serve it," said radio industry representative Powers. "They'll try to make sure their audience is satisfied, or they go out of business."

One way that radio stations appear to be community-oriented is through "instant requests," though they are almost never live, says former KMEL DJ Davey D.

The stations will take calls, record them and then look at the computer where playlists are preprogrammed. When a certain song that a listener requests is about to be played, the station will play the recording of the request and then the song, making it appear that listeners are being listened to.

"Nobody just gets to play whatever they want on the airwaves," Davey D said. "People who really control the strings hide their faces."

Powers says that corporations such as Clear Channel are targeted because they own so much wattage.

"There's a mind-set that bigness is somehow bad, but one of the best things about the radio industry is that you've got a huge spectrum that serves different needs," he said.

Racial controversy

But Clear Channel recently made other groups, not normally heavy media critics, upset. In July, Wild 94.9 fired the "Doghouse" morning show crew after guests claimed sexual harassment - and replaced them with Rick Delgado, a DJ/producer from New York famous for writing and airing an offensive "tsunami song."

Delgado, who worked at New York's Hot 97, wrote a song that poked fun at the tsunami disaster in South Asia, including lyrics such as "screaming chinks," "little Chinamen swept away" and "Africans drowning." After much community outcry, the station fired him.

Bay Area listeners say they are livid that a local station would hire someone who was fired for airing an allegedly racist song.

"To us, that's unacceptable, particularly in a city that's 33 percent Asian American," says Malcolm Yeung, staff attorney at San Franciso-based Asian Law Caucus.

A Clear Channel spokeswoman said she will not comment about the youth campaign or the hiring of Delgado.

Within a week, 500 people in the Bay Area signed an online petition, and many threatened to boycott the station. In response, Clear Channel executive Kim Bryant sent the same e-mail to petitioners, including the statements:

"We'd like to emphasize that Rick brings to the table great connections, and that is the sole function he was hired to fulfill. While Rick Delgado was previously part of a controversial morning team, and involved in some inappropriate on-air bits, neither of those two facts are true today, nor are they useful in the San Francisco Bay Area market."

Petitioners who received this letter say they were baffled, since Delgado was also an off-air producer at Hot 97 and it was clear that the station only cared about Delgado's "connections."

Real alternatives?

Although more teens are listening to iPods and downloading music, some said it is just not a realistic option for them. Alternatives to KMEL and 94.9 do exist but may be difficult to access.

"It isn't realistic that everyone has access to iPods, buys a whole bunch of CDs or listens to satellite radio," said Lyons, a senior at Oakland Technical High School.

He says he doesn't own an iPod, nor do most of his friends. He adds that his peers also don't own computers, much less have Internet access to download songs.

There are other alternatives to corporate radio - college or independent stations such as Berkeley's KALX 90.7, San Francisco's KPOO 98.5 and Stanford's KZSU 90.1, which each have hip-hop shows, as well as Pacifica's KPFA 94.1. But for youths who don't have cars or a radio with a huge antennae, they usually can't pick up such low-frequency stations.

Instead of KMEL, 16-year-old Leslie Santiago listens to underground hip-hop such as Oakland rapper Ise Lyfe and Latino artist Panama.

"They're not big or famous or well-known, so they're not catching the stations' attention," she said. "But they're talking about the truth and sending a good message."

Laney College student Leslie Lopez, 18, says it is hard not to listen to these stations.

"I don't really like listening to the radio, but that's all that's on."

YMC is leading the first concerted effort involving youths to challenge Clear Channel license renewals. In 2003, Essential Information, a Washington, D.C.- based public interest group, unsuccessfully challenged 63 of the corporation's stations in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.

"You get to vote with your ears for the kind of community radio you want," Powers said.

The public can make comments, in favor or against, any California radio stations, which are all applying for renewal through the FCC through Nov. 1. Visit www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/renewal/index.html for instructions or www.action.youthmediacouncil.org under "Take Action" to file a public comment.

 

[yee]

goood shit that took me forever to read but fuck clear channel i hope they dont get there license re-newed....what happened to power 92 or w/e it was they played cool songs but i heard they got shut down kuz they were beating kmel or something

 

[SLY]

Good read