Is the future in community radio?
Submitted by Jazz Suite
At least once a year my wife and I travel to Cape May New Jersey to detox from all the annoyances life throws at us. We stay at the beautiful Albert Stevens Inn, where Jim & Lenanne Labrusciano feed us delicious breakfasts and give us the inside dope on what to see in the area.
Last year, while my wife whiled away a few hours at the local yarn shop (she’s a bit of a knitter, you see), I came across something interesting in one of the local newspapers.
The Center for Community Arts launched its own radio station! While this is something I’ve seen more and more lately, mostly on the Internet (Chester County, Pa, for example), this was a real honest-to-goodness radio station, transmitter and all.
WCFA-LP, Cape May, 101.5 FM is volunteer-run, and broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and reaches a 10-mile-plus radius around the beachfront town.
Cape May is home to the Cape May Jazz Festival, so it should be no surprise jazz plays a prominent role in the station, along with community programs.
What surprised me most were the small start-up costs: a mere $12,000, with operating costs of about $1,500 per month, according to the Web site.
Whenever we visit Cape May, I have to tear myself away because I want to stay. Needing to work and eat wins out in the end, as does the fact that making your vacation into your everyday life tends to take a little of the shine off the thing. But in a fantasy world a life combining the beach, playing my music and a radio show, perhaps with a newspaper gig on the side would be ideal.
But, back to reality. Those sort of numbers got me thinking, something like that could be very achievable in my own community, and in other communities as well.
In a world where our music continues to be marginalized out of existence, even on PBS stations, community radio and its Internet radio cousin will become increasingly important, both to showcase new talent and to introduce jazz to new generations. If you run any kind of community arts organization, you should be looking at something like what Cape May has done.
Check out the Web site for the nitty-gritty on how it all works. Obviously, the station is interested in volunteers in a number of areas, and needs support to stay on the air, and there is information on how to do that, too. Sphere: Related Content
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