Revolution, Radio, Fabric … and why KRUU could never work.

Why am I hear today: My goal is to encourage interest and involvement with community radio as a catalyst for change We'll talk about: Radio Community Radio KRUU Revolution Answer questions?

Who am I? Roland Wells

Who am I? Husband & Father

Who am I? Work Partner in Walker Group, Inc. & Cypress Villages

Who am I? Volunteer – REAL Work Current Projects: Founding Director of KRUU-LP 100.1 FM http://kruufm.com Director, Bonnell Building Project http://bonnellproject.org/ Past Projects Founder of the Beatbox (youth and community technology center)

Who I am not (pre 2006)? Radio engineer Radio producer Programming committee member Anything radio-related what-so-ever. Is this important?

Couple background topics: What is radio? FM Radio LPFM (Low Power FM)

What is radio? Part of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Fast - Speed of Light! Energy radiated in a wave... FM radio uses these radio waves to transmit audio from one transmitter to many receivers

The FM band PIE chart Clear Channel Religious Programming NPR “Public Radio” What do they all have in common? ALL PRODUCED SOMEWHERE ELSE...and THEY ARE ALL BIG BUSINESS

LPFM Created by FCC primarily to provide for non- commercial, local programming Partially hijacked by DOT road condition stations & religious translator broadcasters. Small number of truly local broadcasters. Even smaller number producing majority of own content = KRUU

Why Radio?

Why Radio? Audio is unique My son Andrew TV or Book on Tape? Music People LISTEN

Why Radio? - Cost LPTV or Public Access TV High startup cost of equipment & high barrier to quality production LPFM, small start-up equipment cost

Why Radio? - Quality & Programming Youtube, Social Networking, web-based low standard of quality, content organization usually personal, not available to all KRUU - quality and diversity of programming, systemic encouragement of professional production quality

Why Radio? - Ownership and control of content and delivery mechanism Youtube, Social Networking - Content hosted by corporation totally out of control of user and audience Public Access TV, controlled/funded by government, access provided by cable company KRUU - Community-owned, Community Control, No-one OWNS the airwaves (ie direct delivery from KRUU to listener radio)

The fabric: Importance of Local Media - Strengthening our Community The community we live in is like a big family. Family health is directly related to meaningful communication, significant interest/attention on other family members, and commitment to work together to overcome as a group KRUU assists all these processes occur... except:

KRUU could never work: Common radio market knowledge dictates that: A station must have an angle A station must choose a genre Programming must targeted to a “specific” listener Massive funding is required The production facilities must NOT be near the railroad tracks

History of KRUU: Beatbox construction permit 2001 Extension to Oct of 2006, started work summer 2006 Tower up July 4th, 2006 Transmitter received Sept 29th, 2006 (broken) 24/7 since Sept 30th 2006

KRUU's Mission: KRUU-FM - Giving Fairfield a Voice The mission of KRUU is to give Fairfield a voice, and strengthen the community by encouraging creativity, dialog and community involvement. KRUU is an open, inclusive, diverse forum for music, creative expression, information, and entertainment with a strong emphasis on locally created produced programming.

Why KRUU works: No angle, Kruu is un-biased as a station. This lends credibility to the shows themselves, additionally, we encourage our hosts to let the issues speak the truth for themselves. Represents all parts of OUR community. We want to hear what our neighbors are up to, what they are listening to. All genres... genre is less important than host We are you. Community Radio

KRUU is: 100 watts to ~10 miles & 20,000 people (more or less & not counting the net stream) Live internet stream, 10k pages views a day! (larger community) over 100 volunteers producing over 80 hours of original content per week over 100,000+ hours volunteer time spent so far

KRUU is (cont): open source software (fits vision, economics, control) creative commons licensed (community licensed content) community financed - we don't answer to government, big business, our budget is made up of small donations from many people/business' James Moore a community revolution

Revolution = radical change minus fear (and preferably without firearms)

the world is in the middle of the following radical change: The transfer of power from a few to all

media / communication (aka “the feedback-loop”) is power, it has traditionally been controlled by big power centers (governments, large media corporations, etc)

The feedback-loop is increasingly provided by the people, self-regulation of the community through social networking, peer-to-peer technologies, the Internet, local food, local economy, and... local media – KRUU)

Today, real change begins here, as parts of the whole, we can change the world, sum. revolution is here, we invite you to join the feedback loop!