[IRCA] WLIB

["Tim Kridel" <timkridel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wasn't a need for round-the-clock local programming one of the arguments
that WLIB's owners used to make a case for powering down WOWO at night? 



Liberal Talk Mutes a Radio Station's Caribbean Voice
By NANCY RAMSEY

Published: May 11, 2004

http://nytimes.com/2004/05/11/arts/11WLIB.html

For Samantha Bascom, who emigrated to New York from Guyana, WLIB was "more
than just a radio station." While dining on braised oxtail at the Sugar
Cane, a Caribbean restaurant on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on a recent
evening, she said WLIB offered her family "news and updates from the
Caribbean, information about life in the U.S., about how immigrants can
obtain legal status."

"As far back as I can remember, we had it on in our house," she said. "It
was a little piece of home."

According to the Arbitron ratings service, WLIB had some 350,000 listeners
(all in the New York metropolitan area) in the first quarter of this year,
including Ms. Bascom, who came to New York as a child in 1982 and who is now
a mortgage processor with the Municipal Credit Union. Since March 31,
however, listeners tuning in to WLIB, are hearing very little
Caribbean-oriented programming. Instead, for 18 hours a day, it has been Air
America at 1190 on the AM dial, the self-advertised liberal counterpoint to
conservative talk radio. While some of WLIB's Caribbean-born listeners may
agree with the politics of Air America, the Caribbean-oriented programming
has been reduced to 37 hours - the midnight-to-5 a.m. slot and Sunday
mornings - said Kernie Anderson, vice president and general manager of WLIB
and its FM sister station, WBLS (107.5). "The best we can hope for is that
another entity will try to address these issues and put together a format,"
he said. 

"I'm very cordial with them, they're a great bunch of people," Mr. Anderson
said of Air America, which is said to have more than $20 million and is now
operating in 9 markets (as well as satellite radio and the Web) throughout
the country and says it will be in 26 by the end of this month. "I'm a
member of the A.C.L.U., so you know where my political leanings are, but I'm
conflicted. It's important for Air America to confront the reactionary
right, they're doing an incredible job, but it's at the expense of the
Caribbean community."

Katy Bachman, a senior editor who covers the radio industry for Mediaweek,
said: "WLIB has replaced a local voice with a national voice. People have a
different relationship with radio than with TV. It's interactive, it's more
accessible, it's not slicked up. You know these characters on radio. You've
invited them into your home. You can call in, ask a question. Air America
wants a national platform. They don't have time to talk about one person's
issues." 

Mr. Anderson said: "Any time there's a format change of any station, it's
traumatic for the listenership. LIB was not just a music station, but
wrapped into the culture of the Caribbean. That's why the demise of LIB has
become such a passionate issue. It served many, many needs."

WLIB "had medical advice - the black community has problems with high blood
pressure and diabetes and not always wanting to go to the doctor," said John
Le Maitre, who emigrated from Trinidad in 1969 at the age of 9, lives in
Flushing, Queens, and whose job as an electrician takes him throughout the
five boroughs.

"It was an avenue for West Indian immigrants to do their advertising, in
real estate, in banking." he added. "And it kept people in touch with what's
going on in the islands - news, sports, soccer and cricket in Trinidad and
Jamaica. Not to mention the music: soca, calypso, reggae. On a construction
job you'd have people listening to `Imus in the Morning' in one corner, Hot
97 in another, and all the West Indian people would be listening to WLIB."

Pierre Sutton, chairman of Inner City Broadcasting, which owns WLIB, made
the decision to sell program time to Air America. Mr. Sutton's father, Percy
Sutton, the former Manhattan borough president who oversees Inner City
Broadcasting, said he approved his son's decision. "For 30 years LIB has
been geared to the black community, and not one year have we been able to
make it break even," the elder Mr. Sutton said. "It's been subsidized by
WBLS, its sister station."

He added: "Philosophically I'm for the liberal station. I'm a veteran of the
civil rights movement. It might have been a different thing had we been
asked by Fox network."

His son said: "Our arrangement with Air America is an opportunity to have an
impact upon a larger community than our own." There are problems, however,
he said, listing "dead air, confusion, repetition of subject matter from one
program to the next." 

"They have to have more people calling in," he added. "You need that
interaction with the audience to make it more exciting. How do you hold
people's attention in radio? Conservative talk radio has actually learned to
do that very well. You have to be disagreeable in order to get people's
attention. Nodding in agreement is not exciting." 

As to how Air America is faring, preliminary ratings from Arbitron are
expected later this month. "I don't expect the ratings to come out of the
box very well," the younger Mr. Sutton said. "You almost have to give a
quarter to six months for something like this to take hold." The time
brokerage agreement is for two years, he added. "They're in it for the long
haul."

The loss to immigrants from the Caribbean area has been duly noted, he said.
The station is "working on drop-ins, the localization of some of the news,"
he added. At 25 minutes after the hour, for example, there may be local
news, and he said he hoped this would happen in the next few weeks.

"You can be very insular as an immigrant," said Marsha Scipio, a lawyer who
was born in Trinidad and emigrated to the United States when she was 9. WLIB
"was a link to the Caribbean, and it helped you get acclimated to American
society and helped you make that fusion to the black community here," she
said. "WLIB was a pillar of our community."

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