PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

WYEP follow up
by Chris Holm Sunday, Sep. 21, 2003 at 5:22 AM
chris@indypgh.org (email address validated)

The local artist promotion doesn't hold water.

Haven't had much time or inclination to follow the misleading statements of WYEP's pledge drives or out right lies to make money, but did tune in for several minutes.

Each time I heard them boasting about playing local artists.

Point one:

Unless the local artists are warned about exploitive system they're being indoctrinated into, they will find that being played by such an unethical institution is the candy offered by a dirty old man to lure a small child into his car.

If the artists end up with any success in a system like WYEP, they may end up finding out that they've become an involantary underwritter as their pay is siphoned to go to the kick backs to support the station. Free concerts, paying for the free CDs that WYEP sells memberships with.

The artists may find themselves unable to pay their bills or even afford health insurance, while WYEP staff diet on free food from sponsors, and sit safely under 401K plans and health insurance with 10's of thousands worth of free CD's in their homes.

Read Steve Albini's, former Big Black frontman, and Nirvana producer's statement on this:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Aside from this....

Point 2

Aside from the system they're entering and paying the salaries of some really dishonest, unethical people, does WYEP really support local artists?

I'm sure Nike has donated money to philanthropist causes, but does that embody what they do? Does that make up for the sweat shop labor they employ?

No. It's used as damage control window dressing to make them look better.

First, WYEP requires local artists to fit the format which is currently Soccer Mom, Chick flick, lite rock movie sound track crap, or provincial folk or blues based music. So, you would have to sell out quality wise to get played, or just like bad music.

One must play locally, so studio musicians are out.

I've only tuned in several times to their local shows with Justin Hopper, and the 10:00 pm show. Justin has a short spot, and gets a bit more lattitude, but it's like once a month. The 10:00 show is late at night, and I've only heard it several times. Each time was either a blues artist, or a Clear Channel sell out Rusted Root solo artist.

The artists on the 10:00 show are omited from their playlist as well, leading one to believe that their playlists are not for their audiences, rather for their kick back indie-promoters to tally their compensation due.

The local artists that do get regular rotation play are maybe one to three a year, out of the hundreds of artists that get played.

Not really something to boast about. If you received a 2% on a test, you wouldn't boast about the F you received, yet WYEP uses it to sell memberships as their difining quality.

Sorry, you can't cover lies with more lies.

Other fun statements are, "the only place in town where you can hear..."

Every station in town can say that about something at their station, even the commercial stations. It's twisted used car salesman logic, like saying that 95% of all people that have died have eaten pickles, therefor pickles cause death.

It's just a word game.

"Public radio has become very, very private -- a National Private Radio owned lock, stock and barrel by those who have all the chips.

Until those times, twice a year, when they crank up the money-begging machine and tell us that we're listening to public radio. National Public Radio. Yours and mine. To support. Until the goal is met. "

"Poor NPR. Emasculated, lost its nuts, and at such a young age. They say it happened sometime in the '90s, when Congress insisted that NPR become self-supporting. But that's not it. The balls of great American radio were not stolen by Newt Gingrich but disappeared in the early days when it was decided that public broadcasting would be built on the commercial model. Instead of looking to the wondrous, shit-kicking experimental radio coming out of England (BBC), Canada (CBC), France (RDF) and Japan (NHK), it was decided that NPR would be a gussied-up version of NBC, CBS and ABC. And soon enough, NPR began to follow their rules: Don't rock the boat, don't get the natives up in arms, don't question the system and, most of all, don't mess with the sponsors. "

"Lorenzo W. Milam" Salon.com

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/07/02/npr1/index.html

www.CardinalPoints.net

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