Just Another Repeater Radio Station

[Photo: Opie Taylor of the Andy Griffith TV Show... not radio]

Radio For the Rest Of Us?

I’ll keep this article brief. Most NPR stations are just repeater stations. They focus on programming that I consider East Coast highbrow. They rarely offer any local programming.

Here is how the NPR monolith works. Most NPR programming is produced at their flagship station, WGBH Boston. Before we get news and information, it is filtered (they have to make sure it isn't too progressive or contaminated by minorities) through a "sophisticated" Boston and New York filter. That is why NPR affiliates often blast the same material over the airwaves and dominate the left side of the radio dial. It gets awfully redundant.

Again, this bleached material has a definite East Coast bias. After listening to this corporate yammering (programming) you learn that East Coasters wouldn’t know a Chicano from a hole in the ground. This is not good news for us West Coast Chicanos. Changing NPR’s focus from YUPPIE news and features to more diverse fare is practically impossible. This is where the dinero (money) is and they are sticking to their network guns. But there is hope. The corporations don't own the future because Internet radio is on the rise.

Why is Internet radio so great? Apparently, production costs are relatively low, corporate donors aren't quite as important and you don’t have to own a big-fat production facility. In the interim, local repeater stations present vacuous programming like Boston Pops and A Prairie Home Companion. My wife loves this show.

Acculturated and somewhat assimilated, I also occasionally enjoy what the repeater stations offer, but I am not yet a clone of the famoso (famous) Opie Taylor - see photo above. I still like Tejano (American) music and an occasional story about people of color. The confluence of Chicanos and Internet radio will take place. Maybe the new paradigm shift has already taken place. It just isn't as obvious and as easy to access as the NPR stuff on the left side of the dial.

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