Zionsville Times-Sentinel
Published: April 09, 2008 04:17 pm

Radio station launches
By Ben Woodson and Jennifer Dawson/Times Sentinel writers

Central Indiana’s newest public radio station WITT 91.9 FM has chosen Zionsville as its home.

“I thought Zionsville would be a really neat community to connect around a community radio station,” station co-founder Stuart Lowry said.

Co-founder Jim Walsh compares the station format to WFYI, but with more music and less talk. He said the music format is based on a broadcasting formula called AAA (Adult Alternative Albums). The audience will be “a little older than the iPod group, but won’t be watching Lawrence Welk at night,” he said.

The local angle for Zionsville, Walsh said, will be Zionsville news, such as public meetings and local issues, reported on a three-minute program broadcasted every hour called “Home.” Almost all of the content will be provided by volunteers, with a small paid staff overseeing and running the studio space. Those volunteers will be able to try different types of programming, including local music, children’s radio, news and more.

“Our main concern is what’s happening with our listeners and where they live,” Walsh said.

He added that he did not consider Shine 99 107.5 FM a similar format to WITT. He said Shine 99 is a commercial radio station that rebroadcasts from Frankfort. He said the station is only 200 to 300 watts, a big difference from WITT’s 6,000 watts. But, Walsh said, Shine 99 has three construction permits in Zionsville which can be used to build a local radio station.

Shine 99 General Sales Manager Russ Kaspar said he thinks WITT is a good addition for the town.

“A noncommercial station does not have to compete with a commercial station. We can each do our separate thing, and the winner is the local area, the community,” Kaspar said.

WITT received its broadcast license last May, and is looking for studio space in Zionsville before it begins broadcasting this fall, Lowry said.

Looking for studio space, Lowry met with Zionsville businesses a few weeks ago, but nothing has been finalized. He hopes that someone can donate space while the station gets established. Walsh said they have already been welcomed by local volunteers Art and Betsy Harris and Robert Carter of Carter Van Lines. The Harris’ are helping to organize a fundraiser for the station at Plum’s Upper Room sometime in May; the station recently raised $3,500 at a fundraiser in Fountain Square. Carter Van Lines donated a truck and driver to pick up a transmitter from Radio One in Columbus.

Lowry would like the studio to be an accessible, safe and welcoming environment where volunteers will feel comfortable, he said. In addition to the Zionsville studio, WITT also wants to have additional studios around central Indiana, so volunteers from all over the broadcast area will have an accessible studio from which to record and broadcast programming.

To Lowry, the most important feature of the programming is that it’s created locally.

“We want to have that flair in our programming of being from the community and about the community,” Lowry said.

Lowry and Walsh began the effort to create a community-based radio station in central Indiana 15 years ago, then called City Radio. Because Walsh writes children’s books, the two envisioned a station broadcasting children’s programming. Those dreams have expanded, but the initial goal remains — a family-friendly station where parents don’t have to worry about what their children are hearing.

The application process took a long time because the Federal Communications Commission continued to make policy changes in licensing radio stations. Regulations were changed and challenged in court over the years, Lowry said. Also, when one applies for a radio license, the FCC opens up that spot in the radio spectrum to everyone, and stations compete for it. The long process is not so uncommon, with the Bloomington station (WFHB) waiting 17 years to get its license.

“We won (the spot) because we are local and we want to do local programming,” Lowry said.

It took a while for their dream to come true, but it didn’t dent their enthusiasm.

“We are just as passionate about it now as we were 15 years ago,” Lowry said.

The station still needs donations to help it purchase studio equipment and space. For more information about the station and how to donate or volunteer visit www.919witt.org.

IndyStar.com  Business
March 12, 2008  
Isn't radio dying? Don't tell these two
By Erika D. Smith

Some might call Jim Walsh and Stuart Lowry crazy to start a radio station now.

On the air: Jim Walsh, who is preparing to start public radio station WITT-FM (91.9) with partner Stuart Lowry, already does a broadcast from his home. - JERI REICHANADTER / The Star

If you listen to Wall Street, radio is a dying business. Shares of Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications, Cumulus Media and many other broadcasters are limping along as the industry grapples with fickle listeners, fleeing advertisers and a slowing economy.

Walsh and Lowry don't care.

The Indianapolis men are pushing ahead to launch WITT-FM (91.9) next fall. It will be a feat that took 15 years.

"We truly believe this is going to be something completely different than what you hear now," Lowry said.

WITT will be a public radio station, like WFYI-FM (90.1) or WICR-FM (88.7). It will be based in Zionsville, but its signal will reach most of Central Indiana with an eclectic mix of talk and music -- from neighborhood profiles, local rock bands and opera to bluegrass, reggae and lullabies.

It could prove a tough sell.

But Walsh and Lowry say they are not out to make money and will be happy to hand day-to-day control to the volunteers who will staff the station and generate its content.

"We don't want to feel like, 'OK, we've decided this (format) is what's going to get ratings.' We're not going in that direction," Lowry said. "We're going in the direction of: 'This best serves the community.' "

That grass-roots philosophy grew out of a partnership that began in 1989.

Walsh was hosting a children's radio show on WFYI and asked Lowry, an author of children's books, to read a story on the air. That turned into radio gigs at other stations under the corporate banner of Kids First.

The last show Lowry and Walsh did together, "My First Radio," went off the air in the early 1990s -- about the same time they decided to start WITT.

Neither expected it to take a decade and a half to secure a license from the Federal Communications Commission. Regulatory changes delayed their dream.

Now that they have the go-ahead, Lowry and Walsh are seeking studio space, buying equipment, recruiting volunteers and raising money.

Their goal is to have $900,000 by the time WITT goes on the air. That amount will keep the station afloat about two years, including the salaries of an engineer and a general manager.

So far, they have raised about one-third of what they need. Also, a handful of companies have shown interest in investing in the station, perhaps by sponsoring blocks of programming.

Commercial radio stations make their money selling on-air advertising spots. Public radio stations get most of their money from large underwriters, usually corporations or foundations.

However, both must market themselves and their listeners to advertisers.

Commercial radio has done this by moving to narrow music formats to attract specific segments of listeners. Some public radio stations have done the same as the market has soured.

But the scattered format planned at WITT could make fundraising difficult, said Scott Uecker, WICR general manager. "It's going to be a lot harder to define the audience," he said.

Complicating matters is the perception of radio -- that it's a dying medium.

"All of us in public radio are trying to connect with those that have the funding sources to say, 'Hey, radio is not dead,' " he said.

INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Local scene 03/05/08
by Scott Shoger Mar 5, 2008

If 91.9 WITT, the proposed community station for parts of Indianapolis and Zionsville, draws upon performers as inspired and genuine as those that took the stage for their fundraiser Friday night at Radio Radio, then things bode well for the health of the local music scene, which could use a radio station committed to nurturing musicians with a strong sense of place. Here’s what you missed, although you’ll have ample chance to catch all these performers in the coming year.

The chamber folk of Kate Lamont and blueprintmusic opened the night, with their full Appalachian-style instrumentation of guitar, dobro, cello, string bass, mandolin, ukulele and percussion. They presented a brand-new video montage keyed to their tune “One Eye Open”: Video monitors at the back of the room played a slideshow that gave a specific interpretation to a tune that tells about a general voyage of discovery (from one eye to two eyes open), contrasting vibrant images of Barack Obama with the greatest failures of the Bush presidency. The video is posted on YouTube on the KateLamontBPM channel. Expect a live album, Act Live, from the ensemble this March, and they’ll play a March 12 Wine Wednesday loft concert before embarking on a West Coast tour later in the month.

Singer and guitarist Sarah Grain, accompanied by Chip Reardon on drums and Ryan Deasy on electrified stand-up bass, played a lovely set, the band in good communication and Grain in expressive voice. She contrasted the disempowerment of her first song, the gentle but melancholy waltz “Beautiful Mind” in which the narrator asks, repeatedly, just where her mind has gone, with WITT’s example of community activism. She later indulged her obsession with the phrase “God willing and the creek don’t rise,” using that homespun saying as the brief and catchy chorus to a song about conditional love.

Hip-hop trio The Philosophy — comprised of MCs Bambu, Spread and Toe Jam — entered the crowd stealthily to begin their set, snaking their way between suddenly complicit spectators while clapping and chanting the chorus to their first tune: “With the power of soul, anything is possible; with the power of you, anything you want to do.” After an informal circle formed around the MCs while they rapped their first verses (still unamplified), the band kicked in on stage, with bass, guitar, drums, keys, reeds and turntables. Taking into account a dance number later in the set, there’s no question that The Philosophy won best choreography for the night.

Funk rock band Blackberry Jam, led by the gruff and soulful Jumbo Shrimp, tore their way through a bunch of quasi-apocalyptic tunes, closing with a funny and angry song that imagines George W. Bush slamming the door in the face of a 4-year-old selling Girl Scout cookies. The rest of the doom and gloom was actually biblical, in “Lazarus,” “Destroyer” and “Babylon.” Around since 1996, Blackberry Jam have mastered a sound that’s on the heavy end of funk; bass, guitar, trumpet, trombone, drum set, bongos and a couple singers filled the stage on Friday night.

The Mudkids closed out the night with a relatively stripped-down stage presence of turntables and MC (not that there was much loss of energy, just a lack of live horns). They’ll be headlining 420 Fest at Spin Nightclub April 19 (for all those that won’t have the volition to leave their house on the actual 4/20).

INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Community radio coming to Central Indiana

by Scott Shoger

Sarah Grain

Kickoff fundraiser for 91.9 WITT Friday Night

Regardless of which milestone you start from, community radio in Central Indiana has spent a long time gestating: 15 years since the City Radio project to create a community radio station was launched by the producers of a local children’s radio program; 53 years since one of those producers, Jim Walsh, settled upon the call letters WITT for his imaginary station at age 7; or 81 years since the government handed control of the airwaves over to commercial radio networks, effectively squelching educational, community and nonprofit stations.

Given the challenges involved in obtaining a frequency and construction permit, it’s remarkable that the people behind 91.9 WITT, a community radio station that will serve Zionsville and parts of Indianapolis, have persevered. Only in the past year has WITT become more than a dream, with the FCC issuance of a transmitter construction permit in May 2007, and an authorization in December 2007 to increase broadcast power to six kilowatts, enough juice to reach much of the Indianapolis metro area from Boone County.

All paperwork complete, volunteers hope to get 91.9 WITT on the air by the close of this year. Station volunteers have now moved into the next stage of their plan: outreach and fundraising, recruiting volunteers and collecting funds to purchase broadcasting equipment and cover operating costs.

The kickoff for outreach efforts will be Friday, Feb. 29 at Radio Radio, through a benefit concert featuring performances by The Philosophy, Kate Lamont & Blueprintmusic, Mudkids, Blackberry Jam (featuring Jumbo Shrimp) and Sarah Grain. The event will also host a silent auction and raffle to benefit WITT. Admission is $7 and doors open at 8 p.m.

Defining community radio

What, then, is community radio? Or more specifically, what kind of community radio station will WITT be? Generally, a community radio station is a nonprofit and volunteer-run organization that attempts to serve needs in a community that are unmet by commercial or noncommercial stations supposedly broadcasting in the public interest. Of course, educational (college and high school), public (NPR affiliates) and commercial stations may also work towards the public good, so there’s a good deal of overlap in definitions and titles.

Community stations, at least of the type that WITT plans to be, might be distinguished most by accessibility: While college and high school stations welcome mostly student broadcasters, and public radio stations tend to employ a paid professional staff, community stations are programmed and directed by volunteers from the whole of the community.

In Indiana, WFHB, broadcasting on four frequencies covering South Central Indiana, has served as a model and inspiration for WITT. The Bloomington-based station, which began broadcasting in 1993, is staffed and directed entirely by volunteers (with the exception of a few paid staff members who work at the behest of a volunteer board), and carries locally-produced news, public affairs and music programs reflecting the diversity of the community.

Defining WITT

A WITT brochure sketches the outlines of the station, saying, in part, that WITT will “include programs that are created locally; reflect the expertise of volunteers helping with programming and station operations; include music genres that may not currently exist on Indianapolis stations; feature home-grown music, masters of storytelling and Indiana historians; [and] in-depth dialogue on topics ranging from environmental concerns to entertainment events and political debates.”

WITT volunteers, meeting on a Monday night in a bank conference room in Broad Ripple, can fill in some other details on their own, speaking with NUVO after a planning session that hammered out details for the benefit show and opened up discussion about programming, finding a role for a hoped-for influx of volunteers and Web site design.

“The reason I got involved is because I feel like Indianapolis is undiscovered by its own population,” said Brooke Klejnot, who became a WITT volunteer in fall 2007, and has been a key figure in station fundraising. “I really think that people need to know what’s going on, because more people would interact in the community if they had an idea, or a one-stop shop to find what’s going on.”

Rick Wilkerson has been involved with the station for 13 years, back to when the project was still titled City Radio. “Indianapolis has got an incredibly rich musical heritage,” Wilkerson said. “We’ve got an incredible jazz heritage, an incredible funk heritage, some rock music that’s never been really heard by the population that is globally respected. In fact it’s true today: A lot of the bands that are popular elsewhere, people won’t go across the street to see them here; they’ve got to go to Europe when they tour, or they go to the West Coast when they tour, and coming back here, they just don’t have the traction. And a lot of that is because there isn’t a local radio station. And radio’s not about music anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time, and this is an opportunity for radio to be about music, among other things.”

Perry Stevens got involved with WITT at around the same time as Klejnot. “Other than the fact that everyone here would like to see more music than what’s currently offered on radio stations, more eclectic mixes, for me, it’s much broader than that, beyond the music,” Stevens said. “[It’s about] getting a different voice, different ideals out to people. Let’s face it: Most of the media is owned by several large corporations that have their own agenda, and if we could find some type of outlet that’s free from those constraints, we could help people see more ideas than what’s presented on mainstream media. That’s what I’m hoping for.”

Organically-grown radio

A lot is still up the air for WITT. On the night of the planning meeting in Broad Ripple, WITT board member Stuart Lowry was downtown at the IU School of Law, crafting the station’s by-laws and other documents. But that means there’s more opportunity for volunteers to get involved with the station in a substantial way. According to Wilkerson, “In general, we’re coming from a small group of people that was working on the technical part and getting the construction permit, to reaching out to broaden the group, trying to get volunteers, to network — the key thing for us now is to get as many people involved as possible. We can’t offer you a radio show right now because we don’t have a radio station, but you can come in and help us do whatever it is we need to do to get the thing on the air, and we’re looking to get that 100 or 150 volunteers, with each one of those people attached to other people, and that helps to spread the word in and of itself. We hope to grow it organically.”

WHAT: Fundraiser for 91.9 WITT Community Radio featuring The Philosophy, Kate Lamont & Blueprintmusic, Mudkids, Blackberry Jam featuring Jumbo Shrimp, Sarah Grain
WHERE: Radio Radio, 1119 E. Prospect St.
WHEN: Friday, Feb. 29, 8 p.m., $7, 21+
Find out more about WITT at www.919witt.org or www.myspace.com/919witt.

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