As she hauls in a box of dusty Motown records, the DJ formerly known as Condom Lady situates herself inside the WPEB studio preparing for her Saturday afternoon radio show. This week she’s featuring musical selections from a box she found on the side of the road, supplemented by a discussion on needle safety. The Condom Lady began her career illegally as a West Philadelphia radio pirate. Now, 11 years later, she no longer has to broadcast out of vans, avoid the Federal Communications Commission or answer to her old name. Due to the success of the Low Power FM movement, she can legally operate out of West Philadelphia’s WPEB 88.1 and use her real name: Diane Fleming-Myers.
WPEB 88.1 is West Philadelphia’s one-watt community radio station. Without the black WPEB lettering, its white sign would blend with the silver barred door, making it look like just another abandoned West Philly building. Though the facade suggests that its radio signal wouldn’t even reach 10 feet, the waves extend about a mile in each direction. In other words, the 52nd and Hazel Street station reaches listeners all the way to the Schuylkill. Inside, the studio is stocked with a switchboard, computer, mics and a retro red “On the Air” sign that lights up while Diane plays the Temptations' “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”
After frequency interference allegations shut down WPEB in 2005, three West Philadelphia alternative media hubs — the Prometheus Radio Project among them — bought the station a few years ago, hoping to revive it and provide a much-needed local media outlet. Now 88.1 serves as the voice of the community. Volunteers like Diane prepare shows that specifically appeal to the area’s listeners. Her show often focuses on sexual health and drug-related diseases. “If someone hears this by chance and really takes it to heart, then that’s great. That’s why I do what I do,” she says.
Every programmer comes to WPEB with a different purpose. Another DJ, Renee McBride-Williams — a West Philly native with a journalism and communications degree from LaSalle — hosts the “Public Eye News Journal.” Like Diane, Renee tries to appeal to the community’s needs: her show focuses on the revitalization of West Philadelphia. “We bring in community activists, we bring in artists and performers … we bring in people in the community who are movers and shakers,” she says. Recently she hosted U.S. Representative Jim Roebuck and his opponent Bryant Brown to talk not about their election strategies, but rather what they have accomplished, “so people can make educated choices about politics.” And of course, WPEB plays music — especially jazz. “They love jazz, we have great jazz programming,” Renee declares with her deep scratchy voice, perfect for cruising the radio’s waves.
There are about 800 low-power community radio stations in the country; however, stringent FCC rules ensure none exist in urban areas. Low-power stations are non-profit, non-commercial stations that operate between 10 and 100-watts, or reach three to five miles. The current laws state that no low-power stations can exist on the third adjacency — three clicks away from a full power station on the dial. This means that, in areas that are already saturated with stations, no room exists on the dial for LPFM. Though WPEB is a community station, it does not technically fall within classification of “low power radio” — even as a one-watt station — and therefore has authorization to operate in the Philadelphia area. Given the success of community stations like WPEB, the Prometheus Radio Project, a national non-profit dedicated to community and the low power radio movement, hopes to change the status quo.
On the corner of 48th and Baltimore WPEB’s radio antenna sits atop the looming Calvary United Methodist Church. Four stories below, the Prometheus Radio Project’s offices line the corridor beneath the chapel. A national non-profit, Prometheus facilitates the creation and sustainability of community and LPFM radio stations across the nation. In the words of campaign director Cory Fischer-Hoffman, Prometheus “believes the air waves — not only radio, but the media in general — are concentrated in too few hands, and we want to see them more equally distributed across the country.” To do this, they not only support grassroots community groups that have the capacity to build LPFM stations, but also work to overturn current legislation that by default limits LPFM to rural areas.
Though legislation prohibits organizations from applying for new permits, Prometheus locates organizations that already have LPFM permits and helps them create community radio stations. Through “barn raisings” — a term borrowed from the Amish tradition — Prometheus gathers people from surrounding communities to physically build the studios. They run a weekend-long conference at the new station site to teach management, programming and tech, all while a team builds shelving, installs drywall and designs the studio. Prometheus board member and barn-raising veteran Sakura Saunders believes “barn raisings aren’t the most efficient way to build a radio station… it’s the most efficient way to build a movement.”
Before Prometheus catalyzed the LPFM movement, those looking to create an alternative to commercial radio — like Diane — had no legal options. Instead of conceding to commercial media’s authority, a pirate radio movement emerged, including Philadelphia’s own Radio Mutiny. Radio pirates, like Diane and Prometheus founder Pete Tridish (“We all took names like that so it wouldn’t be so easy to catch us and we would be a little more difficult to target,” he says), illegally broadcast the issues they felt corporate interests did not portray, issues important to different social movements around Philadelphia.
With a smirk and a stroke of his black rabbinical beard, Pete Tridish reminisces about his pirate days. Broadcasting beyond the law had its perks. A constant circulation of 80 DJs came in and out of the makeshift studio Pete Tridish set up in the back of his house. They featured local musicians and supported different social movements. Unfortunately, operating a radio station without a license meant DJs affiliated with Radio Mutiny were subject to fines of up to $10,000. “I mean, I thought it was hilarious. I thought, ‘$10,000 fine, what do I care? What are they going to do, confiscate my circular saw?’” But others had more to lose.
In the summer of 1998, Radio Mutiny lost it all. After two years of illegal broadcasting, the FCC’s chief enforcer broke down the door and confiscated the station. Though by that time, the low-power-radio movement had begun to convince the FCC chairman to consider the legalization of community and LPFM radio. With that glimmer of hope, Pete Tridish joined three other local radio pirates, appointed himself the Director of Electromagnetism — “I was kind of amused at all these nonprofits where everyone is the director of something or other with some self-aggrandizing title, so I figured electromagnetism is as good as any other one” — and founded the Prometheus Radio Project.
Though Pete Tridish speaks fondly of his pirate days, even then he understood the need for a legal option. “Community radio really should not necessarily be something you have to be squashed up on to get involved in,” he says, “It should really be something that’s a normal expectation of people: to have some meaningful participation and the ability to be a part of media.” Originally Prometheus hoped to push for legislative reform and get radio licenses in bigger markets like Philadelphia and Boston. Unfortunately, broadcasting interests have continued to suppress the LPFM movement 12 years later.
In its beginnings, Prometheus received instant gratification when the FCC approved a new round of LPFM licenses in January 2000. Fearing competition, big broadcasters claimed LPFMs would cause interference with their commercial stations and passed the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act – legislation that kicked low power radio off of the third adjacency. After three years of FCC commissioned investigations, results came out conclusively that these 100-watt stations do not, in fact, cause interference with the 100,000-watt stations. Though the justification for the restrictions does not hold, only new legislation can overrule the current law. Prometheus continues to focus on changing these regulations.
Unable to expand the LPFM community in urban settings, Prometheus has spent the last ten years building stations in rural areas and introducing better legislation via the Local Community Radio Act, a bill that would remove the current restrictions. Last December their legal efforts finally paid off. First introduced in 2005 and again in 2007, the LCRA — in a unanimous vote — made it out of the House of Representatives for the first time. The bill is, according to the Prometheus campaign director, “in a boring bureaucratic place,” but Prometheus hopes it will make it through the Senate this year and that — ten years after the fact — the FCC will provide another opportunity for groups to apply for LPFM permits. Pete Tridish admits he did not envision spending a decade going to Washington to learn obscure laws, but he has “found it fascinating to become deeply, deeply immersed in a very obscure set of regulations that make it possible for groups to expand their profile and expand their influence.” And he continues fighting the fight because he believes that by “making a particular strategic intervention in the way that a very small part of our screwed up legal system is structured, you can create a much larger opportunity … expand it out to a much larger slice of people.”
As Diane slings the headphones around her neck, she fondly recalls her illicit Condom Lady broadcasts. But, in the end, she believes that having WPEB as a legal option has extended her voice’s reach. “It’s a miracle to me that people that I grew up with can hear me talk on the radio. I never dreamed that was going to be possible,” she says. Though 88.1 is a unique local media outlet, Diane anticipates that both WPEB and the LPFM movement will expand. DJs Diane and Renee are hopeful that by 2011 the station will be 100 percent independent. Like Pete Tridish, after over ten years working in community radio, Diane understands the nature of the process. “It’s a slow grassroots effort and like any slow grassroots effort it’s not going to be an explosion. It’s going to be like the tide. It’s going to come in and go out.” With WPEB moving toward autonomy and the Senate bill on the horizon it seems that, at least for now, the waves of this tide are finally coming in for the community radio movement.
