A Petition to strengthen the relationship between WFCR
and its listeners
WHEREAS,
WFCR 88.5 FM is a public radio station, receiving funds from the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting (CBC) and donations from its listening audience, and
stating its mission as "… to provide the area with diverse news,
information, music and cultural programs … [and] programming that entertains,
educates and informs in a lively, provocative, varied and sensitive way…",
and WHEREAS WFCR has recently cancelled several popular multicultural programs
without any audience consultation, thereby reducing its diversity of genres,
its cultural representation, and its local content, and WHEREAS WFCR does not
provide any systematic means by which its audience can express concerns or suggestions
to the station staff,
THEREFORE the citizens of Pelham hereby
resolve to call upon WFCR to strengthen its relationship with its listeners by
establishing the equivalent of the Community Advisory Board required by the CBC
for many public broadcasting stations, and by scheduling quarterly open
meetings at which WFCR staff could converse with the listening public on
audience concerns and suggestions. And
the citizens of Pelham further resolve that a copy of this resolution be sent
to U.S. Representative John Olver, Massachusetts State Senator Stanley
Rosenberg, Massachusetts State Representative Steven Kulik,
University of Massachusetts President Jack M. Wilson, Vice Provost for
University Outreach Sharon Fross, and WFCR General
Manager Martin Miller.
Background for this
petition
In January 2007 WFCR abruptly cancelled four popular and
multicultural programs:
Two of the
four hours of ˇTertulia!
(a locally produced program on Latin American culture),
Afropop
Worldwide (a program presenting music and culture of the African Diaspora),
Valley Folk (a locally produced folk
music program running for more than 25 years that
actively promoted local performers and
venues), and
Thistle and Shamrock (a
Celtic music program).
This aroused a storm of protest, with over a hundred
listeners contacting the station. But it
brought to light the fact that WFCR has no direct contact with its listeners,
relying instead on Arbitron, a company which surveys
general listening audiences (as opposed to the WFCR listening audience) to
obtain statistics for media advertisers.
We believe the station is out of touch with many of its listeners. The goal of the petition is to create two
mechanisms by which listeners can make their wishes, preferences, and compliments
available to the station and interact with the staff.
Much more information is available at http://justiceandpeace.net/