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WBAI
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WBAI
WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. The station is owned by the Pacifica Foundation with studios located in Brooklyn and transmitter located at 4 Times Square.
The station began as WABF, which first went on the air in 1941 as W75NY, of Metropolitan Television, Inc. (W75NY indicating an eastern station at 47.5 MHz in New York), and moved to the 99.5 frequency in 1947. In 1955, after two years off the air, it was reborn as WBAI (after then-owners Broadcast Associates, Inc.).
WBAI was purchased by philanthropist Louis Schweitzer, who donated it to the Pacifica Foundation in 1960. The station, which had been a commercial enterprise, became non-commercial and listener-supported under Pacifica ownership.
The history of WBAI during this period is iconoclastic and contentious. Referred to in a New York Times Magazine piece as "an anarchist's circus," one station manager was jailed in protest. The staff, in protest at sweeping proposed changes of another station manager, seized the studio facilities, then located in a deconsecrated church, as well as the transmitter, located at the Empire State Building. During the 1960s, the station hosted numerous anti-establishment causes, including anti-Vietnam war activists, feminists (and live coverage of purported bra-burning demonstrations), kids lib, early Firesign Theater comedy, and complete-album music overnight. It refused to stop playing Janis Ian's song about interracial relationships "Society's Child".[citation needed] Extensive daily coverage of the Vietnam war included the ongoing body count and innumerable anti-war protests.[citation needed]
WBAI played a major role in the evolution and development of the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" was first broadcast on Radio Unnameable, Bob Fass' freeform radio program on WBAI, a program which itself in many ways created, explored, and defined the possibilities of the form. The station covered the 1968 seizure of the Columbia University campus live and uninterrupted.[citation needed] With its signal reaching nearly 70 miles beyond New York City, its reach and influence, both direct and indirect, were significant.[citation needed] Among the station's weekly commentators in the 1960s were author Ayn Rand, British politician/playwright Sir Stephen King-Hall, and author Dennis Wholey.[citation needed] The 1964 Political conventions were "covered" satirically on WBAI by Severn Darden, Elaine May, Burns and Schreiber, David Amram, Julie Harris, Taylor Mead, and members of The Second City improvisational group.[citation needed] The station, under Music Directors John Corigliano, Ann McMillan and, later Eric Salzman, aired an annual 23-hour nonstop presentation of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, as recorded at the Bayreuth Festival the year before, and produced live studio performances of emerging artists in its studios.[citation needed] Interviews with prominent figures in literature and the arts, as well as original dramatic productions and radio adaptations were also regular program offerings.[citation needed]
In 1970, Kathy Dobkin, Milton Hoffman, and Francie Camper produced an unprecedented, critically acclaimed 41⁄2 day round-the-clock reading of Tolstoy's War And Peace.[citation needed] The epic novel was read cover to cover by more than 200 people—including a large number of international celebrities from various fields.[citation needed] Newsweek called this broadcast "one of the more mind-blowing 'firsts' in the history of the media". The complete reading (over 200 audio tapes) was the first Pacifica program to be selected for inclusion in the permanent collection of the Museum of Broadcasting in NYC.[citation needed]
In 1973, the station broadcast comedian George Carlin's iconic Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television monologue uncensored. WBAI's broadcast of Seven Words became a landmark moment in the history of free speech. In a 1978 milestone in the station's contentious and unruly history, WBAI lost a 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision (FCC v. Pacifica Foundation) that to this day has defined the power of the government over broadcast material it calls indecent. Mickey Waldman and Joe Cuomo covered much of the legal proceedings during this time.
In 1974, WBAI program director Marnie Mueller asked Charles Ruas to become director of arts programming. Thus the station, already at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement, the counterculture and anti-war protest, under Ruas also became a platform for New York's avant-garde in theater, music, performance, art, and poetry. When the downtown avant-garde operas A Letter for Queen Victoria and Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson opened at the Metropolitan Opera, the station was right there to tape excerpts in rehearsals for broadcast.
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WBAI
WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. The station is owned by the Pacifica Foundation with studios located in Brooklyn and transmitter located at 4 Times Square.
The station began as WABF, which first went on the air in 1941 as W75NY, of Metropolitan Television, Inc. (W75NY indicating an eastern station at 47.5 MHz in New York), and moved to the 99.5 frequency in 1947. In 1955, after two years off the air, it was reborn as WBAI (after then-owners Broadcast Associates, Inc.).
WBAI was purchased by philanthropist Louis Schweitzer, who donated it to the Pacifica Foundation in 1960. The station, which had been a commercial enterprise, became non-commercial and listener-supported under Pacifica ownership.
The history of WBAI during this period is iconoclastic and contentious. Referred to in a New York Times Magazine piece as "an anarchist's circus," one station manager was jailed in protest. The staff, in protest at sweeping proposed changes of another station manager, seized the studio facilities, then located in a deconsecrated church, as well as the transmitter, located at the Empire State Building. During the 1960s, the station hosted numerous anti-establishment causes, including anti-Vietnam war activists, feminists (and live coverage of purported bra-burning demonstrations), kids lib, early Firesign Theater comedy, and complete-album music overnight. It refused to stop playing Janis Ian's song about interracial relationships "Society's Child".[citation needed] Extensive daily coverage of the Vietnam war included the ongoing body count and innumerable anti-war protests.[citation needed]
WBAI played a major role in the evolution and development of the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" was first broadcast on Radio Unnameable, Bob Fass' freeform radio program on WBAI, a program which itself in many ways created, explored, and defined the possibilities of the form. The station covered the 1968 seizure of the Columbia University campus live and uninterrupted.[citation needed] With its signal reaching nearly 70 miles beyond New York City, its reach and influence, both direct and indirect, were significant.[citation needed] Among the station's weekly commentators in the 1960s were author Ayn Rand, British politician/playwright Sir Stephen King-Hall, and author Dennis Wholey.[citation needed] The 1964 Political conventions were "covered" satirically on WBAI by Severn Darden, Elaine May, Burns and Schreiber, David Amram, Julie Harris, Taylor Mead, and members of The Second City improvisational group.[citation needed] The station, under Music Directors John Corigliano, Ann McMillan and, later Eric Salzman, aired an annual 23-hour nonstop presentation of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, as recorded at the Bayreuth Festival the year before, and produced live studio performances of emerging artists in its studios.[citation needed] Interviews with prominent figures in literature and the arts, as well as original dramatic productions and radio adaptations were also regular program offerings.[citation needed]
In 1970, Kathy Dobkin, Milton Hoffman, and Francie Camper produced an unprecedented, critically acclaimed 41⁄2 day round-the-clock reading of Tolstoy's War And Peace.[citation needed] The epic novel was read cover to cover by more than 200 people—including a large number of international celebrities from various fields.[citation needed] Newsweek called this broadcast "one of the more mind-blowing 'firsts' in the history of the media". The complete reading (over 200 audio tapes) was the first Pacifica program to be selected for inclusion in the permanent collection of the Museum of Broadcasting in NYC.[citation needed]
In 1973, the station broadcast comedian George Carlin's iconic Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television monologue uncensored. WBAI's broadcast of Seven Words became a landmark moment in the history of free speech. In a 1978 milestone in the station's contentious and unruly history, WBAI lost a 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision (FCC v. Pacifica Foundation) that to this day has defined the power of the government over broadcast material it calls indecent. Mickey Waldman and Joe Cuomo covered much of the legal proceedings during this time.
In 1974, WBAI program director Marnie Mueller asked Charles Ruas to become director of arts programming. Thus the station, already at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement, the counterculture and anti-war protest, under Ruas also became a platform for New York's avant-garde in theater, music, performance, art, and poetry. When the downtown avant-garde operas A Letter for Queen Victoria and Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson opened at the Metropolitan Opera, the station was right there to tape excerpts in rehearsals for broadcast.