Homelessness marathon on WRFU-LP
WRFU will be airing much of the 12th annual Homelessness Marathon this
Monday night into Tuesday morning (23-24th February). This will mark
the first time the Marathon will be aired on WRFU. The event will also
air on WEFT FM of Champaign, IL, which has aired the marathon since
its inception.
The Homelessness Marathon is an annual 14-hour radio broadcast
featuring the voices and stories of homeless people from around the
United States The Homelessness Marathon features live call-ins all
night long via a national toll-free number.
The broadcast will start at 6 p.m., central time, on Monday, February
23rd and end at 8 a.m., central time, on Tuesday, February 24, 2009.
WRFU has some live local programming during the evening, so we will
not be airing the entire marathon. Our volunteers on these shows are
being encouraged to drop into the marathon at least occasionally
during their shows - the marathon will be running continuously on our
in-studio Automation feed through the evening.
According to the organizers:
"The 12th Annual Homelessness Marathon will originate from Pass
Christian, Mississippi. Pass Christian is next door to Waveland, MS,
which the Army Corps of Engineers officially designates as the
"Ground Zero," where Hurricane Katrinacame ashore. We call it the
FUND-RAZOR: AUGUST 22, 2008
Come To This Live Event & Consider Donating!
Check out The Show on YouTube!
Catch The Show Live Every Friday 10pm-midnight on 104.5 FM
-OR- on UPTV Channel 6 Every Monday 11pm
Public Affairs programming - new content
Those of you listening may have noticed some new public affairs content on WRFU. We've added some shows, like War News Radio, to our automation system. Our automation plays when there are no scheduled shows, or when scheduled shows don't happen. Most of the time we fill this time with content from our local music library, but from 4-8pm we're now concentrating on providing public affairs content on the automation system.
This won't affect any scheduled shows during these periods, but when there's no live/local content you'll hear shows like War News Radio, the Progressive's daily and weekly news analysis, and the prison radio commentaries of Mumia Abu-Jamal. You'll also hear reruns of popular local shows like Media Geek (originally broadcast on WEFT-FM 90.1 on Friday afternoons) and Media Matters (originating from WILL-AM on Sunday afternoons).
I'm working on generating podcast feeds of the various content we provide, so you could, for instance, subscribe to our Monday afternoon shows, or our media analysis-related content. It's not top of our list of things to do, so could take a while, but do check back....
FCC proposes changes to LPFM rules
The FCC has recently proposed changes to the rules governing LPFM stations like WRFU. Below are the comments I submitted to their "Second Notice of Proposed RuleMaking" (2NPRM):
My name is Andrew Ó Baoill, and I am station manager of WRFU-LP, a radio station in Urbana, IL, that is one of the beneficiaries and progeny of the LPFM licensing regime. I am in addition a PhD student at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, where my research focuses on the role of community radio. I write today to express my support for the actions the Commission has undertaken to facilitate the growth and development of the LPFM sector, to underscore the benefits that the LPFM service has brought to our community, and to respond to some of the questions asked in the Second Notice regarding how best to foster the stability and further growth of this valuable service as we look to the future.
THE WRFU EXPERIENCE - INVESTMENT AND REWARDS
