It takes a lot of courage to operate a pirate/community radio station. There’s the ever-present threat of the FCC sending men with guns to steal their equipment, among other things. Just this week a new radio station popped up on 107.5 in Keene carrying mostly Liberty Radio Network programming, day and night. (107.5 does appear to break away in the afternoons for another program not carried by LRN.) Last night there was a particularly graphic internet-only Sunday edition of Free Talk Live, hosted by Dale, Luthor, and Puke. I was out and about during the program, taking care of some errands and listening to the show on 107.5 when I heard the discussion drop to dead air. I quickly checked the internet feed – it was still on-air, so I concluded the operators of 107.5 had decided to cut the broadcast.
Now to be clear, I am the program director of the Liberty Radio Network. That does not mean I am in charge of 107.5 or any other station airing the Liberty Radio Network. Each station decides how much LRN content to carry – I am merely a program provider. I don’t know who all’s involved with 107.5 locally, so please don’t ask. After they pulled FTL off-the-air, they did reach out to me to let me know what they were thinking. They were concerned that the graphic content could be offensive to parents. That’s right, even pirate/community radio operators are concerned about their image in regards to “the children”! The operators encouraged me to relegate sexually graphic programming to the overnight hours. After some reflection, I agreed.
You may be saying, “But Ian, you’re supposed to be in favor of free speech!”. I am. However I’m also in favor of serving my clients with what they want. The Liberty Radio Network was created for two purposes:
1. To introduce people in the liberty community to other great liberty-oriented programming. LRN has accomplished this by bringing together over a dozen great programs all into one place – cross pollinating listeners and making it more likely they can find shows that fit their listening interests best.
2. To provide a plug-and-play programming source for pirate/community radio operators around the world, so as to help introduce new minds to liberty. Recently we have seen growth in this area with more stations like 99.5 in Savannah, GA, 106.9 in Terre Haute, IN, and Keene’s own 107.5 coming on the air. With this growth has come some feedback from the operators of these stations. Their opinions mean a lot to me, and it wasn’t just the Keene pirate that was upset with the sexually graphic programming coming from the Liberty Radio Network.
So, while I still want to provide uncensored programming to the internet, I also want to please my pirate operators. To that end, I have implemented a new graphic-sex-talk policy. I will not tell program providers how to do their shows, but instead let them know that in the interest of keeping our pirate operators using LRN as often as possible instead of a competing network, that I’ll be relegating their programs to the overnight hours. The graphic show providers can be released back into daylight hours by cleaning up their content.
The pirate operators weren’t concerned about the occasional swear – that’s to be expected out of pirate radio – but they were concerned about the graphic content of certain segments. As far as Free Talk Live goes, I think the hosts got it out of their system. Though the show is my creation, I did not tell the Sunday hosts what to do. I left the decision in their hands and it led to a good discussion about content at the end of the program.
Rest assured, brave pirates and community radio operators – LRN.FM has taken the steps necessary to ensure your comfort with airing our content. Not that these changes will stop listeners from being upset at the REST of the content on the network, and not that these changes will protect you from the risk of FCC contact in any way, but you knew about that when you pressed the “on” button on your transmitter.
Anyway, I thought I should explain what happened and why 107.5 in Keene was dead air for part of last night’s live Sunday FTL. Thank you for reaching out with your thoughts about the Liberty Radio Network.
