With at least three country stations broadcasting from the area already, is another one really necessary? Apparently Great Eastern thinks so.
Great Eastern’s other transmitter in the market, their sports talk station, “WEEI” 93.5 (WEEY) is a simulcast of Boston sports talker WEEI. It has zero local content and doesn’t even have its own website.
This means Great Eastern Radio’s stations “in Keene” are now being run by a skeleton crew of Elise Valentine and maybe a contract engineer. It’s sad, but that’s what’s become of corporate radio – constant cuts and consolidation.
National radio operator Saga does deserve credit for doing a decent job with their station cluster in town, the Monadnock Radio Group. If Great Eastern thinks they’re going to make compelling local radio by cutting costs and staff to the bone, they will probably learn their mistake hard and fast and possibly end up failing and sell the stations.
Meanwhile, local current-rock listeners are screwed as far as on-air options are concerned. Of course, they could always start up their own radio station with all the open channels on the radio dial in this area. All they have to do is apply for and receive a license from the FCC…
Oh wait – no, they can’t. The FCC, according to local newsman Brad Ryder, has been sitting on a couple of station applications for nearly a decade! Ryder reports that he and the Monadnock Radio Group had applied for the same open frequency and the FCC has yet to decide to whom it should be granted.
You may be asking, “Why did they both apply for the same frequency?” (more…)
I have gotten so used to having my camera groped at by authoritative busybodies that I am beginning to feel as though I should question my relative comfort with it. The first article featured on this blog was about a police officer who couldn’t keep his hands off of my phone when it was acting as an audio streaming device. Since then, I’ve had a previous camera clutched so firmly that it automatically powered off, in an escapade that traveled the blogosphere during the first annual lemonade freedom day. My Canon Vixia’s design is much more rugged and durable than the previous Nikon Coolpix I used to utilize for Free Concord videos. And I appreciate the upgraded zoom capabilities and high definition 16:9 widescreen frame. Today, as I celebrated International Chalk the Police day with others, my camera withstained a push from a Keene city parks and recreation director Andrew Bohannon, as he fumbled to conceal his identity from chalkers. After activists had covered most of the central square park in liberty oriented slogans and quotes, a man driving around the rotary yelled from his vehicle at the chalkers to stop. Myself and others waved and invited the person to join us for Chalk the Police day. Moments later, I noticed a man with a phone who had walked up onto the square and begun speaking with people, phone in hand, and an identification swinging from his neck. (more…)
This is my first episode of my new show Sedition Is Sexy where I introduce myself! Look for an episode at the least each week! I look forward to your comments and observations!
Our newest show, featuring a roundtable discussion with hosts Ali Havens and James Cleaveland and special guests Kelly Voluntaryist and Derrick J Freeman! I hope you enjoy and let me know if you like this format better than the other topic shows or straight news and analysis! Thanks!
Kal Penn and John Cho, aka Harold and Kumar’s recent visit to Keene State College has been documented by the school’s publication keene-equinox.com. My “forwarded” question to the campaigning duo, which was the subject of my article on the event, is discussed in the Equinox article. I am quoted as well. Curiously enough, the content of my question is not included. See the article from yesterday at the Equinox’s page:
Hello Fellow Free Keeners! Ian brought to my attention that I have neglected to post the Shire TV episodes on FreeKeene.com. Here are the episodes 3 – 7 from Aug – early Sept! I hope you enjoy! Please feel free to send any comments or suggestions to news@shiretv.org!
New England-based Great Eastern Radio has flipped Keene rocker 101.9 K-Rock (WKKN) to a simulcast of KIXX Country 100.5 (WXXK) out of Lebanon and also cut staff dramatically, to where Elise Valentine is the only member remaining. Valentine will still be heard during 3-7p afternoon drive on the “new” country 101.9 in afternoon drive. 
National radio operator Saga does deserve credit for doing a decent job with their station cluster in town, the Monadnock Radio Group. If Great Eastern thinks they’re going to make compelling local radio by cutting costs and staff to the bone, they will probably learn their mistake hard and fast and possibly end up failing and sell the stations.
