July 5, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Germantown internet radio station defies tradition
by KRISTIN PAZULSKI

Jim Bear is the operator of G’town Radio, a local Internet radio station that allows locals to broadcast his or her own radio program. Bear recently moved the station from his home in Germantown to an office in Maplewood Mall.

While most Internet radio stations are currently in a state of panic — royalty fees for Web streams and Internet stations are about to skyrocket, increasing by 300 to 1200 percent for some stations — Jim Bear is busy expanding his Internet radio station by moving to a new studio and adding to the station’s programming.

At 24 Maplewood Mall, the address of G-town Radio’s new studios, Bear sits in the studio operation room, talking on the phone with his cable provider. The Internet isn’t working yet, and in three days Bear hopes to stream his first program from the Maplewood studio. (That would have been last Sunday, but the Internet wasn’t set up correctly so this Sunday is the new goal, Bear said.)

The studio, which looks like a small apartment, contains only four rooms — a kitchen, a bathroom and two rooms that house the operating studio and a “green room,” where guests congregate before going on the air.

The studio, painted a light green, has computer and sound equipment on top of plastic folding tables. The green room, which is actually painted a light yellow, contains a circle of chairs to be used as a meeting room. Bear said he hopes to even broadcast live performances from there someday.

Until now, G-town Radio has been streaming from Bear’s Germantown home, where its “studio” been since the station began in the late summer last year.

Bear, who works full-time as an information technologies consultant, started the station after five years working with a small Internet radio station in West Philadelphia.

“They were very sick of regular radio,” Bear said of the West Philly group. “They created the opportunity to hear things that never would see the light of day on regular radio.”

In fact, it was exactly six years ago, on July 4, that Bear started at the West Philly station. His show, “Nexus,” which means, as Bear described it, “a central point through which everything passes,” featured music from all genres with the goal of illustrating how all types and forms of music are somehow connected.

It was this variety and insight that Bear found rewarding in the radio station, and led him to conclude that a strong community like Germantown would benefit from and appreciate a similar set up.

The programs on his show are as diverse as the station’s community.

“We want to do something no one else is doing,” he said. “I want to play something you have never heard, then something you haven’t heard in a while, and next play something that makes you sit up and check the playlist and look for more information about the artist.”

Zendra Schareef walked in during the interview with the Local for her two-hour training program on the software and equipment. Her show will include music, interspersed with information about “Germantown people doing Germantown stuff,” she said.

She wants to highlight the people and groups involved with environmental issues, home schooling, women’s issues and more.

Germantown, said Bear, has a lot of interesting people, and he thinks the community gets a bad rap in the city because people don’t know it well enough.

“People think Germantown is a little shady, a little dangerous,” Bear said. “But people don’t realize who lives in Germantown and the diversity that’s found here.

“There are lots of talented people walking the streets of Germantown — I hope to connect with that, see what they want from the station.”

There will be about 12 programs running on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule, incorporating both talk and music. The music selection ranges from experimental digital to hip-hop, classical, R&B and more.

“It’s their time to use as they see fit,” Bear said, within reason of course.

There are no Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on the Internet station (i.e., regulations that draw fines for the use of the “seven deadly words” — expletives not allowed on air), but as a community station, “we’re putting ourselves out there and we want to be responsible about the content and respect the people who are tuning in,” Bear said.

For most of the G-town Radio programmers, this is their first step into radio broadcasting. The youngest programmer, in fact, is the one with the most experience. At 14, Malcolm Cain has already co-hosted a show on WURD 900AM, a Philadelphia station with a broad range of talk shows. For G-town Radio, his show will feature youth news and commentary.

Bear said his programmers are going to be the ones making this station what it is.

“This is something that will take a lot of energy and far more energy than I could give,” he said. “For the programmers, it involves more than just coming in for one hour.”

But these programmers are already dedicated. Many of them have waited around for months to have a show on the station. Originally, Bear was hoping to move into a studio in January, and he had called for programmers in November. But a few snags — for one, the landlord not being ready for a tenant — kept the station on hold for a while.

Not being able to move into the first place turned out to be a blessing in disguise. G-town Radio’s current location, across Maplewood Mall’s brick alley from the original studio destination, was set up and ready for him to move right in and start programming. With the other location, there would have been a lot more set-up work.

The station fits into the landlord’s plan for the building too, since he is putting in a recording studio on the building’s first floor.

To Bear, having a community radio online — which is available to anyone with an Internet connection — is not too broad a medium for a community station. He said that as more devices come out that connect wireless, he sees people listening more on the streets, and they’ll appreciate a community station.

“This is kind of the best shot at generating our own content in the media,” Bear said, since there are few if any public access radio and television options in Philadelphia neighborhoods.

Right now, though, his audience is mostly composed of people listening on their computers during the work hours, and it’s small enough that the heightened royalty fees that are hurting a lot of independent Internet stations won’t apply.

But G-town Radio — like any station — is hoping the listener numbers will increase, and with the new studio and a higher level of community involvement, Bear anticipates a good year for G-town.

So while G-town isn’t worried about the royalty fees yet, Bear has participated in protesting the increased fees, both on principle and for his own future.

“I don’t think any Internet radio station says they don’t want artists to be paid,” he said, adding that the increases are too strict and too much. “They punish you for being successful.”

On June 26, G-town Radio participated in a Day of Silence, when most Internet radio stations and terrestrial stations (ones that play on AM and FM) silenced their streaming in protest of the July 15 jump in royalties.

Bear is confident that the legislation currently in the House and Senate, called the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would lower the rates for webcasters, will be passed.

Also, SoundExchange, which is the corporation instituting these fees, is negotiating with small webcasters to see if the lower rates set in the Small Webcaster Settlement Act could last until 2010.

For now, despite the potential pending cost increases, Bear plans to continue his expansion of G-town Radio.

In April he planned to broadcast live from the first annual Germantown Poetry Festival on Germantown Avenue, but snags with the wireless connection forced a cancellation. Bear said, however, he hopes to try again at other community events.

The cost for the station has been minimal so far, and Bear has paid for software and equipment out of his own pocket. But with the added cost of rent, Bear said a fundraising committee for the station would soon begin to seek sponsorship support from local businesses.

The committee and getting involved in the community and with local businesses is part of his overall plan, Bear said.

“Every time I talk to people, they have ideas I haven’t thought about yet,” he said, which makes him excited for the future direction of the station.

Tune into G-town Radio at www.gtownradio.com. There are two streams —  one low and one high, depending on your Internet speed. To learn more about royalty fees, visit www.savenetradio.org.