everybody's something is somebody else's something else

Saw this post at ba.broadcast about the 1400 AM station.



Part of the post:



"My mother listens to 1400 exclusively; she understands English but the

Chinese programming on the station is a kind of link to the rest of

the community for her. There's a fair amount of political commentary,

and from what I gathered, lots of middle-aged (and perhaps even

elderly) Chinese immigrants call in regularly to participate in

discussion."



The 1400 listeners will soon be looking for their favorite shows. Somebody ought to pick them up and put them on the air.



So you understand how it works the owners of this radio station, Inner City, do not program the station. The Chinese and Korean shows buy blocks of time to put their shows on the air. Inner City just provides the signal. Probably part of the holdup on announcing the Air America is/was dealing with the current shows that Inner City has on the air and their contracts for airtime.



As you realize when you make a trip to Chinatown (then probably forget when you leave) there are a lot of people who don't speak English as their first language. In fact they don't need to speak it at all in their daily life. The stores, restaurants, social contacts and media are all provided for them in their preferred language. Some of the best talk radio in the area could be on 1400 but I'd never know. It's my loss for being mono. (I've always thought I should learn another language.)



Here is what is cool about this deal. Let's say the current shows on 1400 AM really have their act together. They are not on a big signal, yet people who desire their shows see them out and put up with a noisy am station to hear these shows. Listeners find them. Now they get bumped off the air. Hey sh*t happens right, somebody was on 1400 before them too. But let's say they could get their shows on a bigger signal. Yes people would still have to find them but they would be easier to find. The signal would be better and reach farther and they would have more listeners. Could they have a lot of listeners? Yes in this market I think they could. There are some pretty crap low rated AM and FM signals in the town. Some of them are on the air just with a computer playing music files, or running a syndicated network fed by a satellite. It would be really interesting to have some foreign language shows on a big signal. Well like the Spanish stations. They used to be on the low watt stations, now they are a big player in the market with strong ratings on good signals.



Will a bay area radio station give up their signal for Chinese/Korean language shows to replace the hole left by 1400 switching? I dunno but maybe they should. There will be listeners looking for their favorite station soon.