What makes radio “independent”

Daniel Hill of Riverfront Times on independent media and the new KDHX Larry J. Weir Center for Independent Media in St. Louis’ Grand Center:

On the heels of that Kresge grant, the station received many additional donations in the $10,000 to $100,000-plus range. The rest of the money came in much smaller amounts.

These large donations could cause some to question the station’s prized status as an “independent” radio station. When KDHX received a quarter-million-dollar grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2007, one of the first things the nonprofit did was bring in a media sociologist to see what people valued most about KDHX. One of the most commonly given answers was its “independence,” but as it turned out, different people had different definitions of the word. To programmers (who host their shows without pay), it means they have the freedom to play whatever music they wish without anyone exerting control over content. To the station’s board of directors, it is in decision-making — the lack of corporate ties allows the station to be more nimble in its business dealings. To the listener, it simply means no one is telling the station how to run itself.

For Hacker, independence is all of these things. “We get to do radio in a way that used to be really important, and it’s not done anymore. We get to take advantage of the passion and the knowledge and aesthetics of our programmers. We were able to move into the digital world so seamlessly because we’ve always been crowd-sourced.”

Welcome to Paleomedia

Follow & Lead