Press Clippings
WGBH, Cape group team for public broadcasting
From the Cape Cod Times, October 1997
WGBH, Cape group team for public broadcasting
By Julia St. George, staff writer
WOODS HOLE - A new public radio service on the
Cape and islands is scheduled to start broadcasting
next year.
Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and most of Cape
Cod will receive full-power, local public radio
services under a collaboration between Cape and Islands
Community Public Radio Inc. and WGBH Boston.
Though WGBH has had alliances with other
stations before, this partnership differs in that the
new stations will be run and programmed independently
for Cape and islands audiences, according to WGBH
spokeswoman Leah Hollenberger.
The agreement is a breath of fresh air for Jay
Allison, leader of the nonprofit Cape and Islands
Community Public Radio, based in Woods Hole.
Allison, a veteran independent television and
public radio producer, has dedicated several years
toward launching powerful public radio stations on the
few viable noncommercial FM frequencies that remain in
the area.
Other than Kauai in Hawaii, the Cape and
islands comprise is the only populated U.S. area
deprived of a good signal for public radio. There has
not been a public radio station here because the FM
frequency reserved for public radio interferes with
Channel 6 television's signal out of New Bedford.
The Cape and islands stations will broadcast
news and information from national and international
sources, in addition to high-quality local material
that will include public affairs, call-in, documentary,
and science and cultural programming, Allison said.
They will not rebroadcast the classical and
jazz service of the WGBH Boston station at 89.7 FM,
which currently reaches most of the new stations'
coverage area.
CICPR is now working on setting up transmission
facilities on the Vineyard at 90.1 FM and on Nantucket
at 91.1 FM. And space is being sought in Woods Hole for
the primary broadcast facilities.
The Woods Hole station would broadcast with
6,500 watts from the Vineyard, and at a much lesser
power from Nantucket.
WGBH, which will hold the licenses, hopes to
begin construction of the stations in late fall and to
be on the air late next summer.
Details on how much it will cost WGBH to start
up and operate the facilities were not available. But
Hollenberger said it will eventually be up to the Cape
and islands communities to conduct yearly fund raising
for the stations.
So what is in store for Cape and islands
listeners?
The airwaves will be humming with most or all
of the news programs from National Public Radio, Public
Radio International and independent producers,
including NPR's Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, Talk
of the Nation, Fresh Air, All Things Considered and Car
Talk; and PRI's The World, Marketplace, A Prairie Home
Companion, and This American Life.
Allison said CICPR will produce local and
national programming in cooperation with WGBH.
Long-range goals include developing a training
center for radio producers, workshops, seminars and a
radio festival.
Over time, studios may be built on Nantucket
and the Vineyard.
"These are three very distinct communities,
each with their own fierce identities," Allison said,
"and so we want to celebrate their individuality but at
the same time serve as a bridge to bring them
together."
Gregory Whitehead of Nantucket, an
award-winning international producer who serves on the
volunteer CICPR board of directors, agreed the station
will help build bridges.
"We share an ecological region and a lot of the
same economy and demographics, and yet we know very
little about each other," Whitehead said.
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