Out of Hospital: Hermitage FM

Oftentimes a radio station's "back story" strikes me as much as its programming. Such is the case with Hermitage FM, a community station in Leicestershire in the U.K. (Web site - Listen)

Not to say their programming isn't good. In fact, I like it well enough to include in my current "#1 Faves" list that I have set up on my Aluratek wi-fi Internet radio. That puts it in rarefied company.*

The back story for Hermitage FM is that it started out as a hospital radio station in 1976. At that time and for years afterward it could be heard only over the hospital's internal speaker system.

In 1999 it became the smallest hospital radio station in the country to be granted a broadcast license (hospital radio stations must be a U.K. phenomenon; I'm not aware of them in the U.S.). In late 2000, under the name Carillon Radio, it began broadcasting to its local community on an AM channel. Its studios then were still situated above a hospital X-Ray department.

Just last year, the Carillon folks went on the air with Hermitage Radio at 99.2 FM, becoming "the first hospital broadcaster in the country to become a Community radio station." The FM station broadcasts to North West Leicestershire while continuing to serve its original local area via its old AM outlet. It also has its Internet stream, of course.

The station (or stations) has come a long way since its hospital days, evidently. It now boasts three studios ... and even a coffee lounge ("located below our Coalville studios on Hotel Street"), complete with a book room. Radio, coffee and books -- sounds like something I might have designed as my ideal retreat.

Why do I like this station?

First, there's the local aspect. Some people are drawn to Internet radio because it offers a wealth of uninterrupted music streams. I, on the other hand, enjoy getting a taste of local color (or in this case "colour") from distant places. Hermitage FM provides that in the form of news and announcements for the several Midlands towns it covers. Besides, I have to know where Hermi the Hedgehog, the station's mascot, is going to show up next! (That's him at a St. Georges Day event. We don't have St. Georges Day here ... or hedgehogs.)

The station's music is a mix. It tends toward top-40 and oldies, "oldies" being the '70s, '80s and '90s. Nevertheless, it surprises me with songs I have never heard before, possibly because the top 40 in the U.K. at any given time was never exactly the same as here in the U.S. For instance, last night I was listening to a great old song I had never heard and wondering who the singer was, and it turned out to be Bonnie Tyler, who had hits in the U.S. but not with this particular one.

I especially like the station's playing of what I think would fall under the heading of Northern Soul. This was a phenomenon from the 1970s when clubs in the north of England played obscure mid-1960s Motown-esque soul records, songs that got little or no airplay when they were released in the U.S. Yet it's a wonderfully fresh sound to my ears -- from 45 years ago.

* The others currently are WFMU (free-form station from New Jersey), WHAY (Americana from Kentucky), WPAQ (Old Time and bluegrass from here in North Carolina), KMRC (swamp pop from Louisiana), Radio Caroline (its oldies stream), and Big Blue Swing (Internet-only blues/swing station).

Munchkin Radio: Little Bunny Foo Foo and the Hokey Pokey

Out of Salt Lake City, Utah comes this cute idea, one that could probably be duplicated elsehwere: Munchkin Radio, a kids' music channel.

Calling it a radio station might be going a bit far. It's really a set of playlists of children's songs, each about 20 minutes long. The concept, I think, is that kids can listen to their favorite sets, over and over if they like, but 20 minutes probably matches the average child's attention span.

The Munchkin Radio web site apparently sells ads to local kid- (or parent-) oriented businesses in the Salt Lake City area. So even though it's available over the World Wide Web, it is tightly targeted to one community. I picture a mom sitting at the computer with her tyke in her lap, letting the kid enjoy the music while she peruses coupons and ads for Chik-fil-A and Jumpin' Jacks.

Munchkin Radio also provides the entertainment for your child's birthday party. I guess they deejay and play music, but maybe they go the whole way with clowns, balloons and everything. Again, this is restricted to the Salt Lake City area.

Munchkin Radio was launched by Mike Peer, who until recently was program director at SLC's terrestrial (over-the-air) station KENZ, which plays album adult alternative music. According to a news story, KENZ (101.9 FM) this week dispensed with on-air personalities in favor of an entirely automated playlist.

The same story noted that some industry analysts speculate that Internet and satellite radio are peeling listeners away from traditional terrestrial stations. Mike Peer disagrees, but in an instance of making lemonade out of lemons, he turned to the Internet for his own kids'-music enterprise.

I'm intrigued by the idea of starting an Internet radio "station" that is deliberately targeted to a particular locale for its business model. If it works, it could certainly copied in other towns and cities.

Also ... I was in the mood to hear "Little Bunny Foo Foo."  Thank you, Munchkin Radio!

WOVV, Ocracoke: Radio Comes to the Island

One of my fantasies has been to run a radio station in some isolated town, perhaps on an island, where I would, in effect, be the Voice of God.

I don't know if the people behind WOVV harbor such a grandiose vision of themselves, but their location would fit my fantasy perfectly: Ocracoke, North Carolina.

Ocracoke is a real village on an island out in the Atlantic, reachable by ferry, small boat or airplane. By "real village," I mean it's not a beach town, per se, unlike many other places in the Outer Banks. In fact, you have to drive a ways outside of town to get to the beach. It has a long history, most of it tied to the sea, and in particular, fishing;  residents with roots going back many generations; and sandy, tree-shaded streets where tourists and locals alike leisurely ride balloon-tired bicycles to the store.

(Continued below)

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One thing Ocracoke has never had is its own radio station, even with the critical need for good communications in such a hurricane-prone location. That is changing.

A group of enthusiastic Ocracokers are nearing the go-live date for the town's and the island's first broadast station, WOVV. Also known as Ocracoke Community Radio, the station will be heard at 90.1 FM. Besides playing music, WOVV will broadcast local news, community announcements and tourist information, and will be supported by listener contributions and underwriting (the NPR model, in other words). In a nice touch, Ocracoke youth will be recruited to do most of the voice-overs for the underwriting spots.

For those of us who've vacationed in Ocracoke
but don't have the opportunity of living there, the good news is that WOVV already streams itself on the Internet (wovv.org/listen.htm -- or try the Flash player embedded here, if you see it). It's a great means of enjoying the local Ocracoke flavor from anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately (for me anyway), WOVV's stream is not available in the vTuner database, which means my vTuner-based wi-fi radio cannot currently play it.

The stream is available through other sources, though, including Shoutcast; so, for instance, you can hear it with the embedded Shoutcast player that you should see on this page. Just search in the player for "WOVV" or "Ocracoke" and you'll have it.

(Well, maybe. It was in Shoutcast earlier today when I tried it, but now I can't find it there. Oh wait, now it's back. In any case, you can always listen directly from the station's own site.)

UPDATE: Disregard my references to Shoutcast. I'm planning to remove the Shoutcast player from this site due to its slow loading time. It seems to slow down the page more than any other element on the page.

WOVV's local flavor extends to its music programming. For a town of fewer than a thousand permanent residents, Ocracoke is home to some impressive talent, including local bands Molasses Creek, Baby Dee and the Free Mustache Rides Again, Coyote and Mya Rose. The radio station gives precedence to such local artists, including devoting several hours each day to "Locals Only Beach" music blocks (see schedule).

To be clear: WOVV is (will be) a legally licensed broadcast station, with call letters assigned by the FCC, FCC construction permit, and everything. Yet somehow this crew looks like they could have stepped out of the cast of that "Pirate Radio" movie, which means they're probably having a ball with this whole broadcasting endeavor, on top of and aside from the community service thing.

CNN story about WOVV