Five out of the last six fall seasons I have been lucky to attend one of the most interesting new media industry conferences in the United States. Taking place in Washington, DC, the annual Future of Music Coalition Summit always provides substantial exposure to the numerous debates and struggles of many members of a legacy industry have had as a future of decentralized broadband, servers and users have wholly consumed it. Hosted by the Future of Music Coalition, a Washington-based institute founded in 2000, two years after Napster began a process that would disintermediate the recording industry, the coalition has always held an explicit interest in understanding and influencing the connections between business, arts, technology, and policy. This interest in establishing a dialogue between stakeholders has been reflected in every single summit, and this one was no different. Indeed, this is what makes the annual meeting unique. Not only does the summit’s location in DC allow the occasional FCC commissioner, Senator, or Congressional aide access the stage, it also allows representatives from numerous organizations to appear and make impassioned cases both for and against policies, technological innovations, and business models.

Such was the case this year, when attendees gathered at Georgetown University from October 28-29 for the 12th annual summit. While many of the debates surrounded seemingly arcane but important discussions about direct licensing deals, the importance of establishing a terrestrial broadcast right, or the need for better metadata, these were presented alongside more accessible sessions on the prospects for music journalism and seminars on entrepreneurialism for bands. However, the most controversial discussions surrounded streaming services. Unlike years past when streaming services were viewed with optimism as a potential legal solution that could pay musicians and provide an easy alternative to piracy, royalty rates from the likes of Spotify were heaped with significant amounts of condemnation for devaluing music. Canadian songwriter and President of the Songwriters Association of Canada Eddie Schwartz noted that the fact that a million streams on Spotify begets songwriters close to $35 meant that the service was hardly operating in a just manner. As a result, his organization and others are in the beginning stages of developing a new Fair Trade system of popular music where every aspect of the value chain would be certified based on issues such as whether or not that link was fairly compensating its workers and how transparent it is. Later that day, Tim Quirk, Head of Global Content Programming of Google Play, gave an impassioned defense of streaming and new music services, arguing that they don’t devalue music because ”it is impossible to devalue music” since it is art and, therefore, doesn’t have any inherent price floor. And so the back and forth went. Standing somewhere between the two was the infamous manager, Peter Jenner. While declaring “that you can’t control the Internet,” Jenner also reminded the crowd that even with the Internet effectively collapsing, in the history of popular music “most artists have been unsuccessful.”

The summit offered no singular solution or model to success, which is not surprising as there is no single way forward for every musician or service alike. As the ecosystem has metastasized and one music startup after another has seemingly come and gone, perhaps the most interesting insight that the summit continues to offer is that optimism for the future persists. Take, for example, the summit’s most inspiring panel: “Indie Missions: Nonprofit Models for Supporting Independent Music.” Four speakers took the stage for 50 minutes to explain how local musicians, non-profits, educators, and policymakers have begun to both conceive of and invest in Colorado to produce better, more vibrant local and regional music scenes. Involving Dani Grant of SpokesBUZZ, Storm Gloor of the University of Colorado-Denver, Bryce Merrill of the Western States Arts Federation, and a vegan hip-hop MC who raps about the benefits of local gardens named DJ Cavem, the panel provided insights about how a scene can take concrete steps to help creatives that go far beyond the invocation of the latest Richard Florida proclamation. One distinct offering was a program involving mid-sized cities which would like to connect their talents with each other. Titled ”Bandswap”, the program worked with 14 bands and eight cities so that local musicians and industry players could operate in such a way that they share each others resources, industry contacts, and community connections to plan tours and make their local resources regional. It is an example like Bandswap that is the reason I continually return to the summit. In today’s music industry, it’s one thing to hope for a better future. It’s a much different thing to see evidence of it.

Bellarmine Radio has been an Internet-only affair from its inception.  As Brian Fauteux convincingly argued in a  recent Antenna column, traditional (or “terrestrial”) college radio stations run the risk of losing their community focus as universities sell off valuable FM licenses. These stations then often turn to Internet radio. If college radio’s historical strength was an ability to focus on local culture, then what about stations like ours, which never had an FM license in the first place? Can an Internet station cultivate a local audience in such a diffuse media environment?

I had my doubts. My own connection to college radio was shaped by the pre-Internet scarcity of the music I heard. As a 1980s teen, I went to sleep in my west suburban Indianapolis home, listening to college radio from Cincinnati’s Xavier University. I kept a notebook by my bed to write down the most interesting bands I heard (V-E-L-V-E-T-U-N-D-E-R-G-R-O-U-N-D) and worked at deciphering Michael Stipe’s lyrics when REM was still a mystery.

It all felt like I’d stumbled upon a glorious secret: in the voices of college students I heard, in the information they had seemingly mastered, and in the music that opened up entirely new ways of thinking and feeling. Local commercial radio couldn’t compete, and even 1980s MTV paled in comparison. While my undergraduate school didn’t have its own station, my relationship to college radio continued when I started my own show on Bowling Green’s WBGU, fueled by conversations with generous and inventive colleagues and the university’s wonderful popular music library. After I left for Ph.D. work at the University of Texas, I listened to Austin’s KVRX, but considered my own college radio days to be over.

As a professor, I found myself involved in college radio again. When I arrived on the Bellarmine campus, I found eager students and a formidable task. Students had started the station on their own, but the previous faculty adviser had shaped the station to reflect Clear Channel-style corporate radio. The station was completely automated. We began to transform Bellarmine Radio into a college radio station, in which students would program the station and their voices would be heard on air – preferably live. We listened to other college radio stations, noting what we wanted to emulate (openness, experimentation) and what we wanted to avoid (snobbery, knee-jerk exclusion).

The majority of our listeners are connected to the university. This also includes study abroad students and alumni that check in from far away, sharing how much they appreciated hearing us on the other side of the world. We increasingly have the sense that our local focus in an online context has allowed us to reach a variety of listeners with Bellarmine and Louisville ties in far-flung locales, from Belfast to Shanghai. When my students ask if it’s OK they sound like they’re from Kentucky, I say yes. A given DJ’s Kentucky twang may not work in contemporary commercial radio, but we consider that a strength.

Selling our campus on college radio is an ongoing process. While Bellarmine has undergone dramatic transformations in the last decade or so, it is not particularly known for an adventurous campus culture. Because of this, we spend a lot of time trying to translate college radio to our specific context, explaining college radio’s larger mission. We do this through campus promotional activities and participation in larger initiatives such as College Radio Day. We playfully profess our approach in an unofficial slogan: Bellarmine Radio plays the hits and misses.

Program director Andrew Condia (left) and production director Shawn Gowen (right) touting Bellarmine Radio at a recent campus event. (Photo: Tatiana Rathke)

It is helpful for any college radio station staff to remember that many students arrive at college each fall having never heard college radio before. In 2011, my radio directors and I collaborated on a column for the student newspaper to explain Bellarmine Radio’s mission. “Think for a moment about your favorite song,” we wrote. “There was a time when you had never heard it before. You had to take a chance and listen for it to become meaningful for you. We would like to introduce you to your new favorites.” In an era when liberal arts colleges increasingly sell familiarity and comfort to attract students, we wanted to assert that college should be transformative – in ways that might be unfamiliar or even uncomfortable. We understand college radio as part of that transformation.

Our radio station has emerged during a period in which college radio’s future seems uncertain. As my former WBGU colleague Jen Waits pointed out in her 2012 overview for Radio Survivor, college radio remains vulnerable to takeovers by university administrations seeking a profit in selling off FM licenses. At the same time, traditional college radio stations reached new milestones, with continued support from universities. In 2012, the University of Minnesota celebrated 100 years of radio on campus.

On our campus, college radio still matters – even online. Bellarmine Radio is a work in progress mind you, but DJs leave their shifts feeling energized. We champion our favorite local bands, peruse Pitchfork and CMJ without letting it dictate our tastes, and ponder dubstep’s circuitous path from London to Louisville. And we are conscious that whether our listeners are across campus or around the world, it’s better to be rooted in who we are – and where we are – at any given moment.

CKUW radio station. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. 2011.

In recent years a number of college radio stations have been closed, some of which have moved to an exclusively online format. In January 2011, the University of San Francisco’s KUSF was sold to a classical public radio network and can now be heard online. The closing was justified by highlighting the viability of online broadcasting for smaller, or “alternative” radio stations. A New York Times article from the same year profiled American college stations that had moved online. In the article, students at Yale University’s WYBCX referred to their station as a “global entity” with shows “designed for audiences beyond Yale,” defining the station in opposition to the local and community-based mandates of many campus and college stations.

While online broadcasting can effectively carry local sounds to distant places, my research into the Canadian campus radio sector highlights the importance of licensed FM broadcasting in terms of representing the cultural and musical interests within a station’s broadcast range. By broadcasting exclusively online and abandoning space-based FM or AM broadcasting, stations run the risk of losing the community-based focus that has been integral to the programming and operations of the campus and community radio sector. In Canada, FM regulation has aided campus stations in realizing their goal of community representation through increasing their reach and relevance, which, in turn, has increased inclusivity and diversity in many instances. The following example shows how one station in Winnipeg, Manitoba, increased its prominence in the community when moving from closed-circuit radio to FM broadcasting, shedding light on what might be lost if stations were to move entirely online.

Before acquiring a FM license, CKUW at the University of Winnipeg operated as a closed-circuit station, broadcasting to speakers set up in different buildings on campus. Long-time station volunteer and staff member, Ted Turner, recalled getting involved with the station in 1990. Turner decided to check out the station after hearing so much about it. “And it was a big deal to go in there,” Turner reflected, “because you were very intimated because there were a bunch of cool people in there, right?” In those days, according to Turner, CKUW was “more of a hiding place… where these amazing records would come from Chicago and other places.” The station “had this magical mailbox where these really amazing underground records would show up and you could play them to a group of people, of which maybe a handful were ever listening.”

In order for the station to eventually receive its FM license, a number of factors had to coalesce, including mobilization towards better organization. Turner recalled that the station had to lose its connotation as a “boy’s club,” especially in the eyes of the university’s student association and administration. In 1992, Nicole Firlotte became the first woman to be hired as station manager. Turner explained that Firlotte acquiring the manager position was a critical point during the years leading up to CKUW’s FM license. He was careful to state that Firlotte was “a lot more than just the first woman to manage the station,” but that her role as manager certainly contributed to dismantling the image of the station as a boy’s club. Firlotte “brought a whole different energy, and a sense of organization and professionalism” to the station at the time.

Many of the comments made in reference to each station’s pursuit of an FM license illustrates that the full potential of these stations was not being realized when contained by campus borders. In a 1994 issue of Stylus, CKUW’s sibling publication, Alec Stuart asked, “How does it feel to know that Winnipeg is the largest city in Canada without a campus radio station?” Stuart explained that the station had begun work towards eventual broadcasting, but help would be needed. He said that financial donations were greatly appreciated, and for those that did not have the “cash to toss around,” even for a “worthy cause,” Stuart implored readers to come and see one of the many shows that the station organized that year. “If you own a business,” he said, “or work in some such place, write us a letter of support. We need a whole pile of letters to hand in to the [Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission] when we finish the application.”

In the December 1998 issue of Stylus station manager Rob Schmidt explained that a “CRTC license is only one of the components needed for a successful radio station…. Equipment, volunteers, and training all have to be in place before we can even hope to begin broadcasting to the community.” The license application was approved in October of that year, and in the application CKUW “promised to create programming that is diverse musically and yet has a strong focus on urban issues and concerns.”

CKUW’s successful license application involved the collective drive of students and community members who, at a particular point in the history of their campus broadcaster, felt that it was time for the station to expand beyond the confines of the campus, and reach a greater number of listeners within its locality. A small, secluded closed-circuit station can act as a private space for individuals to hide away and play records, especially if not many other people are listening or paying attention. However, as stations worked toward the goal of going FM and broadcasting to a wider listenership, the private/public ratio is renegotiated. These were public efforts, as students and radio practitioners justified their stations to other students and university administrators, asking for support that ranged from financial contributions to simply asking other students to give the station a chance and tune in. There came a time when the scale and scope of the station could not be contained by a low-range broadcaster, when students felt the need to put their connections to the wider cultural and musical communities of their city or town into practice.

1. In-flight airline entertainment is at a crossroads, as airlines decide between spending on wifi upgrades to let people use their own devices and on airplane entertainment technology like seat-back systems. JetBlue is going for the wifi option, and Boeing is upgrading wifi systems on their planes, while a few international airlines are passing out pre-loaded iPads to keep passengers entertained. In addition to the ever-rising costs to access in-flight wifi, there’s also the matter of it inevitably being slow.

2. Netflix has new competition to keep an eye on: Sky made a deal in the UK with Warner Bros., the new Redbox-Verizon service plans a Christmas debut, there’s word Disney could jump into the fray soon, UltraViolet might finally make some noise, and cable VOD stands to encroach further on Netflix’s territory.

3. Predictions are starting for the Foreign Language Oscar race, but you can take Iran off the table for the back-to-back win because it will boycott the Oscars due to outrage over Innocence of Muslims. Or at least that’s the reasononing Iran’s culture minister claims. Alyssa Rosenberg thinks there might be more to it. Either way, Iran won’t be thrilled to hear that more film projects about Muhammad are in the works.

4. Theaters continue to struggle, with the iconic Lumiere Theatre in San Francisco and the Roxy Theater in Philadelphia darkening for good. A pair of designers believe new design thinking can help turn theaters around. Theater owners might also follow the branding advice of AMC Theaters’ Shane Adams, who impressed many on Twitter last week. At least AMC and other theaters can continue to charge whatever high prices they want for snacks, thanks to a lawsuit dismissal.

5. There was a huge deal in the music business, as Universal Music Group finalized the acquisition of EMI Music’s recorded music unit following European Union and US approval, which was contingent upon the new combo selling off some assets, including the contracts of some prominent artists. Even after that, Universal will end up with control of about 40% of the US and European music market and immense power over the future direction of the industry.

6. Alyssa Oursler insists that Pandora and other music services have nothing to worry about from the Universal deal, and Pandora’s attention is elsewhere right now anyway, specifically on supporting a proposed bill called The Internet Radio Fairness Act that would lower streaming service royalty fees to put them par with what satellite radio and cable companies pay. Independent stations also support the bill.

7. There’s a redesigned PlayStation 3 coming out, but don’t expect to get a cheaper deal on a previous model. You can expect more mobile options from Sony, and Electronic Arts is also trying to take advantage of multi-platform gaming. You’ll be able to play multiple Hobbit games on multiple platforms, and Sesame Street is also pointing the way toward the future of gaming.

8. Wal-mart won’t be selling Kindles anymore. The stated reason why is somewhat vague, and it could just have to do with frustration with Amazon. Some readers are getting frustrated with higher e-book prices from Amazon, while Amazon will try to hook more with Kindle Serials. Amazon will have a new competitor thanks to a new e-book venture formed by Barry Diller and Scott Rudin.

9. Conditions at China’s Foxconn factory, which makes the iPhone 5, got even worse, with a riot temporarily shutting down production. This has come at a tenuous time for China’s corporate environment and raises larger questions about Chinese manufacturing, while Foxconn’s owner is looking to expand his business efforts beyond the country. Apple insists it is improving foreign factory conditions.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Cheers Oral History, Live TV Controversy, Auction Plans, The CW Signs With Nielsen Online, Dish Talking Internet TV, Changing Households, Variety Buyer, Cable Battles Consoles, Emmys Coverage, Female Employment, Netflix & A&E, Measuring Social Buzz, Tweeting Isn’t Watching, Microsoft Hire, New BBC.