Hitting the airwaves internationally

Many years ago due to the barbaric political murder of a journalist friend of mine Georgiy Gongadze and the events that transpired over the months after his death, I was interviewed by a friend's wife for
Ukrainian Time in Montreal regarding the events that transpired from September 16, 2000 and what was happening in Ukraine while I was visiting Montreal at the beginning of 2001. After that interview the show's producer asked me if I would be interested in doing news reports from Ukraine.

I took the challenge and cut my teeth recording in the field, sometimes under some pretty stressful situations and civic unrest, at other times under more calm conditions. There was also the writing copy, editing sound files and finding a way to get the finished news segment to my producer in Montreal without the benefit of broadband connectivity, and the dial-up that I had, was pretty unstable.

I played this role as a radio broadcaster in the field and one of my last broadcasts until about this time last year was the inauguration of Viktor Yushchenko in 2005. That broadcast was for a friend I first met virtually on a broadcaster's listserv and then who I met personally in about 2007, her name is Pawlina and it didn't surprise me that had a friend in common. When she was in Kyiv I helped her out as much as I could and introduced her to some of my musical friends.

I provided her with material on occasion over the last year, but now we have partnered to provide a more diverse product for her radio show
Nash Holos which is going into syndication. Podcasts are available from the show's site just mentioned. I will be producing and hosting a segment for her show entitled Kultural Capsule. The three minute segment will feature as the name of the segment suggests, will be a mere capsule about Ukrainians who have played a role in Ukrainian cultural development. Given the medium, they will for the most part focus on music to give non-Ukrainians a taste of something different and fresh. We want to share this with you all and I am sure that along with my segment listeners will also enjoy the segment produced by Irena Bell of Ottawa, entitled Did You Know.

My contribution is part of the show going international on PCJ Media's The Happy Station Show. Broadcasting from the studios of Radio Miami International on international shortwave 9955khz and streaming online www.wrmi.net. Coming soon to FM Radio in the UK, New Zealand and the USA. Also broadcasting online on Live365 internet radio with The Happy Station Show. Details and international archives at PCJ Media.

As a courtesy to listeners I will post a transcript of my program with hyperlinks to English Language resources on the subject presented in Kultural Capsule.

Web Radio At Risk

Today as I was doing my regular scanning of FDR a Ukrainian site which specializes in providing music news to Ukrainian radio stations, I came across the following news item:

"15 травня у Сполучених Штатах вступить у дію закон Комітету з захисту авторських прав у Вашингтоні, The Copyright Royalty Board, за яким мережеві радіостанції повинні будуть відраховувати величезні суми за трансляцію музики у мережі. Проблема у тому, що податки складають більше 100% заробітку навіть найбільших мережевих радіостанцій. Цей закон просто на просто уб’є незалежне інтернет-радіо. Як новий закон може вплинути на мережеве радіо у Європі та у нас, на даний момент не відомо."

This will have an effect on the ability of how small radio stations will be able to operate, which include many small radio stations which offer Ukrainian programming.

Anyone who is interested in supporting this initiative, please spend a little time to visit the site at savenetradio.org and let your congressmen know.

While I'm Canadian, I know that this will have its repercussions north of the 49th parallel as well as other parts of the world, including Ukraine.

Learning from the past

On Monday April 16th the CEO of the NBA, National Broadcasters Association, David Rehr challenged broadcasters on how they market themselves in saying that "they have to draw on the best from the past, and redefine it for the future."

Unfortunately the broadcast industry in Ukraine doesn't have much of a past to draw on, but it would be nice if they hired people who had an understanding of how to develop radio programing that was based on quality and not on payola by second rate artists! This happens so frequently in Ukraine it is considered to be a natural phenomenon.