In a shocking new development, WLIB-AM will turn from broadcasting Air America to becoming a 24-hour gospel station as of September 1, 2006.
“Get out of here! Oh no!” Harlem community activist Elombe Brath gasped when he was told the news. “That’s worse than what they had before!”
“Is it true?” asked Betty Dopson of the Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People (CEMOTAP). “Oh my!” she exclaimed. “What in the world?!?”
On August 20, as former New York City Mayor David Dinkins and the Reverend Al Sharpton were prepared to broadcast “Dialogue with Dinkins” and “Sharp Talk,” show producers say they couldn’t get their shows on the air because music was being piped through. Attorney Michael Hardy, who co-hosts “Sharp Talk” was in the studio with Ron Daniels, president of Institute of the Black World 21st Century, preparing to do an interview. But WLIB-AM was already simulcasting music programmed from WBLS 107.5-FM. The station is expected to keep broadcasting Air America from 5 a.m. to midnight and fill the rest of its time with WBLS’ music until the gospel format begins on September 1.
But in the meantime, before the new format starts to air, there seems to be no plans to put Imhotep Gary Byrd’s 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. “GBE Mind Flight” back on the air. Likewise, the Sunday programming that featured “The Caribbean in Five” with Bevan Springer, Stanley Barbot’s “Moment Creole,” and the Dinkins and Sharpton programs appear to be scrapped for now.
“So you’ve got the Caribbean community, which last time it was dropped on its own,” noted one source, who recalled that Air America was brought to WLIB following a rather unceremonious dropping of Caribbean programming on March 31, 2004. “This time it was dropped along with the African-American community.”
Deon Levingston, WBLS’ vice president and general manager, and Vinny Brown, the station’s operations manager, made a joint phone call to the Amsterdam News to respond to questions about the change. Both said that they have heard nothing but praise for WLIB’s new format. Levingston said that he spent last weekend in Harlem, handing out T-shirts and fliers and announcing the format change. The “overwhelming” response to the change has been positive, he added.
“I think it’s a shock to the people, who are overwhelmingly embracing a new gospel format,” Brown asserted. Both stated that they have received e-mails and phone calls from people who are amazed that with so many major gospel stars becoming popular, an all-gospel format wasn’t created sooner.
WWRL 1600-AM, where Air America will begin broadcasting as of September 1, had a 24-hour gospel format from 1982 through 1997. But while the programming was popular with listeners, ad revenues did not correspond. Advertisers, it seemed, were less interested in selling to a church crowd. Levingston claimed, however, that WLIB won’t have those problems. “People perceive gospel as different now. The format does very well and has high ratings across the country.”
But while the format may be popular, activists in New York remained confused about why WLIB would play gospel 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“I am a revolutionary Christian, and I believe in Christ. But 24/7 gospel? That’s a bit too much,” commented Councilman Charles Barron (D-District 42). “Even Jesus Christ would not listen to 24 hours of gospel. If we want to be Christ-like, then the gospel of Jesus Christ is about liberation; it’s the gospel of the streets.”
WLIB, a former jazz station, became Black-owned in the 1970s after activists picketed the station and demanded African Americans be given a chance to purchase it. Many felt the station’s series of white owners hadn’t cared about broadcasting with community concerns in mind. Percy Sutton, Malcolm X’s former attorney and then-Manhattan borough president, formed the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation (ICBC) backed by a group of Black investors and purchased WLIB in 1972. The station’s first talk shows featured the late Betty Shabazz, wife of Malcolm X, and Dr. Carlos Russell, the noted former college professor who taught some of the Black and Latino students who later founded the Young Lords Party.
Since becoming Black-owned, the station has broadcast political, Afrocentric, health-centered and Caribbean cultural shows. WLIB’s advocacy strength was credited with getting out the vote for David Dinkins in 1989 as he ran to become New York City’s first Black mayor.
When asked how the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation (ICBC) will respond to a Black community that was expecting to hear WLIB return to its Black talk format, Levingston countered that WLIB hasn’t had a Black talk format for some six years, so he didn’t understand why anyone would be expecting the station to broadcast talk now. The two managers also insisted that New York is already awash with talk, news and sports stations. Making WLIB talk again, would make it the ninth or 10th talk station in this market.
Brown and Levingston both added that WBLS already serves the community by broadcasting Black talk shows, like “The Steve Harvey Morning Show” and “The Guy Black Show.” And they even indicated that New York-area Blacks can turn on what they termed their rival station KISS-FM for more Black talk. On Sundays, the white-owned 98.7 KISS, or WRKS-FM, features “Open Line with Bob Slade” from 10 a.m. to noon and “Week in Review with Bob Slade” from 11 p.m. to midnight.
“To even put ‘The Steve Harvey Morning Show’ and ‘The Guy Black Show’ in the same category as the kind of Black talk that Gary Byrd’s ‘GBE Mind Flight’ is in, is a disgrace,” activist-attorney Roger Wareham said. “It is a disgrace and it is a real assault on the Black community to lose a show like Gary’s because his show was really a beacon and a place where activists knew they could get the word out about issues in the community.”
Community activist Brath said he was upset about “anything that would take away a moment of news when corporate news has majority control over the airwaves, and at a time when there are still attempts to get rid of WBAI (New York’s progressive listener-supported station, owned by the Pacifica Foundation).”
“It’s a real loss if the Suttons don’t rescind this decision,” Wareham said. “From what I understand, they’re the principal shareholders (in ICBC), so Percy and Pierre (his son and Inner City chairman) have a say.”
As recently reported in the Amsterdam News, it has been rumored that there were talks to bring Cathy Hughes’ Radio One to WLIB. That got an enthusiastic response from some community members. But reportedly, the devil was in the details, and the fine points of such a deal could not be worked out.
“This decision to go all-gospel at a time when the Black community is information-starved needs a much better explanation than the one provided by Deon Levingston,” said CEMOTAP’s Dopson, who noted that with no Black talk outlet in New York, the Black community is being censored. “Certainly gospel music has its place in the lives of WLIB listeners. But even those who love and listen to gospel music will agree that the Black community is in dire need of and deserving of focused information in the areas of politics, labor, law, education, art, finance, and recreation, as well as religion.
“Something sinister seems to be at work here when the two Black-owned AM radio stations in the media capital of the world can only provide the audiences that they were licensed to serve with gospel music, faith-based messages and white left-wing rhetoric and propaganda.”
Bob Law, who said he is working with a national group of Black broadcasters on these issues, said, “None of the moves that Black radio stations have made in the New York area have been good, but they’ve been forced into these moves because their backs are against the wall.”
He contended that because most agencies still practice a “No Urban Dictate,” which means certain advertisers won’t sell to the Black community, Black media does not receive advertising that corresponds to its consumer base.
“Rather than fight back at the level in which they should at the ratings system, they just back down. They just acquiesce and instead scapegoat the staff by firing them and claiming it’s the format, or they scapegoat the audience by saying the audience didn’t support them, and by saying Black listeners are not loyal. When that’s just ridiculous, the Black community is loyal,” Law said.
