The Power and Struggle of Caribbean Radio: WVIP 93.5FM & the Future of Caribbean Music

We focus to the implications in the sale of New York City's WVIP 93.5 FM to Hope Media Group. WVIP had majority Caribbean programming over the last 40 years, home to Caribbean media groups including Irie Jam Radio, Linkup Radio, Winner’s Circle Radio, Groovin' Radio, Wake Up Radio and other programmers who purchased air time on the independent radio station. The station will now focus on Spanish language Christian music.

Caribbean artists owe their introduction to the larger community to platforms such as WVIP 93.5 FM. We converse on the struggle for discoverability of Caribbean music in an era brimming with digital platforms. We emphasize the importance of intentionality when tuning into radio stations and the role of radio in safeguarding Caribbean culture for posterity.

In continued dialogue on media ownership, cultural preservation, and the future of Caribbean music; we scrutinize how ownership of these radio stations across the US impacts the digital music landscape and the broader conversations ignited on legacy, culture, and ownership. Join us as we discuss how the community missed an opportunity to rally behind a Caribbean-owned and operated station.

Jamaica Gleaner Article

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:40

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Silent Vibes podcast with yours truly. If you are new here, welcome to the family. If you are returning, welcome back family. Today, I'm joined by my executive producer, carrie-anne Reed-Brown.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Hemphasis on the H.

Speaker 1: 1:00

On the H, welcome welcome. So today's topic is a little bit impromptu but I think it's necessary, especially for the market that we sit in. Both Carrie and I are based on the East Coast. New York radio is a heavy importance to the Caribbean community here and we kind of have been following the story offline and kind of got some conclusive responses as this has kind of impacted the radio here. So for most of you guys listening, you listen in a podcast and you know, I know, that there are so many different mediums of which you can consume content that radio has probably dwindled over the years. But New York is still the number one radio market and as Caribbean people for a long time we operated on either college music stations relegated to specific timeframes on major urban stations or have internet stations and things of that nature.

Speaker 1: 2:18

But an independent radio station called WVIP was one or 93.5, was one that a lot of Caribbean programming would happen and there were a few major like media companies that would buy space on WVIP. That took up a big block of most of the day and evening and weekend that Caribbean people here would tune into. So it was kind of announced that the owner who had passed away and his family took over in terms of managing the station. So there were some rumblings around the idea of whether it would be sold, how they were going to progress and you know the station has been such a cornerstone of the community for such a long time that it was kind of up in the air. One of those media programmers is IRIJAM radio, friend of the show, friends of the show. We have supported their endeavors here on the podcast and throughout. You know my career. But they had a lot of different programming and it recently came out in the Gleaner Jamaica Gleaner that they actually pitched to buy the station and were turned down by another media programming company that was completely different than what people were used to hearing on that station.

Speaker 1: 3:50

So we're no strangers to stations changing. It's kind of like a market thing that happens all the time. But I think why this is significant to our market is because of the amount of space that we took up on that station and being on the other stations, those times have significantly dwindled. We've seen articles about how, you know, reggae and dance saw is being played less on crossover radio as well as even on the mainstream stations, and the impact of that. So now losing the programming that was kind of dedicated to a audience that primarily consumes radio content. So it's not just music, it's talk radio, as well as getting information about different programs that might impact the community, like buying housing and legal issues and stuff like that. I think it's a big impact to the community. So I definitely wanted to talk about this, and Kerry is also no stranger to everything that I'm kind of sharing here today. But what's this surprising to you? What were your thoughts after initially reading the news?

Speaker 2: 5:09

All right, before I answer, one correction to what you said. You said their offer was turned down by another media company. The family turned down the offer and took the competing offer, which is from this other media brand. So I want to make that clear. Yes, thank you. Thank you, yes, it was surprising. I think it's one of those things where it's such a staple that you take it for granted.

Speaker 2: 5:40

And I think the Gleaner really answered some questions because I think when most of the community found out, they were surprised. They were like why didn't they anyone say anything? Why are we just knowing about this, what is happening? And I think the Gleaner laid out in their interview with Bobby Clark that they had to sign NDAs and that means that you have no discussion about this at all. And so I'm not saying it's strategic, I'm just saying that there wasn't even the opportunity for the community to really, you know, make their voice known that this is important.

Speaker 2: 6:19

And you know, like advocate on, I mean, we're not going to bring no extra baggadolos to the thing, but you know, by making it known how important this is and you know why the sale to this group would have been very important for the community, but it was shocking and to know then what comes next. And then even the conversation about ownership comes up right. So this triggered, or maybe re-triggered, conversations about ownership, conversations about legacy, conversation about whether we make a seat at a table or we build our own table, and conversations about what happens to culture and a preservation or a place for people to enjoy culture or consume culture in a way that we can't on other radio stations. So those are my thoughts, very, not doom and gloom, but more very methodical. As you know, I process these things.

Speaker 1: 7:28

I think what was really interesting about what kind of transpired in the articles is, to your point, the community didn't really get to rally behind the idea of a Caribbean owned and operated radio station, and there are a handful of independently owned and operated stations where there are others who are being purchased in like a network of a system right. So media houses can buy up radio stations and television stations and own the ones in the local markets. And then there are a few that are independent. Here in New York, Hot 97 and WBLS are sister stations and they're independently owned, and those are the hip hop and R&B stations that we do have. The others are kind of programmed to be specific to the market, but they are not independently owned. Does this really bring to the forefront the idea that probably across the US we don't really own any of those spaces? Yet this is a market of interest. How does that truly impact us not owning the stations? How does that impact the music, especially with music being consumed so much digitally?

Speaker 2: 8:53

When you said. Let me just want to clarify something. When you say impact us or across the nation, are you thinking like black media generally, or are you thinking just Caribbean media, caribbean media? Okay, well, radio is very important and we talk about this a lot. So now, or conversations offline in group chat, is coming on the podcast, and so when we think about learning about new music, learning about new artists, the radio plays such an important role, right.

Speaker 2: 9:22

So, like, for instance, yesterday I was telling a friend about some new song that I learned by listening to the radio. They're like you still listen to the radio. I said, yes, when we go into the car, we're intentional about listening to the radio, because when we're not in the car, we're listening to playlists and we're stuck in the playlist. That brings nostalgia or whatever vibe. Very rarely my playlist is going to go to new music. It's going to go to whatever I'm in the mood for and it's most often what I'm familiar with and that's most people. So the growth of our culture and learning about new artists. Radio played a huge deal in that and it still plays a huge, because then we trust these on-air DJs to give us a mix or introduce us in a variety of ways new contents, right, or new artists, and without that, then we start seeing people wishing for artists who you know maybe it's good to see them in a throwback show, but they're not the artists of the now, right? I now have to look at what my kids are listening to and their first choice isn't or Caribbean music, right, it may be a hybrid of other genres, kind of using elements of our music, but it's not. And the thing about radio, too, is that radio is going to play a cleaner version of these songs, right? Versus when they're trying to listen to whatever you know platform, apple, spotify, you know they they're not necessarily looking for the little E, the one without the E next to it. So I think radio plays a very critical part in that, where they're able to serve us or introduce us to new artists.

Speaker 2: 11:08

And if the kids are in the car, I know the music is going to be airplay ready and I don't have to worry about you know, certain content in it. And so the other part of it was with this void. It's going to be difficult, because I want to make it clear to the audience Radio don't go away. There are other places where people are probably what's the word. They're probably buying airtime, but without radio call numbers that you barely recognize. It's almost like out of sight, out of mind, Like which channel them, which station them upon, you know it's not familiar. So you're not going to go into the car and turn it to 90, three point. You're not going to do that because you're like I don't know what they're on, so you're just going to go to whatever the popular, familiar platform is. Maybe that's a hot 97 WBLS or Power 105. Like I could, I could reel those off. I cannot tell you any other station that maybe have Caribbean content. And that is the problem. Discoverability of those stations become increasingly hard.

Speaker 1: 12:16

For sure, and I think you also touched on a point about the idea that you know, radio is kind of taken for granted. I think the understanding around consumption has skewed the idea that radio no longer has the same significance that it does. But if this were the case, then advertisers would not be spending the way that they spend in radio and television. It might be a little bit more fragmented and they're spending less, but there's still a market for radio. Additionally, with playlists, a lot of times people are creating them themselves based off of their own preference and the idea of DJs that do radio. It's their job to kind of sift through new music, not just for radio but for their everyday occupation.

Speaker 1: 13:17

So a lot of people are discovering based on what they are already following, listening to, and there was a lot of music in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s.

Speaker 1: 13:31

Now it's even harder to stand up because the barrier is so low to enter.

Speaker 1: 13:37

You can literally create your own song, write your own song, produce your own song, your own video, put it up on this distribution platform and now you're a music artist. How are people going to find you is an entirely different conversation, and I think radio still plays a part, and case in point Funkmaster Flex still has his radio program that breaks new records and a lot of times I think that show is kind of like a model, for the DJ is still very important and we often hear it even in parties, right, like the idea of DJs breaking new music and or playing the same old, same old. The best part of a party is still the early warm, because that's where you're going to hear new music and then you know you're going to hear the most popular ones. That structure has not changed, right, but it then has to translate outside of a party and radio and play listing and being played outside of the party is also what is important, not only to branding artists but in terms of their revenue.

Speaker 2: 14:53

And I mean to add to that point. You know, what a Caribbean radio station provides is the nuance of what Caribbean music represents. Right, the nuance of this is reggae, this is dancehall, this is roots, this is soca, this is calypso. You know, this is perang, this is all these different things that mainstream radios are just going to bulk into one thing, right, and you give the community a different taste of all the things that they're familiar with. You know, christmas time soon comes, so you know you're going here like reggae, christmas time, you know, or something like that, like the nuance that it provides. And we can speak this because we are operating in a different space for media, as we are focused in the podcast space and we are creating this nuance.

Speaker 2: 15:52

But you know, the point that you made is we take radio for granted, which is why I said to my friend I have to be intentional when I go in the car that I'm listening to the radio and I'm not listening to something. And I think what happens is, as a community myself included, because we all do this we take for granted that Michaela is going to have style and vibes, carrie Ann is going to have Carrie Ann, friends, and so I think that's why every time is going to be like it's not because, at the end of the day, you're running a business and the business needs to survive and it goes to a bigger way to support what these platforms are doing, because we don't have a lot of them and over the years it's just been dwindling and dwindling and dwindling, and so we have to think of like this is not just for us now, this is for the future. Sometimes I and maybe this is just me and maybe Michaela, I know this is you too sometimes I get nervous, thinking some people are going to be like Caribbean culture is never going to go away, but sometimes it feels like it's a disappear, it's shrinking or something. I may not be able to find the right words to articulate it, but sometimes it feels that way because of all the threats and the things that are consuming the thing that makes it distinct, the thing that makes it different in energy, vibe and people. And it may not be that it's going away. We're just seeing it less and less or hearing it less and less, and we as listeners, community members, have to be an active participant in that.

Speaker 2: 17:34

One of the interviews that I listened to is how this podcast, how I Built this. There are two episodes that people should listen to the one with Bob Johnson, for BET and I can't remember her name, is it Sheila? Radio one, radio one oh my goodness, that's crazy when she talked about her son living in the radio station. But those are really important ones to listen to. On how I Built this, because they really show you all that they did to create a platform for the community. Of course, bob Johnson sold his shares in BET, but I think you really need to kind of listen to even going further into this, listen to some of the plays that these business people have to make in order to move on to the next thing that is going to be important for our community. So I just wanted to share that. Those are really good episodes to listen to.

Speaker 1: 18:40

And I think that that's a good way to segue into the idea of value, right, Because quite often we as a community perceptually don't think that there is enough value and the reality of it is is, as the article states, IRIJAM went to them with let me get it done $13 million to purchase the station and for journalistic purposes.

Speaker 2: 19:13

let's clarify the group IRIJAM with the group of investors. Yes, yes, yes, let me want to be clear yes, the IRIJAM group Investment group.

Speaker 1: 19:25

Investment group yes. Yes, that was probably what they initially started with on the table right. Negotiations are negotiations. The station then turned around and sold it to a competitive media company for more than that. So, essentially from a negotiation purpose, they had the value rooted in the Caribbean Diaspora, which wasn't the only programming on that station, but it was the bulk of it. And use that to kind of probably and this is me speculating how the negotiations turn out, but we see it all the time we can speculate all right, you know we are business professional, we know how it goes right, we know what it's gonna go.

Speaker 2: 20:19

You don't go to the table with your best and final offer, right? And I mean, again, we're speculating and all of that. We don't know if this initial offer was their best and final offer or whether they were given an opportunity for an counter offer to the company that just bought it Exactly. Yeah, so we don't know any of that, but it feels like they were just, you know, out of courtesy, tell me what you want to buy it for. All right, yeah, it was maybe used, like you said, used as a gauge to get a better offer, without going back to the original group to see. All right, can you match this?

Speaker 1: 21:01

Yeah, yeah, they probably don't know the true valuation. So, in essence, by saying, if I sell it to you, what would you buy it at? And then they can turn around and negotiate a higher price with another investor. But again to your point, it's unclear if they had the opportunity to counter. But we've also seen this play out with the purchase of, with the initial sell off potential of BET from Viacom. They had three suitors who were willing to pay, you know, different prices for it and then all of a sudden it comes off the table.

Speaker 1: 21:41

And you know, my thing is is they probably didn't know what they were selling. And then they kind of realized it and they were like whoa, whoa, whoa, we shouldn't be selling this because, based on the valuation, we could probably get more for it down the line. Or they really just don't want us to own our own shit. I mean sorry for the profanity, but that's the other conversation that we also need to have is you know the ownership piece. So it also comes down to the idea of value and ownership and the blockages that we hear people talking about. They're real, right, they're not.

Speaker 1: 22:29

And if this is happening to big people with big money and you hear it, imagine like the smaller, even smaller, local media, independent, like again I said to Kerry in the conversation. I'm like there's black media and then there's, you know, caribbean media, there's Afro-Latino media, there's the Latin market as a whole and then all of the sub-submarkets for those, and it's just like all of people of color are fighting for the scraps of investment. Meanwhile, this overvalued media organization that hasn't even been vetted gets the opportunity to be VC funded without backative, with no sort of experience, not once, but sometimes twice. Case in point the second fire festival. Who, in their right mind, said that this was a good investment? The second time? But you know what happened? It's sold out, the people that buy out the tickets before the festival, even a launch, and we talked about that on the podcast and that was a mess.

Speaker 2: 23:40

I don't have any words for it. I mean, I think what we'd like the audience to know is that the audience, they play a critical part in the consumption of black media, black-owned programming, specifically programming by black-owned media, and that that is critical to the growth, right? So one thing the article said was hen high quote, if I pull it up which was encouraging, right, Because the other thing I found that in the last couple episodes, maybe in the last year, so I've been having a lot of conversations about Caribbean media and entertainment the one with white Yachty about like, okay, why are we not seeing other Caribbean content? And this is what this is, a precursor to the real conversation we should be having, right. So we started with Harlem about strong characters around Caribbean heritage or maybe story lines, and yeah, we're seeing a little bit more than that. But in the article in the Gleaner it kind of quoted saying that they are thinking of a platform CGN Caribbean global network to come out the blocks to match Netflix, Hulu, whatever, and so they're excited for a new beginning.

Speaker 2: 25:03

And I think what we've seen as a trend right, and we talked about this when the bank had a particular bank had had a meltdown earlier this year and you know everyone was wondering oh my goodness, how is this impacting the VC community? And I was just like, well, if one group of business owners are going to be impacted because VC funding is going to dried up, that means black people is going to be in suffocation. And you pointed out like we've been in suffocation and we are making do with the suffocation. So I think what this might have done is I don't want to say lights, a fire under the IrishM group, but you know they already had that fire right, but made that determination even more to say, okay, we're thinking of buying the station, but bigger picture now right, Because there's so much more at stake and I think that's very important.

Speaker 2: 25:59

As listeners and consumers, we just have to really make sure that we are being intentional about supporting the content. And I say intentional because if we're not, we're just going to let the algorithms and everything else Feed things to us. And we have to make sure that we are being intentional about you know what we consume. Like Michaela, like I went to, I went out of state in the summer and for the whole weekend I was consuming miss Pat McKay on the weekend and you were just like it's like, wait, I don't have serious, but I mean, I was keeping on this, so this station gets all my streams.

Speaker 1: 26:40

Papakay been on serious for years.

Speaker 2: 26:42

Yeah, I'm like it stays on here. Even if it's like it stays on here. So you know, I mean it's really being intentional, because that counts, you know.

Speaker 1: 26:53

So that was my spiel on that. Seriously, it definitely counts. I am looking forward to seeing how this progresses, but I think it was good for us to kind of take a moment to really put a stake in the ground and and talk about this here on the platform. Because, you know, I also think that New York is a really important diaspora hub and it's almost too big to fail kind of situation like we can't lose it. Because if if New York kind of loses that edge like where's it gonna go, kind of kind of thing, and it could be that it's changing, but I don't think so, so we have to continue to engage Whatever change is happening on this front. So it's the reason why we continuously talk about what is happening here in the diaspora, specifically the Caribbean music awards and these sort of programming that happens on the mainstream and what are our reaction to it is the diaspora is super important to the economics of not just the region but also the culture.

Speaker 2: 28:11

That's what I was gonna say there. We didn't go into this, the article, and this is not meant to be a very exhaustive episode on this, but the ownership of the station is a good Indication of growth, right, you know, of maturity to the economic impact of that, like most people might say. Well, you know, but if your Caribbean business cannot run a ad and you know what I mean Like there's a whole downstream trickle down effect, right, this is how businesses are advertising to their target market. You know there's a lot of ways that this is impacting an ecosystem of the Caribbean, and I mean Remittance. It's just a cascading impact. I really wanted to stress that, and so you could read this article. I'm sure there are other articles that are out here, but I think this laid it out really nicely and this is a state it wasn't even like a long article, but we're reading between the lines and dissecting it one by one.

Speaker 1: 29:14

So you know I saw it do it right, carrie. Yep, I'm on mute. You did that palm mute, is that right? Is that right? Well, thank you so much, carrie, for this conversation. It was always a pleasure. You know, again, like you said, just taking the group chat and putting the podcast, because we talk like this all the time, all the time, all at a time. So until next time, lay a time of peace Bye. Thanks for listening to the latest episode of the style and vibes podcast. If you like what you hear and I know you do Share it with your friends and family. If you want more, make sure you visit styling vibes calm and follow us on our social channels, twitter and Instagram. At styling vibes. Until next time, lia, tommy peeps.