Ken Freedman
Ken Freedman (born February 18, 1959) is the ongoing General Manager of WFMU, a freeform radio station. He also co-hosts the conceptual comedy program Seven Second Delay with Andy Breckman, as well as hosting his own freeform radio program on Wednesday mornings (9:00-noon Eastern Time).
Freedman began his radio career as DJ and later station manager of WCBN, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's freeform radio station, where he marked the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan by playing Lesley Gore's "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)" for eighteen consecutive hours.[1]
Freedman joined WFMU as a DJ in December 1983, and succeeded Bruce Longstreet as General Manager in August 1985. At the time, WFMU was licensed to and owned by Upsala College, and based in East Orange, New Jersey.
In February 1986, Freedman launched a program guide/zine called LCD (Lowest Common Denominator), featuring work by many internationally known writers and artists, including Nick Tosches, Jim Woodring, Drew Friedman, Gary Panter, Harvey Pekar, Dan Clowes, Tony Millionaire, and Chris Ware. In November 2007, The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU, was published by Princeton Architectural Press. It was compiled and edited by longtime WFMU radio host Dave "The Spazz" Abramson.
In 1989, Freedman successfully fended off a challenge to the station's license from four rival broadcasters, who claimed that WFMU was broadcasting above its legal power limit.
In 1992, he founded the non-profit organization Auricle Communications, which purchased WFMU's license from Upsala in 1994. These actions allowed WFMU to survive when the college went bankrupt in 1995.[2]
A core strategy for the station was to embrace the World Wide Web, launching its website in 1993, streaming its broadcasts full-time in 1997, and archiving most broadcasts from 2000.[3] Under Freedman's management, annual donations to the station (which is funded exclusively by listener support) grew from $50,000 in 1983, to $750,000 in 1999, to over $1,000,000 in 2008.[2]
Freedman serves on the board of directors of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. In 2007, Freedman took on the oversight of WFMU's Free Music Archive, an open source library of copyright-cleared music and audio which launched in April 2009.[4]
His brother, Samuel G. Freedman is an author of several books, as well as a freelance reporter for the New York Times, and a Professor at the Columbia School of Journalism.
[edit] External links
- Ken Freedman program archives at WFMU.org
- Ken Freedman keynote address (video), “WFMU: Dragging Radio Into The Present," International Open Education Conference, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, August 2009
- Ken Freedman address (video), "WFMU’s Free Music Archive: An Open Source Marriage of Audio Art, Music and Radio," The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 2007
[edit] Notes
- ^ ""CBN History: Radio/Broadcasting Timeline"". WCBN Online. 2005-05-10. http://www.wcbn.org/history/wcbntime.html. Retrieved 2008-06-10.
- ^ a b Wolf, Jaime (1999-04-11). ""No Hits All the Time"". New York Times. http://www.wfmu.org/times/. Retrieved 2008-06-10.
- ^ Applebome, Peter (2008-02-24). ""Looking for Music, but Not 'Celebration,' to Remember Castro? Put the Radio On"". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/nyregion/24towns.html. Retrieved 2008-06-10.
- ^ Freedman, Ken (2007-05-09). ""Ken Freedman's Open Source Marriage of Audio, Music & Radio"". Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. http://youtube.com/watch?v=PjTWFBNn1rA. Retrieved 2008-06-10.
