A fun-filled documentary that tells the unique 60-year history of WPKN in Bridgeport, CT, through in-depth interviews an | dG1feHVhbDdIbTJRQnM
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🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00We are live here in the studio at 89.5 at WPKN.org
00:07under six blocks from beautiful Long Island Sound.
00:09I didn't know anything about radio or running a radio station.
00:12And I would have guests. I had live guests. I had members of the Black Panthers.
00:16People would wander in and out of the studio, lighting the incense.
00:21They saw me coming, so they grabbed the crutch. They hit me over the head with the crutch.
00:26The president of the university tried to give away the license to the station.
00:31Programmers are all over the place. They're from all around the world, basically.
00:35They all have different backgrounds.
00:37Kings and queens, princes and princesses, lords and ladies, it's after dark.
00:42No one that stutters is going to be on radio, right? That's impossible.
00:46Once the vibration is out there, the vibration really never stops.
00:52A typical WPKN meeting would go on for hours and hours and hours.
00:58And the station at that point became 100% listener-supported.
01:03You just couldn't hear that kind of music anywhere else on the radio during the 90s.
01:10In the 90s, there was a stressed staff.
01:14In our internal conflicts and the economic downturn, it put WPKN in a very precarious position.
01:22A lot of people who are musicians like me and a part of the music scene really appreciate PKN.
01:28It is still one of the very few radio stations in the whole country that has no programming mandates.
01:34Most of us do this because we love the music and we just love doing radio because it's really an art form.
01:40Preserving and strengthening a community station like WPKN becomes ever more important
01:47as these other unique places on the radio dial disappear.