Category: Shameless Horn-Tooting || By

Well, we did it. Our McKeesport-based low-power FM radio group and this website are merging.

At a meeting Sunday in West Mifflin, directors of Lightning Community Broadcasting Inc. voted 5-0 to combine with Tube City Community Media Inc., which operates Tube City Online and The Tube City Almanac.

Both are Pennsylvania-chartered non-profit corporations, but don't presently have tax-exempt status.

. . .

My co-conspirators in Lightning have been Alycia Bencloski, Derrick Brashear, Chad Dougherty, Daniel Malesky, Tom Schroll Jr., and Tim Weis.

We're all natives of the Mon-Yough area (which explains the brain damage, maybe) and we're all geeks to some extent. (We grilled hot dogs during the meeting, leading Tim to joke that we should have renamed ourselves "Tube Steaks Online.")

Bill Scully Jr. served on the Lightning board until recently, and Jen Fritsch, formerly of West Mifflin, was one of our founding directors.

(I was the sole director of Tube City Community Media. Now I have to answer to someone else. Surprisingly, they know about my attitude problem, and they agreed to do it anyway.)

. . .

I hate to use the term "no-brainer," but this really is. Both projects have similar goals --- creating an independent, alternative voice for the Mon-Yough area --- and Derrick and Tom have provided hours of free technical assistance and hosting services for the website.

(The website currently lives on the servers of Tom's company, Skymagik Internet Services. Go put your website there. Tell 'em Goober sent you.)

The merger requires approval of the state's Corporation Bureau --- largely a formality --- and will become effective when the combined board approves new bylaws. The merged organization will operate as Tube City Community Media Inc.

. . .

We founded Lightning in 1999 to bring a 100-watt public FM station to the McKeesport area, taking advantage of the Federal Communications Commission's creation of a new class of low-power FM radio stations.

Penn State's campus in McKeesport also laid plans for an LPFM station.

Both efforts stalled when the U.S. Congress, under pressure from the National Association of Broadcasters, overruled the FCC and insisted that stringent rules be enforced to prevent possible interference.

The chain of events was detailed in a recent Pittsburgh City Paper article that spotlighted Lightning, Tube City Online, and your humble correspondent. (I actually called it "the great LPFM screwing of 2000." Yes, I do kiss my mother with that mouth.)

. . .

Government-sanctioned technical studies have since indicated that Congress' restrictions were unnecessary, and U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, Forest Hills Democrat, has introduced legislation to roll back those restrictions.

Co-sponsors of Doyle's H.R. 1147, the Local Community Radio Act of 2009, include U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican from Upper St. Clair, and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Republican of Texas and 2008 presidential candidate. Doyle's introduced this bill before, and it died in committee. We're hoping this time is the charm.

Tube City Online was founded in 1996, while The Tube City Almanac, a journal of local news and opinion, was launched in 2004. It currently has about 2,500 unique visitors per month.

We are going to recruit additional writers and editors from the community, probably sometime later this year, after we develop a shared business and operation plan.

. . .

It's no secret that the Mon Valley has a significant "image problem," and the McKeesport area is often ignored by the Pittsburgh media --- or they only report on the negatives.

The ultimate goal of Tube City Online, and the LPFM station (if we're lucky enough to get a permit), is to offer more context and maybe a picture that's more nuanced.

We'd also like to offer a creative outlet and a training ground for Mon-Yough area residents to experiment with media and radio.

. . .

So, to put it briefly ... Tube City Online is preparing to grow, and we're all hopeful that the radio project will get off the ground as well. (It's a big question mark at this point.)

As this website evolves away from "Jason sucking his thumb and ranting," towards something like a community news site, I hope you'll be patient.

We're trying to be a compliment to the existing media outlets, not a replacement.

I also hope that if you have any interest in participating, that you'll contact me. (I've already heard from several people.)

. . .

And yes, I've seen this story from The Onion.

We're going to try to be better than the fictional Park Hills Beacon. We'll try not to make things "mind-numbingly insipid" and "grindingly dull."

We may not always succeed.

And I can't guarantee that we won't be "grammatically shaky" from time to time. We're yinzers, after all.

. . .

More about low-power FM:

• FCC website


• Prometheus Radio Project