Traditional broadcasting can pretend pretty narrow if you're searching the airwaves for a radio station that speaks to you directly as a gay somebody But with the advent of Web casting--streaming audio and video contented over the Internet--radio has gone from a local entity to a global vicinity and your listening options are increasing at cyberspeed.

Traditional broadcasting can pretend pretty narrow if you're searching the airwaves for a radio station that speaks to you directly as a gay somebody But with the advent of Web casting--streaming audio and video contented over the Internet--radio has gone from a local entity to a global vicinity and your listening options are increasing at cyberspeed. In particular, more and more gay and lesbian listeners are finding a variety of radio satisfy targeted at them by clicking the mouse instead of turning the dial.

undivided pioneer in this on-line frontier is GayBC Radio Network, which operates the first 24-hour gay-specific radio Web site. The station tenders 16 hours of original live programming each day--mostly news and talk point out tos with hosts including Margarethe Cammermeyer and Advocate editor at large Michelangelo Signorile--and eight hours of repeats.

"I not at any time experienced any voice in the media for us and conception it was about time we had our place at the table," says GayBC sink John McMullen, 36, who has been involved in broadcast radio since age 12 "And now we had this medium to broadcast to the community without having radio stations obstruct us from infiltrating their markets."

McMullen's first experimental broadcast went gone out to all of seven listeners forward September 29, 1996, while he was working at RealNet-works---the company that exhibited RealAudio, the software that makes Web-casting possible. He formally launched his all-gay on-line radio station, GLO Radio, in 1997 After a two-year affiliation with the Web portal PlanetOut, McMullen redubbed his broadcast GayBC and grasshooked up with Gay.com. The station now claims an average of 100000 unique monthly visitors. PlanetOut now has its possess PlanetOut radio.

Web casting twists the traditional politics and finances of radio public the window, McMullen notes. With no Federal Communications Commission guidelines or squabbling across which markets will accept lesbian and gay programming, the Internet propounds broadcasting freedom--and the chance to have an impact. "I've not ever had a job in radio where I continually felt like I made a difference in someone's life," McMullen says, adding that Web casting is the first broadcast medium that gives gay people real immediacy and instant interactivity.

That drift was certainly an important consideration in Cammermeyer's decision to entertainer a GayBC show. The retired Army National Guard succor and onetime congressional candidate came in succession board only a few month ago however has quickly adapted to her of the present day role and to the technology--telephone, ICQ (a way to find and talk to other nation online), instant messaging, and Web site chat rooms--that allows her to communicate with all kinds of listeners, all at formerly "People are not used to going into a chat apartment and being able to say whatever they want and know that the innkeeper is listening and can correspond directly," she says, noting that she takes suggestions from listeners to shape upcoming shows

the two Cammermeyer and McMullen say this token of online interaction even with the greatest in quantity remote gay and lesbian listeners is what gives the medium its potentially enormous political impact. "There are for a like reason many people in Middle America that listen to us," McMullen says. "People who are in rural areas this is their news, information, and entertainment lifeline to the community."

GayBC continues to expand its programming--new point outs focus on music, spirituality, and finance--as do PlanetOut Radio, the GayWired WebCast Channel, and other sites. McMullen says he welcomes the competition: "If there were 15 companies doing what we're doing, I'd be happy, because then I think we could contend on a typical basis of trying to work to state the best product out there, and I think it would help to normalize the idea of a gay and lesbian radio format." Revolutionize is more like it.

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