FULL TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODEProvided by Otter.aiEoin Trainor  0:00  The views and opinions expressed in Eye on the Triangle do not represent WKNC or the student media.Good evening Raleigh and welcome to this week's Eye on the Triangle an NC State student run student produced news show on WKNC 88.1 FM HD 1 Raleigh, I'm Eoin Trainor. On tonight's episode, Elizabeth Esser sits down with Jacob Downey, the director of Little Raleigh radio and then a little later, we'll have some stories from North Carolina News Service enjoy.Elizabeth Esser  1:08  This is Elizabeth Esser, for Eye on the Triangle. I sat down with Jacob Downey WKNC, alum and co-founder of little Raleigh radio, a nonprofit community radio station in downtown Raleigh. We talk about Jacobs's background in radio, his experience in establishing little Raleigh radio and what the future looks like for the station. Jacob Downey, thank you so much for joining us on Eye on the Triangle.Jacob Downey  1:32  Very, very excited to be back on Eye on the Triangle.Elizabeth Esser  1:34  To start us off. Would you mind telling listeners a little bit about your background in radio?Jacob Downey  1:39  Yeah, so my background in radio is WKNC. Oh, I mean, obviously, my initial background of radio was growing up listening to it, and kind of when the media consolidation act hit in the 90s it was like a sledgehammer to your gears just with how much radio became modernized. And when I moved to Raleigh, you know, I would listen to KMC. And there was a mood rally to go to school at NC State. And we're very fortunate with the musical radio station diversity that we have here in the triangle. I feel like with some stations like WSHA, going the way we are losing some of that, but we're pretty privileged. And we also have a lot of great record stores. And so I was and that's where I would go to find out you know, KNC and record stores in the area like school kids. And at that time record exchange was one of the main places that I would go to for music discovery, nice price around those that kind of fills that void as well now with the record exchange being gone, and now the poorhouse especially with some of their board recordings, that they're doing some fun stuff. But I was talking to one of the clerks at the record exchange. And he was a music director at WKNC. And I was like, Oh, yeah, I've always wanted to do radio for a little bit. And so he's like, well, you need to come by and sign up. And y'all know what that whole process and kinda started doing radio at KMC, from 2002 to 2011. Mostly daytime rotation. from six to 8am, Monday through Thursday, Gonzo would do the vinyl revolution on Friday mornings, and then after I graduated. I stuck around WKNC for a little while. Doing weekend specialty programming and mentoring some students, just made a lot of great friends. And some of those friends kind of parlayed into like, Well, you know, how can we create the WK experience for other people that live in Raleigh or work in Raleigh, or somehow have a vital connection to the city where basically people could come in and learn how to curate audio that they care about to share with others? When you were at WKNC? What was your What was your DJ name? I was very boring. It was just Jacob. Nice. My name is not even just Jacob. Just Jacob.Elizabeth Esser  4:08  Nice. Super simple. Was there a point during your time at WKNC when you knew you wanted to continue working in radio in some capacity?Jacob Downey  4:19  No, but there's definitely a point where I would like whenever I would consider jobs in different places. One of the things I would look at would be the the media landscape of those places. And definitely wanted to find a way to keep radio part of my life.Elizabeth Esser  4:40  Establishing a nonprofit community radio station, that's no small feat. What drove you to founding Little Raleigh radio and what was that process like?Jacob Downey  4:50  Um, the biggest part of the process was, you know, how do we get to keep making radio and how do we create an outlet for other people to have that ongoing platform to begin learning to create radio content, a big part of that was influenced by Steven waltman, who wrote a thick tome, the FCC called the information needs of communities. And he really laid out the case for how much of a dessert there is for folks getting involved in media. And so that's why we decided that that was the type of organization that we wanted to be kind of that that's step one, for folks that want to pursue a broadcasting career or hobby. And we chose to be a nonprofit, because at the time, the local community radio act was getting momentum in Congress, and that was only open to community organizations. Mostly 501 C3 nonprofits and church groups. So that influenced a lot of our structure for how we created the organization.Elizabeth Esser  5:59  And so I understand that at one point, you had a goal of obtaining a low power FM license, but were unable to do so during the last filing window. Do you have plans to continue pursuing an lpfm license during the next filing window,Jacob Downey  6:13  we will definitely look into it there'll be a question of fundraising and if there is property available, that will allow us to put a tower up where frequency is available until they make those filing window rules. The we really can't look at spaces to know like we know what frequencies are available. But not every possible antenna site in Raleigh, would have access to those frequency spaces. So we would do an engineering study. When the rules from the new filing window get made to see if there's something that exists from the 2 communities that we've identified that we want to serve, we're pretty committed to being the immediate gateway for folks in downtown Raleigh and southeast Raleigh. So we probably would not be looking at them if there were only frequency sites available in like North Raleigh or Cary. There's other folks in those communities that have great ideas. But we want, we're very, we want to be very focused on the people that are coming to our studio that folks can hear them through those treasure awaits. So we're anxiously looking forward to the new rules making process now that the FCC has finished their 5g movement. That's been it's been really slowing the next window down.Elizabeth Esser  7:30  So when you were creating little Raleigh radio, was there a particular reason why you wanted to have it located in the downtown area and the southeast Raleigh area,Jacob Downey  7:43  those two communities seem very physically connected, because there's not the beltline divide that that was a big part of it. And we really felt like, especially southeast Raleigh is very underserved for media, creating opportunities. And then downtown Raleigh is where you, you know, especially at the time was the closest that you had to a strong Arts District in Raleigh. So that's where a lot of your creative capital was already invested in. We wanted to make sure that we were a pipeline those people,Elizabeth Esser  8:16  what does the future look like a little Raleigh radio?Jacob Downey  8:20  Like a lot of nonprofits were rebuilding post pandemic, as folks at WKNC probably attest as well. It's a very droplet heavy activity. So most of our producers, especially folks that are retired members of our communities, have kind of taken a break. So we're looking forward to getting them back into the studio. And as soon as it's safe to do so bringing new producers into our studio, because the big question that we wanted to solve was, you know, what does Raleigh sound like? A...