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July 21, 1996 -- Beat Radio makes its debut at 97.7 FM in Minneapolis! 20 watts at 110 feet in downtown Minneapolis. For 103 days, Minneapolis listeners enjoyed a unique dance music station -- an exciting, original and invigorating
radio station programmed in Minneapolis for Minneapolis and unlike any of its neighbors
on the dial. 20 years later, Beat Radio is silent at 97.7, and the perfectly usable
frequency for a low-power station goes to waste because a group of other Twin Cities
stations (and a station *in Rochester, 80 miles away*), flexed their collective influence
with the FCC, who responded by seizing essential equipment on November 1, 1996. The launch of beatworld.com coincides with the birth of Beat Radio.
November 1997 -- Beat Radio returns to the air for 3 hours a week over community station KFAI, 90.3/106.7 FM, Sunday nights overnight from 2 am to 5 am in the Twin Cities. This continues into June 1998. February 18, 1998 -- Beat Radio goes nationwide every night live for 12 hours on 10 stations of Children's Broadcasting Corporation, originating from Minneapolis. The stations and cities are:
October 24, 1998 -- With the closing of the sale of the Children's Broadcasting stations imminent, the final night's broadcast as the Beat Radio Network. (see below for further info) July 24, 1999 -- Celebrating its 3rd birthday, Beat Radio returns to the air on KVSC, 88.1 FM from St. Cloud on the second Saturday of every month from 4-7 pm. This continues into December 1999.
July 8, 2000 -- Celebrating its 4th anniversary, Beat Radio is broadcast on KSMM, 1530 AM.
October 4, 2000 -- Beat Radio continues to defend itself in federal court, filing an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court October 4, 2000 regarding defenses and jurisdiction of the FCC's case, which, after nearly four years, has yet to come to trial. The Court ultimately elects to not hear the case.
To our friends (October 24, 1998):
Beat Off is complete.
All eight Beat Radio stations have been sold and new owners took possession of the stations at 5pm Central time, Friday, October 30, 1998. Beat Radio may be off the air at the moment, however it is not the end of Beat Radio!
While we're off the air, we'll be working hard to get Beat Radio back on
the air. We don't know how, where, when or even if. But know that we want
to continue Beat Radio for you, and we'd like to return to all of
the cities we were in and hopefully more! However, it will not be easy in the
current broadcasting environment and there is no guarantee we'll be successful in our return to all of the cities or in any at all. This isn't the first time Beat Radio has disappeared from the airwaves. We have a history of bouncing back. And we will again.
The eight stations we were heard on - all owned by the same company -
had been for sale for over a year. In fact, an earlier sale that was to close on January 30, 1998 didn't go through as expected. It was because of that
occurrence that Beat Radio got the opportunity to return to the air on
February 18, 1998, this time reaching a national audience! We knew that we'd be
on these stations for a temporary period until a new buyer was found, we
just didn't know how long that would be. Nobody knew. It was to be for an
indefinite time.
As it turns out, we logged over eight months in our latest incarnation, the "Beat Radio Network." Considering the unusual
circumstances, that was an incredible and rare opportunity! We hope you
enjoyed listening to Beat Radio as much as we enjoyed doing it! Thanks for all of
your love, calls and email. We miss you as much as much as you miss us.
We thank you for your support for the 8½ months that we were on nationally. We further thank our Minneapolis-St. Paul listeners, who've been with us since July 1996. Our "beatopia" Friday nights at First Avenue in Minneapolis continue every week - we hope you'll join us in person, we'd love to meet you.
This website isn't going anywhere! Our business phone in Minneapolis,
612.391.BEAT [note now 763.391.BEAT], remains in service. Our postal address isn't changing. You
can find us very easily and we hope you'll stay in touch. Any developments
with Beat Radio will be posted here, so check in often. And we'll continue
to update the DJ charts and the audio archive!
Many of you have asked, "Can't you stay on with the new owner?"
Short answer: no. The two companies that purchased the stations have their own specific plans
to broadcast their own formats.
Some of you have asked if we'll do a webcast. Short answer: we're
broadcasters, not webcasters. At this time, the limitations of the
internet make it unfeasible for us to devote the amount of time and energy
it takes to produce Beat Radio for a 'net-only' feed. Remember we're Beat Radio, not Beat Net! (Though it has a nice ring to it!)
We hope you'll take the time to write a letter to your local daily and
weekly newspapers lamenting the lack of a dance music radio station in your
city and the lack of programming diversity overall (please send us a copy). As long as we
collectively remain silent and invisible, we'll continue to be ignored by
the existing broadcast stations who will continue to favor the lowest of
the lowest common denominator formats. Stations and advertisers need to see
us (fans of dance music) and know that we're a sizable number of people who are worthy of
advertisers' attention. Folks, that's the name of the game. In addition to
newspapers, get visible with letters regarding the state of American broadcasting to your House Representatives, U.S.
Senators and the FCC.
In closing, everyone at Beat Radio thanks you a thousand times for your
support and interest. We've made a difference on the airwaves over the last two and a half years. Hey, we
gave your radio an antennema! Thanks for being a part of what Beat Radio is
all about: positive, inspiring radio that serves people with programming
you can't get anywhere else. Music That Makes You Feel Good!
Join us @ First Avenue in Minneapolis every Friday with 6 Beat Radio DJs on two levels!
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