Posted on: Tuesday, May 14, 2002

Byte Marks
Alaska radio station has right mix

By Burt Lum
A gude to cool Net sites and Web spots

An artifact of our contemporary culture is the content played on radio. Whether that content meets with your approval is totally subjective.

Readers of this column know I've bemoaned the pre-processed formats that fill the airwaves. All those contemporary hits, oldies, rock and easy listening formats are so common I would be hard pressed to tell the difference between one in Hawai'i and another in Dallas.

That's why I get excited when I hear something unique. It's an added treat when those sounds are pumped over the Internet.

One habit of mine whenever I travel to a new locale is to scan the radio dial to hear what's playing. While in Anchorage, Alaska, I locked onto KNBA at 90.3 FM. What caught my ear were the sounds of Native American music and a broad mix of eclectic programs with roots in native America.

To my delight, KNBA has a Web site at www.knba.org, and the station streams its live broadcast.

In Alaska the native people have created corporations that manage money received from the federal government for the Land Claims Settlement Act of 1971. In the region of Anchorage, the native corporation is called Cook Inlet Regional Inc. Affiliated nonprofit organizations such as Koahnic Broadcasting Corporation, or KBC, service specific projects like KNBA-FM.

The important point here is KNBA is a native Alaskan radio station supported in part by the Native Alaskan corporations and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The closest parallel in Hawai'i would be Hawaii Public Radio but KNBA is decidedly more native.

This programming is captured not only in the station playlist but also in the production work for National Native News and Earthsongs.

There's even a three-hour-long weekly show called Island Style, with Hawai'i transplants Kalihi Boy and Hana Guy as hosts. While I was there in March, Kekuni Blaisdell was a featured guest.

Reach Burt Lum at burt@brouhaha.net.