connect / 2016

DUBLAB FM in Los Angeles: Connecting LA Residents Through Freeform Radio

Idea submitted in the My LA2050 Grants Challenge by DUBLAB

DUBLAB's FM Initiative can help make Los Angeles the best place to connect by providing an extremely accessible platform for musicians, DJs, and artists to reach LA residents with freeform broadcasts.


Are any other organizations collaborating on this proposal?

Machine Project, Echo Park Film Center

Please describe your project proposal.

DUBLAB has received a license from the FCC to broadcast on the FM airwaves in Los Angeles, and would like to build our FM broadcasting capabilities with funding from the LA2050 grant. We will buy a transmitter, an antennae, and be able to hire an engineer to put it all together. The decision for dublab to broadcast on the FM airwaves has been a long time in the making, and is part of a larger organizational effort to engage more listeners with our diverse, freeform broadcasts.

Which of the connect metrics will your proposal impact?​

  • Social & emotional support
  • Cultural events
  • Travel time to work
  • Residential segregation
  • Total number of local social media friends and connections Angelenos have

In what areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?

  • City of Los Angeles

Describe in greater detail how your proposal will make LA the best place to connect?

DUBLAB’s FM Initiative can help make Los Angeles the best place to connect by providing an extremely accessible platform for musicians, DJs, and artists to reach LA residents with freeform broadcasts.

In its current incarnation, the Dublab radio program reaches every corner of the city (and the world) via its Internet stream. Our Los Angeles listeners, which we have between 100,000 to 125,000 annually, are spread across the entire city. According to our past surveys, the location of our donors, and the emails we have received throughout the years, we have listeners in every part of the city: from South Los Angeles, to Highland Park; from East Los Angeles to Hollywood and everything in between. Los Angeles is the second largest radio market in the US, and we anticipate awareness and listenership of dublab programming to increase dramatically once we get on the FM airwaves.

Beginning in the throes of the internet boom of the late 1990s, dublab has maintained a steady, relevant presence that has out-lived countless other internet radio organizations. To date, we are officially the longest-broadcasting online station in the world. Due to our longevity and a desire to share music not heard on mainstream radio, dublab is recognized as a pioneer in the now booming field of internet radio streaming. Both an incubator for homegrown talent and an early champion of various LA-based artists, from Flying Lotus and Dam-Funk to Julia Holter and Animal Collective, local and international audiences consider dublab to be an anchor in LA’s forward-thinking artistic and musical movements. While our organization is known internationally as a beacon of LA music and culture, it is also a hub where Angelenos can access contemporary sounds from around the world, and independent artists can find traction and airtime where they might not have had otherwise.

Dublab has a long history of making LA the best place to connect. Over the years, dublab has presented hundreds of free concerts throughout the city of Los Angeles. Dublab has curated the main music stages at the Eagle Rock Music Festival for six years running, at the Abbot Kinney Festival for the past three years and, for four years, we presented a series of free, dublab curated concerts as part of the Levitt Pavilion summer series. Our organization has also contributed to numerous free, public programs at the Music Center, Getty Center, Hammer Museum, LACMA, Los Angeles Public Library, Santa Monica Pier, Grammy Museum, REDCAT, cicLAvia, and dozens of other major arts institutions in Los Angeles. DUBLAB also serves as a creative incubator for musicians in Los Angeles to develop their sonic experimentations in both live performance settings and studio­ based radio broadcasts.

Please explain how you will define and measure success for your project.​

DUBLAB’s FM Initiative will be evaluated by the following metrics:

PUBLIC FEEDBACK:

To evaluate the response from the public, an e-mail survey will be conducted with participants at the end of the project’s first year. Feedback given by the public will be compiled with anecdotal reports from studio staff.

MEDIA RESPONSE:

Press received will be taken into consideration alongside public opinion. Positive coverage in at least three major Los Angeles media outlets will be considered a success. We will also take into account the depth of social media activity throughout the course of the initiative and the number of followers gained.

Staff Review:

The staff will conduct a review at the end of each month of operation to evaluate the studio’s success based on enthusiasm of the audience and depth of engagement. At the end of the first year of operation we will determine if the quality of the project successfully fulfilled the initiative’s goals.

How can the LA2050 community and other stakeholders help your proposal succeed?

  • Money
  • Publicity/awareness
  • Community outreach
https://archive.la2050.org/2016/dublab-fm-in-los-angeles-connecting-la-residents-through-freeform-radio/
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