OurMusicalRoots.com, the Saint Louis Internet station that was denied a reader’s choice award by a Saint Louis newspaper, picketed the newspaper office as promised on Wednesday. Station founder John Stephens reported back to RAIN that all went well, with a potentially productive meeting with the editor of Riverfront News, the publication which decreed that Internet radio is not real radio. (See our reader poll on this question.)
The station received a large number of votes in the reader-choice contest, but was eliminated because it does not broadcast terrestrially.
The paper’s chief editor emerged onto the street in mid-picket, bearing gifts: shots of tequila. He promised to consider opening a contest category for Internet stations in next year’s “Best of Saint Louis” feature.
It all seemed friendly and fun — and a uniquely effective station promo. Stephens reported to us that listenership spiked during the demonstration lead-up. In our listening, we heard protest promotions in nearly every voice break.
OurMusicalRoots.com is staffed with professionsl DJs, giving it a “real radio” sound (and expense sheet) — a fact that spurred John Stephens all the more to make a formal protest of the paper’s decision.
