| Familiar voice back on the air By Amber Withers Staff Writer The Palladium-Times Saturday, June 20, 2009 (Page 1) As many radio stations moved to larger cities, such as Syracuse, one Oswego man has made it his mission to revive local radio. Former local radio personality Marv Kaminsky has started an online radio station, which provides relevant news, features and weather for Oswegonians, on their schedules. "I don't hear anything on the radio anymore that's local," Kaminsky said. "There used to be local radio in this city and every city." Kaminsky explained that many smaller, local stations have been purchased by larger communications companies and migrated to highly populated cities, leaving a lack of coverage in smaller cities like Oswego. "The problem is in most cities of our size, it's very expensive to do traditional radio with transmitters and staff and programming expenses," he said. "So everybody said, 'Well, we'll look toward the big cities to make more money because there are more people there,' or, like a lot of businesses that have consolidated, 'We'll sellout to a big company,' and they proceeded to look at the big cities and abandoned places like Oswego." So Kaminsky has taken it upon himself to single-handedly bring radio back to Oswego. The station, which he broadcasts via the Internet at www.radiooswego.com, contains organized links to various news, feature and weather stories, making it easy to find exactly what listeners want to hear. The separation of the different recordings makes it easy for listeners to choose exactly what what they want to listen to, without having to listen to parts they don't want to hear. "They can expect to hear something like like local radio used to be - local news, weather, interesting features and a neighbor doing the talking," Kaminsky said. "I'm just trying to think of what people would like to hear, what's interesting and giving it to them." Kaminsky posts several segments to the site daily and continues to update news and weather throughout the day. "I figure I can do this using the Internet and try to recreate something and provide this important service to people," he said. "People want to hear the local news and you can't do that on the radio anymore." Kaminsky admitted that another reason he started the station was for his own benefit. "I just moved back to town to be near my closest friends, who all live here and I thought to myself 'What could be fun and interesting?' and this seemed like something that would be," he explained. The native Oswegonian had been away from the Port City for 23 years before moving back at the beginning of June. He previously worked as an air personality at for WSGO and WRVO in Oswego; WSYR, WFBL, and WSEN in Syracuse; stations in Binghamton and Geneva; and stations in Lancaster, Penn. Kaminsky has also dabbled in other professions and has recently obtained a master's degree in library science. He also has a bachelor's degree in communication studies. "I realized, while I was living in Kansas, there's no place like home," he said. "So I came back to Oswego." Kaminsky said he plans to keep the radio station broadcasting on the Internet and is still looking at ways to develop the financial aspect of his new endeavor. He is also expanding on new ideas for features and encourages input from residents." "People are very happy and they're telling me that a local radio station is important, even if I'm doing it this way - without the music, without the filler - there's suddenly someplace to go to hear the news and people appreciate that," he said. It's just something I'm very proud of," Kaminsky added. "The radio business today has just become so homogenized, so corporatized, so much about big money and big numbers that it's lost its heart and its soul. I think the Internet allows us the ability to find some of that heart and soul." |