School Transportation News Magazine | November 2009
[Headlines]
BusRadio Ceases Operations to 160 School Districts
Nationwide By Ryan Gray Weeks following an FCC report on its broadcasts to students
via the yellow school bus and the Internet, BusRadio closed its doors as a result of the current economy, a spokesman confirmed. Company information indicated that the service was broad-
cast to 160 school districts in 24 states. Te FCC issued its report to Congress on Sept. 4 in response
to the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 that was signed into law in March. Te $410 billion dollar bill, which covers funding for the FCC and eight other agencies, directed the FCC to investigate the commercial broadcasting of radio and television programs on school buses. In May, FCC began soliciting public comments on whether or not BusRadio broadcast inappropriate advertising tar- geted at children, and the notice received hundreds of responses from parents, child specialists, educators, school administrators, bus drivers, transportation officials and child advocacy groups. While the FCC noted that the “vast majority” of comments op-
posed BusRadio, it ruled that the decision to use the company’s services was “most appropriately decided on the local level, where individual school districts in close partnership with parents and other stakeholders can weigh the particular benefits and poten- tial harm of the service in their communities.” FCC also encour- aged BusRadio to be more forthcoming and timely in the release of playlists to schools and parents before they aired. At the time, the ruling was viewed as a win by opponents of
the service and BusRadio officials alike. “What [FCC] came to as a conclusion was, let’s leave it up to the
people that know the transportation business the best, which is the local school officials,” BusRadio co-founder Steven Schulman told School Transportation News, adding that the company was willing to work with the FCC to address all concerns. “We’re really happy with the final outcome, because that’s the way we do it, a democratic process. We go in front of school officials and let them know what the program’s all about.” Meanwhile, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood at
the Judge Baker Children’s Center at Harvard Medical School, a lead- ing opponent of the service supported, said school districts should not force students to listen to radio broadcasts that include com- mercial advertising as well as questionable content from today’s pop music stars. It said the FCC report noted similar concerns about the amount of advertising to children and that BusRadio underestimat- ed to customers the number aired per hour. “What we wanted to do is point out the hypocrisy of BusRadio,”
said Josh Golin, a CCFC spokesman. “What they’re telling school dis- tricts in order to [sign a contract] is they’re playing different music than what’s on a commercial FM station. Tey’re not. We think it’s important school districts have all the info on what they’re playing because that’s such a key part of BusRadio’s sales pitch.”
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The economy, not a recent FCC report, was cited as the reason for the demise of a company that provided controversial radio program- ming to students on their school buses.
BusRadio content did include Top 40 playlists, but with certain
explicit and objectionable material removed. At least two states, New York and South Carolina, currently have laws that forbid any advertising that targets school children on school property, which includes school buses. “If you actually read the report, we thought it was a pretty
damning piece of evidence,” added Golin. “It’s an objective source; it’s a place parents or school districts can go to get information.” One selling point of BusRadio was that its service allowed
school districts to receive free safety equipment such as school bus GPS and driver panic buttons to be used in cases of emer- gency. “If in fact GPS makes a school bus that much safer, which I guess
I’m not entirely convinced it does, and I’m not in the transpor- tation business, we need to as a society provide that for school buses,” Golin added. “Te safety of our children ought to be a priority, but we shouldn’t need to try and bombard them with advertisements.” Tough BusRadio closed its airwaves [at this writing, the
company’s Web site at
www.busradio.com said the service was temporarily unavailable], the FCC report could serve as research that affects any next-generation attempts at broadcasting to students onboard school buses. Whether driven by the current economy or not, this case study is bound to be studied by other companies with similar aims of providing content services to stu-
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