Here Channel, a project by Caroline Creaghead that launches Friday, will enable anyone to be a content creator and host of his or her own audio program. It merges aspects of both radio and podcasting into a streaming format that can be heard online or through listening stations at an Over-the-Rhine studio across from Findlay Market.
“I want to encourage as many different people as possible with different levels of experience,” Creaghead says. “I say that meaning technical experience, but also just varieties of experience: people who want to share their ideas, people who want to interview other people or people who just like a type of music. We have all the licensing and royalties taken care of, so you can come in and just say, ‘Here’s my record collection!’”
It may be, she says, that Here Channel serves as a community response to the loss of WNKU-FM, which owner Northern Kentucky University is selling to a programmer of religious music. WNKU has served as an advocate and outlet for hearing new and Roots music, especially local, that is overlooked by area commercial radio stations.
“I think this is one of many responses to losing WNKU,” Creaghead says. She adds that start-up stations like the inhailer.com broadcast platform and Radio Artifact, Northside brewery Urban Artifact’s upcoming AM station, are attempting to do similar work.
“Here Channel, if not a permanent fixture, is at least some celebration and encouragement of the response to losing that resource in our community,” she says.
Creaghead received a $15,000 People’s Liberty Globe Grant from the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation, which allows her to use the nonprofit’s Globe Gallery at 1805 Elm St. as Here Channel’s base through Sept. 24. There will be a pop-up recording booth there — people sign up at herechannelradio.com to schedule time to use it, although some hours will be kept open for walk-ins. Those able to home-record can also drop off their files or deliver them online. After Sept. 24, the website will provide access to the online playlist of archived material at least through year’s end.
While many of the programs will be available from that playlist, there will also be some live-streaming, such as special Globe Gallery-held events like stand-up comedy, performance art and avant-garde music. The only rule is that content can’t be hurtful to anyone.
“Cincinnati has a lot of different performing art groups and opportunities,” Creaghead says. “I don’t by any means think this is the only venue, but I’m excited to have Here Channel be added to the fabric of the venues supporting that work.”
After working in New York as an intern for both The Colbert Report and The Onion, then working as a producer for stand-up shows in the city, Creaghead moved back to Greater Cincinnati in 2014. A year ago, she applied for a Globe Grant.
“I thought, ‘I don’t have to be in New York to be doing creative things.’ And in fact, I’m killing myself trying to keep my head above water (there),” she says. “Why don’t I go somewhere where I can relax a little and not necessarily turn a profit right away?”
Here, she works for a tax company that helps artists sort out their finances. Through that, she spun her own idea for a podcast, None of Your Business, which educates creative people on how to pursue their craft and be financially stable. She plans to relaunch it on the opening day of Here Channel.
“Through doing a podcast, I was like ‘Oh, people like content delivered this way because it’s so intimately delivered,’ ” she says. “It’s right in your ears and, largely, audiences have gone away from ‘At this time I’m going to tune in to this show.’ People want content to be on demand. Podcasts are.”
When she first applied for the grant, Creaghead says, she was asked why she preferred an online format versus terrestrial radio. Having worked on radio in college, she said she knew that it costs more money and its space is limited to time slots. With online radio and podcasting, that bar fades away.
The physical space for Here Channel’s studio, designed by Team B and fabricated by Branden Francis, will be sleek with a modern air. The actual recording area is to be right in front of a large glass window and faces Findlay Market. That should help gain attention, as people from all over the city shop there. In fact, the studio will be open to anyone — no reservations needed — from 2-5 p.m. on Saturdays, peak visiting hours at the market.
Here Channel’s online landscape is clean with elements of intrigue. The website was a collaborative effort between California-based Duck Brigade and designer Josh Jacob of Cincinnati firm Cosette.
Andrea Tomingas and Gabe Danon of Duck Brigade knew Jacob through the podcasting world. They had helped Creaghead build the website for None of Your Business.
“Caroline is the big idea person and Josh is the design person,” Tomingas says.
On every podcast website that Duck Brigade has worked on, they integrate a static player. Thus, as a listener navigates through the site, the audio will continue to play and not buffer or redirect. Here Channel’s site builds on this idea.
Bringing all of these professionals together is a dream for Creaghead. Here Channel, completely free both from cost to users or commercials, allows the creators to do what they want. Craighead says she hopes to find a few gems along the way.
“Being that radically open means that we’re not going to have some curator squashing some idea they don’t get,” Creaghead says. “So, nobody has to fear not being good enough, because it’s about experimentation and trying things out.”
HERE CHANNEL launches Friday with a 6-9 p.m. party at People’s Liberty’s Globe Gallery, 1805 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. Portions will be streamed live at herechannelradio.com. It will be active through Sept. 24; check the website for studio hours and/or to hear programming.
