Fresno Bee

The clamor to turn on the school bus AM/FM radio — or change the station — often starts as soon as students climb on board.

Many bus drivers are happy to comply. It seems to calm students, and drivers can use the radio to bargain with them: If they stay in their seats and are quiet, the radio stays on.

A Massachusetts company is cashing in on rambunctious bus riders with Bus Radio, which provides free music and public-service announcements for school districts to use in their buses. And, yes, commercials, but the company promises students will hear fewer than on regular radio and that none are inappropriate for young people.

"We find that the kids are better behaved if we can play the radio," said Diane Komoto, transportation director of the Central Unified School District in Fresno.

While many transportation directors and bus drivers are high on the Bus Radio concept, others are critical.

"My major concern is we are being asked to provide a captive audience to a group of advertisers," said Ginny Hovsepian, a member of the Clovis Unified school board. "By doing that, we would be putting our seal of approval on music and advertising."

Bus Radio's push comes at a time of increasing concern nationwide that young people are harmed by constant bombardment from advertisers.

Its practice of selling kids-only audiences to advertisers is "nothing that school boards should be enabling or collaborating with," said Robert Weissman, a spokesman for Commercial Alert, a consumer-advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The Mansfield School District board in Massachusetts in June 2006 rescinded a vote to contract with Bus Radio after parents complained about the advertising.

A similar outcry was raised by some when Channel One was launched in 1990. The satellite television network, which is broadcast to teenagers in classrooms, features educational programming and commercials.

Bus Radio co-founder Steven Shulman said the program's features and age-appropriate programming are far better for students than regular radio.

"They won't hear Budweiser commercials or Viagra commercials," Shulman said.

The company limits advertising to eight minutes per hour, which supporters say is far less than regular radio stations. Bus Radio programs also feature announcements about bus safety, underage drinking, bullying and obesity.

Since launching the company in 2005, Shulman said, 10,000 buses across the country have been outfitted with Bus Radio equipment, reaching 1 million listeners. The number of buses with Bus Radio has increased tenfold since 2006, he said.

Programming is delivered to districts via the Internet, with 10 hours of new programming downloaded every night in separate tracks for elementary, middle and high school students. Bus depots are installed with a WiFi network and microserver, while special radio units are installed in buses.

Programming is sent to the microserver in the depots, then transmitted to the buses every night.

The Bus Radio equipment also features an emergency button to call 911 and a Global Positioning System for buses.

Districts get a share of Bus Radio's advertising revenue, depending on the number of buses tuning in.

In Clovis Unified, the district's cut would be about $1,500 a year, based on an estimate of how many buses would use it and how often, said Michael Johnston, assistant superintendent of business services.

Clovis Unified appeared headed toward approving a contract with Bus Radio last month before Hovsepian and other board members voted 6-1 to table the topic. They wanted more information about Bus Radio, including the company's "mission statement" on advertising, Hovsepian said.

"I'm not leaning toward supporting it," she said later.

But she said she's glad the proposal came their way, because it sparked discussions about the stations bus drivers let students listen to and could lead to restrictions on AM/FM radio use.

Board member Brian Heryford voted against tabling the issue. He later said Bus Radio's programming was preferable to regular radio.

"Some of the rap music is just foul," Heryford said.

Drivers mostly agreed that music on the bus makes the ride go more smoothly. It gives students something to focus on other than each other, forestalling the continuation of playground squabbles or the start of new spats because students are crammed so close together.

Many schools don't allow CD players or digital music players such as iPods, so students' only music options are the bus radio.

Sharon Quesada, a bus driver for Kings Canyon Unified, said she alternates between country and rock stations, letting students choose.

"I tell them I'm old and would prefer country," Quesada said.

She avoids certain stations that air songs with more racy lyrics, but sometimes a song slips through.

"Many times, I don't understand what's being said," Quesada said. "One of the kids will say, Do you know what they just said?' and I will be shocked."

She said student are generally quiet on the ride to school but are wound up by the time she's driving them home.

Kings Canyon driver Kim Reed puts on an oldies station and leaves it there. If she tunes into rap music, students start "bouncing off the walls."

She keeps a few children's CDs on hand that her elementary-age riders enjoy: "If they sing, they sit."

After a hard day at school, Matt Kent, a seventh-grader at El Capitan Middle School, said he needs some peace. The radio meets that need: "I like it when (the bus driver) turns it on because it calms me down.

—Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service