ABOUT THE FILM

A film by Bill Lichtenstein

119 minutes | In theaters beginning May 1, 2026 

Before social media, before the internet, there was WBCN — at a time when the airwaves still belonged to the people.

This is the untold story of how radio, politics, and rock and roll helped end a war and change everything. At a time when it matters more than ever.

The Airwaves Belong to the People: WBCN and the American Revolution is the definitive account of WBCN-FM Boston, the legendary Boston radio station that helped change American music, politics, and media forever. At a time when the mainstream press was failing to tell Americans the truth about Vietnam, the draft, and the Nixon administration, WBCN did something radical: it told the truth. 

On WBCN, the music, the news, and the politics were inseparable. A generation tuned in for the music and to be entertained — and because it was the only place telling them what was really going on.

The film begins in 1968, when the counterculture arrived in Boston — hippies in the streets, police cracking down, a generation looking for something new. Out of that moment, a young lawyer named Ray Riepen opened the Boston Tea Party, a music venue that became the beating heart of the scene. When the crowds kept coming, Riepen had a bigger idea: a radio station. On March 15, 1968, a classical music station became something previously unheard on American radio — a place where people said what they thought, played what they wanted, and changed everything. It features Bruce Springsteen's first radio interview and live in-studio performance (1973), Patti Smith's first radio concert (1975), and rare archival material from Jane Fonda, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Garcia, David Bowie, and Lou Reed. 

It is a story about music and media, about dissent and democracy, about what happens when a group of people decide that the public airwaves should serve the public — and fight to make it so.

Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Bill Lichtenstein brings together rare archival footage, iconic recordings, and the voices of the people who were there — on the air, in the streets, and in the halls of power. The film aired nationally on PBS, sold out its Boston-area premiere, and the Boston Globe's Ty Burr called it a film audiences "watch with awe."

This film is not nostalgia. It couldn't be more relevant.