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Who’s Who of AFN in the PacificAFN knows they can’t please everybody, but they tryCAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A lot goes on behind the scenes to provide the mix of current, popular music heard on Armed Forces Network radio stations, according to AFN officials.

The American Forces Radio and Television Service’s AFN Broadcast Center, based in California, selects music using top charts, research and data from Billboard and Radio & Records magazines, AFN Broadcast Center spokesman Lawrence A. Sichter said in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes.

AFN’S worldwide radio and television broadcast network supports almost a million U.S. servicemembers, Department of Defense civilians and families stationed overseas at bases in 175 countries and on Navy ships at sea, Sichter said.

Each week, AFRTS ships three music CDs with about 12 songs apiece to its overseas AFN affiliates. Overseas DJs then select songs from current and past AFRTS CDs to play on air during their shows.

The goal is to "provide music formats that will appeal to the majority of our overseas listeners," Sichter said. What’s broadcast by overseas AFN radio stations is a sampling of what is popular in the States, he said.

"Music selections are based on current, top-20 charting songs" in most contemporary music genres, Sichter said.

"We adhere to the same network broadcast standards that major U.S. networks follow," he said adding that "what the majority of Americans are listening to is what we seek to provide our overseas audience."

By mirroring what is heard on U.S. commercial radio stations, "AFN provides our audience that touch of home," he said.

This is the most basic rule of the Department of Defense regulation 5120.20R, which guides the center’s music selection, he said. The regulation mandates that AFN listeners will be provided with "the same type and quality of American radio and television news, information, sports and entertainment that would be available to them if they were in the CONUS."

Petty Officer 1st Class James Stilipec, section chief of AFN Misawa detachment operations, said that by Defense Department regulation, AFN cannot play material that includes offensive words, racially demeaning language or lyrics that promote drug or alcohol use, deviant or socially unacceptable behavior, sexual abuse or harassment.

In accordance with the regulation, "AFN does not uplink music with offensive lyrics; we provide … the ‘radio edits’ version: the same songs played over the air in the States," Sichter said.

But the DoD regulation also prohibits the broadcast center from censoring the programs that are airing stateside, he said.

"To carry out that mission,… we seek the version most often played on U.S. stations, the songs heard in the ‘small-town’ markets across America," he said.

The CDs our affiliates receive may occasionally contain a song with a "lyric alert," Sichter said.

"The local affiliate has to make a judgment as to whether the lyrics-alerted song is appropriate for their community and/or the part of day during which the song might be heard," he said.