Radio Survivor

College Radio Matters

Last week I reported the news that Rice University was planning to sell the FM signal and broadcast tower for its college radio station KTRU to University of Houston. Since then I’ve spoken with KTRU’s Student Manager, who shared with me the fact that this news was released during Rice University’s summer break, making it difficult for students to initially organize and rally.

Despite the timing of this announcement, supporters of KTRU have made an impressive effort to save the station. Their Save KTRU Facebook page has more than 1500 fans, a rally at Rice University drew approximately 200 KTRU supporters, and Houston’s local Pacifica radio affiliate KPFT has even offered up an HD channel for KTRU in the hopes of ensuring that the station can somehow retain an over-the-air signal.

Those fighting for KTRU are still asking for help and have set up a new online petition which they are asking supporters (especially Rice University students, faculty and alumni) to sign. They are also seeking donations in order to help publicize their cause and obtain legal representation. KTRU alumni have chimed in with their thoughts on why college radio is so vital. Ray Shea’s piece on the Save KTRU website expresses the magic of college radio beautifully. Here’s an excerpt:

“KTRU was the driving force that would eventually propel me through six years and two college degrees. My best lifelong friends are all people I met at KTRU. And together we learned about music, about business, about media and promotions and organization and scheduling and budgeting. We learned how to deal with people, how to compromise and reach consensus. Sometimes we didn’t learn as well as we should have, but goddammit, we learned.

And somewhere in all that craziness, all those late nights drinking beer and listening to records and arguing about music, we accidentally participated in a movement. A movement that would permanently change the face of the music industry forever…

Somewhere out there, in the heads of a bunch of passionate music-minded middle schooler and high schooler and undergrad kids’ heads, is the next musical revolution. And KTRU can still be on the leading edge of this innovation and progress, but only if they are still around to do so.

My great fear is that if KTRU’s 91.7FM frequency and broadcasting tower are stolen out from under them, it will result in the eventual slow death of the station. For many reasons…an Internet-only radio station simply does not have the influence and resources necessary to survive as a self-perpetuating ecosystem. The loss of the frequency will essentially gut the station’s programming. And it breaks my heart that my two brilliant, talented, music-loving teenagers, both of whom up until last week were considering Rice as a possible college destination, may not get to experience what I experienced.”

I was also pleased to see that a number of people affiliated with University of Houston are also opposing the sale by showing up at rallies, organizing Facebook groups and speaking in favor of student radio at Rice University. A columnist at the University of Houston paper even pointed out that the arrival of a second radio station on campus won’t benefit students at either institution.

In an interesting twist, the folks at Save KTRU are reporting that fans of public radio and classical music (who have been happy to hear of University of Houston’s plans to expand the public radio network with this purchase) in Houston will actually be disappointed by the proposals on the table for the new all-classical station on KTRU’s current spot on the dial. Apparently the broadcast range for the new classical station will be much smaller than the existing classical station on KUHF. So who wins?

2009 CMJ College Radio Awards

Even though I complain a lot about bogus radio station accolades, it’s still nice to see awesome stations getting recognition from their peers and the powers that be.

For the past few years college radio trade publication CMJ has been hosting a College Day during its annual CMJ Music Marathon in late October. As part of the festivities, college radio DJs and stations are feted with an awards ceremony honoring their efforts.

If you or your station reports playlists and charts to CMJ then you have an opportunity to suggest nominees for the awards. Now until September 27th you can nominate your choices for Station of the Year, Music Director of the Year, Most Adventurous Radio Station, etc.

You can see some of the individuals and stations who were nominated and won last year here. As always, I think it would be great to see nominees who haven’t made these lists before, so I encourage anyone involved with college radio to nominate and vote.

There’s more sad news on the college radio front today, with the report that Rice University is selling off the 50,000 FM signal for their long-time college radio station KTRU. According to a press release issued today, University of Houston System plans to buy KTRU’s tower, frequency, and broadcast license for $9.5 million in order to expand their public radio network. They plan to air classical music and fine arts programming over KTRU’s frequency and will devote their current station KUHF’s frequency (88.7 FM) to news and talk. The press release states,

“‘The acquisition of a second public radio station delivers on our promise to keep the University of Houston at the forefront of creating strong cultural, educational and artistic opportunities that benefit students and the city of Houston,’ said Renu Khator, chancellor of the UH System and president of the University of Houston.”

Ironically, these same arguments about the cultural and artistic benefits of the radio station are also being used by fans of KTRU who don’t want Rice University and listeners to lose an existing cultural institution.

KTRU, which began as a student experiment in 1967, will continue to operate as an online-only college radio station, but this option is not being embraced by those who see the ongoing relevance of having a terrestrial signal.

Official word from Rice University indicates that they believed that KTRU’s audience was too small to merit a the 50,000 watt station. According to a set of FAQs on the Rice University News and Media relations website,

“The economic downturn, and the resulting losses to Rice’s endowment, led to careful evaluation of how the university prioritizes and spends its resources, both its annual operating budget and its assets. In KTRU’s case, it became clear that the radio tower and 50,000-watt frequency served very few people. Because of Internet technology, KTRU can continue to serve its audience through www.ktru.org, while the university applies the proceeds from the sale to programs and services that will serve more people and help achieve the university’s aspirations.”

Students, alumni, and fans of the station couldn’t disagree more and are already stating their displeasure and have set up a number of groups in order to try to convince the administration of Rice University to reconsider. According to the website Save KTRU, Rice University abruptly shut down KTRU in 2000 and after talks with station members failed, the university agreed to continue running KTRU after more than 400 alumni wrote to the school stating that they would no longer donate to the university. Those with an interest in saving the station are encouraged to write letters to university officials, sign an online petition, join the Save KTRU Facebook page, follow Save KTRU on Twitter, and spread the word about the plight of the station.

A post on the Burn Down blog expresses the important role that KTRU has played both on campus and in the wider Houston community:

“KTRU provided a sense of community, creating a joint pride that despite our research-oriented ways, Rice was one of the hippest places in Houston. KTRU’s eclectic music requirements ensured that it constantly played music that was on the edge. More so than any other Rice institution, KTRU provided new and exciting art to anyone with a radio. Not just the Rice campus, but all of Houston benefitted from KTRU’s artistic endeavors. By selling KTRU, Rice is selling one of Houston’s most valuable artistic centers, and it was located on Rice University.”

Personally I’m disappointed to see another example of a university selling off a station for some quick cash. The result of this particular transaction will be that the Houston airwaves will become less diverse, with yet another public radio station (and presumably national programming) taking the place of a long-standing, well-respected local college radio station. FM does still matter, why else would University of Houston offer to pay over 9 million dollars for it.

Princeton Review just released its annual latest college guide, The Best 373 Colleges, 2011 Edition, and in it, as always is a listing of colleges with popular radio stations. As I mentioned when I wrote about last year’s survey, I take issue with the methodology of these rankings and with the way that they have been described by Princeton Review and by radio stations. This listing of radio stations is headlined “Best College Radio Station” in the guide, even though students answering the surveys were simply asked “How popular is the radio station?” (which is the sub-headline).

Because of this, the survey really only gets at the fact that students seem to be aware of a radio station on campus. Survey takers aren’t asked the names of campus stations or if they are listeners. In fact, several of the schools on the list have multiple radio stations, so it’s impossible for one station to lay claim over the title of “most popular radio station” with certainty.

For example, in the latest survey Sacred Heart University is cited as having the 18th most popular radio station. Since Sacred Heart owns both an Internet-only student station (recently cited as one of the most popular campus clubs) and a public FM radio station, it’s not clear which station students were referring to when they said that their radio station was “popular.”

Additionally, this list is based on surveys of students at only 373 colleges, so it does not include the entire universe of college radio stations.

On Spinning Indie I have a complete list of this year’s “winning” radio stations in addition to the listings from the 2010, 2009 and 2008 editions of Princeton Review.

On July 22, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued a revised version of their Broadcasting and Regulatory Policy (PDF) as it applies to campus and community radio in Canada. Amid all of the policy changes (and a nice promise of funding), which for the most part are meant to simplify the ways that the CRTC looks at and regulates stations; there were also some interesting tidbits about the ways in which the Canadian government seeks to promote diversity and local artists on its airwaves.

The CRTC requires radio stations to play a certain percentage of spoken word programming, special interest music, music of Canadian origin, and asks that campus stations limit the number of “hit” songs that they play. The weekly percentages of material from each category vary by type of station and have changed over the years based on evolving needs of radio stations and revisions to the CRTC’s definitions of the different musical categories and sub-categories.

I was fascinated to see that the latest policy included references to experimental music and a discussion of where turntablism fit into that category. The CRTC even conducted an investigation into turntablism, with their Turntablism and Audio Art Study 2009 outlining not only the history of turntablism, but also delving into the challenges of attempting to categorize turntablism, DJ mixing, and audio art. According to the study:

“Turntablism and audio art are becoming more common forms of expression on  community and campus stations. Turntablism refers to the use of turntables as musical instruments, essentially to alter and manipulate the sound of recorded music. Audio art refers to the arrangement of excerpts of musical selections, fragments of recorded speech, and ‘found sounds’ in unusual and original ways…”

Stemming in part from this report, the July 22 policy change introduced a new experimental music sub-category of music for Canadian broadcasters, with its definition as follows:

“The unconventional and non-traditional uses of instruments and sound equipment to create new sounds and an orchestration of these sounds. This includes audio-art, turntablism, musique actuelle, electro acoustic and sound ecology. While it may involve the use of previously recorded sounds to create new sounds and orchestrations, it does not include spinning or beat mixing where the alterations of previously recorded tracks are limited to mixes between two or more pieces or samples.”

They further found that if a turntablist or sound artist is Canadian, then the piece of experimental music will also meet the requirement for music of Canadian origin (known as the MAPL designation). More details about these programming requirements are outlined in the previous Campus Radio Policy document from 2000 and in the related policy document Revised Content Categories and Sub-Categories for Radio.

It’s encouraging to see that Canada works to encourage musical diversity on radio and I would imagine that the Canadian broadcast system is unlikely to see the ever-shrinking playlists that have become so commonplace in the United States. Yet at the same time, the complexities in categorizing music and determining what constitutes a piece of Canadian music under the MAPL system must be time-consuming projects for radio stations. I’d be interested to hear if DJs and stations (particularly those on college campuses) feel that these policies help to support their missions to expose unheard music and local artists, or if they feel that the rules hamper their creative freedom.

KALX Studio

I’ve visited more than 23 radio stations all over the world, from tiny store-front operations like East Village Radio in New York City to small town community radio stations to a big corporate commercial station and everything in between.

Not only am I passionate about what goes on in the DJ booth, but I’m also obsessed with the artifacts of radio, especially at college stations. What is hanging on the walls? What weird objects are lurking on shelves? What types of conversations between DJs have taken place over the decades on the covers of LPs?

At KFJC, where I DJ, there’s an ever-changing collection of items rotating through the make-shift gallery in the lobby. There could be the latest find from the station’s monthly highway clean-up gig (animal skulls, a prosthetic arm) propped up on the KFJC tiki bar. Or the walls may be graced with found objects, like a note from a kid, newspaper clippings from decades ago, and fan letters.

Skull watches over WBAR's office

As I wrote a few months ago in my post, Top 5 Things Found at Every College Radio Station, I’m particularly obsessed with ubiquitous items, like musty old couches and sticker-covered cabinets. Surprisingly, there are some even weirder objects that keep showing up on my visits, like skulls.

With that, here is a listing of skull-like items that I’ve seen in my travels:

1. Skull keeping its eye on DJs in the booth at UC Berkeley’s KALX.

2. Paper mache skull and crossbones loitering in a locked office at Barnard College station WBAR

3. Skull and cross-boned cat logo on T-shirts, banners, stickers, windows and wall art at Pirate Cat Radio in San Francisco

4. Deer skull at Foothill College station KFJC

Are there any skulls haunting the halls of your favorite radio station?

Bye Bye 1-91 FM

Why do I always feel like I’m the bearer of bad news about college radio?

In another sad sign of the times, Clover Park Technical College in Tacoma, Washington has decided to cut costs by passing along control of its 51,000 watt college radio station KVTI to Washington State University’s Northwest Public Radio. As a result of this change, the formerly top 40 station known as I-91 FM began piping in classical music programming and NPR news on June 21st. An article in the Tacoma News-Tribune stated that:

“The new programming at 90.9 FM doesn’t require a person, let alone students, to operate the studio in Lakewood. WSU’s radio arm, Northwest Public Radio, is based in Pullman. It sends feeds to Clover Park and 14 other participating stations in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.”

It’s really sad to see another college turning control of its radio station over to an outside entity, especially when the previous format seems to have been doing quite well. According to the Tacoma News-Tribune piece, Clover Park Technical College plans to eliminate its radio broadcasting program:

“The college also said it was paring back programs that offer less promising careers, and that radio broadcasting is struggling along with other media. ‘We can’t sit back and invest money in something that doesn’t have a strong future for students,’ Clover Park spokesman Shawn Jennison explained this week. ‘If a program is considered successful, you have to have more than a dozen students interested.’”

This is a comment sure to send chills down the spine of college radio DJs everywhere, as radio programs and radio stations are notorious for attracting a low percentage of students. Their corresponding value, however, isn’t necessarily linked to campus popularity. The article points that out in sharing the perspective of KVTI’s former station manager, program director and radio instructor John Mangan, who said that the station was extremely popular:

“Mangan…said even as the station counted down to its inevitable closure, it grew in popularity. Its audience peaked to an all-time high of 160,000 listeners per week over the winter, and hovered around 120,000 listeners when it closed this month. He said it also had plenty of local sponsorships and support from local businesses. And while the broadcast program had a 20-student maximum, 19 students were enrolled when the closure was announced last year. The last six students graduated this month. He estimates that more than 500 students enrolled in the program since 1982, and many went on to work at radio stations all over the country.”

I fear that more and more college stations may be heading in this direction, which unfortunately means that there will be fewer independent radio outlets on the air. When the same programming gets duplicated on a number of different stations, I think it’s an unfortunate loss for local communities.

I-91 FM A History from Martin Brockhaus on Vimeo.

WTJU's Programming Quagmire

University of Virginia radio station WTJU was at the center of much buzz and heated online debate last week, as staff and listeners reacted to news about proposed changes to both the station’s format and volunteer involvement. Concerned and frustrated DJs turned to the Internet, with one penning a blog post called, “WTJU is Facing a Horrible Crisis” and another creating the website “Save WTJU” in order to chronicle the events of recent weeks.

In April, the 53-year-old college radio station hired General Manager, Burr Beard after the previous General Manager retired.

According to WTJU’s former Rock Music Director, Nick Rubin, Burr met with the station’s department directors on June 7th to share both a proposal for a new weeknight schedule for the station and reveal several “policy planks.” Nick told me that “once these got out to the general DJ lists (and then, to the listeners), the outcry was instant and widespread and ran the gamut from conciliatory to outraged.”

The proposed schedule included blocks of jazz programming from 5 to 8pm, specialty music shows from 8 to 10pm (soul, reggae, etc.), and rock music shows from 10pm to 3am. In the case of jazz and rock, this schedule represented a drop in the number of weekly hours for these genres. One of the new proposed policies included having one DJ per shift, which would be a change for WTJU, which currently allows for alternating DJs from week to week. According to Nick, the new Station Manager also called for “a rotation of four songs per hour, which would be chosen by department directors from 20 releases, and rotated by computer to appear in a DJ’s program log for airplay each hour.” Currently DJs have a lot of freedom at WTJU, so these changes were met with opposition. (more…)

Radio in Front of Pirate Cat Radio in San Francisco. Photo: J. Waits

What a year in radio it’s been!

Back in June, 2009, Matthew, Paul and I agreed to focus our energies on Radio Survivor in order to champion all things radio.

Coming from the perspective of radio fans, academics, and DJs; we’ve devoted much energy to espousing the virtues and lamenting the pitfalls of radio in all of its forms.

There is still hope for radio, not only in expected places like college, community and other non-commercial stations, but also in some free-thinking commercial stations, on the all-but-ignored AM dial, over satellite, online, and through mobile devices.

We think it’s been great fun over the past year, but know that we can always do better. To help keep us on our toes (and to help keep us around), we invite you to:

1) Send us suggestions on stories that we should cover

2) Follow us on Twitter, “Like” Us on Facebook, and tell your friends about us

3) Consider doing your Amazon shopping through our links

4) Post your classified ads and radio events on Radio Survivor (It’s free!)

5) Donations are always welcome too

We appreciate all of the support, even if it’s just reading our site!

Dave the Metal Guy doing his show at WVUA. Photo from Metal Zone page.

Last Friday, May 28th, long-time college radio DJ David Standifer, aka “Dave the Metal Guy,” died at the age of 38 of an apparent brain aneurysm. Up until December, 2009 he’d been the host of University of Alabama college radio station WVUA’s long-running metal show “The Metal Zone.”  The program, which began in 1982, had been hosted by Dave since 1993.

Sadly, Dave was fired by station management last December and “The Metal Zone” was taken off of the air. When it became clear that WVUA would not reconsider, Dave began working with other WVUA alums and metal fans to create a new metal radio station in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. According to the proposed station’s Facebook page, they were on their way towards creating an FCC-licensed station. Sadly, the last post by Dave (just a few days before his death) on the new station’s group page was “we now have a control room!”

Hopefully Dave’s enthusiasm for both metal and for radio will be embraced by his friends and fans and his dream of a new station will be realized.