Radio, Radio: Campus broadcasting is a lot more than just navel-gazing programming

[marmar]

from the Detroit Metro Times:




By Simone Landon


Scan the low end of the radio dial on a typical Tuesday night and this is what you might hear:

At CJAM (99.1 FM), a man with a Southern drawl gives a "big howdy to Lollipop, Oliver and Flopsy" before introducing the "first bona fide rock 'n' roll song recorded" — Ike Turner's "Rocket 88" from 1951.

On WHFR (89.3 FM), avant-garde jazz fades with static and overlapping bible talk from Yes FM — a Christian station out of Toledo that shares the frequency.

Reggae strains of the Wailers on WCBN hit you if you're toward Ann Arbor, but if you're in the northern suburbs you might hear a local folk music calendar on WXOU — both at 88.3 FM.

If you're around the University of Detroit, you might be able to barely pick up CST Radio (WCST 91.9 FM), the sound of spoken word poetry sputtering from its transmitter.

....(snip)....

Wilson says "college radio is this last bastion of real music, because of the way commercial stations have squeezed everything into a specific format slot." He also respects that college stations "truly find out what the community has to say and put that into what they play."

McGraw says part of the function of a college station is to play the "middleman" for local bands and record labels. "A local band will take a song to a music company and the company will say, we won't take you until you've been on radio." She says WHFR even used to have quotas for playing a certain number of local artists per program.

....(snip)....

Yet the relevance of college radio, too, is challenged in an age of podcasting and music widely available on the Internet. If college radio was once the home of the offbeat and obscure, listeners now have wider access to that type of programming online. All of these stations both broadcast and stream their programs live on the Internet.

"We're a terrestrial radio station and, in this day, you could accuse of us being vintage or maybe a little bit old-school," Smith says, but, "for all its warts and blisters, live radio is what it is; it's our passion, it's what we're putting out there." ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=15304

[MadHound]

1. College radio is a musical bastion against the pop pabulum that dominates the rest of the airwaves

It is also what drives new artists careers and new musical genres to mainstream popularity.

I was, way back in the day, a joc at the top US college station. We, along with college radio stations across the country, were a major factor in driving punk and New Wave into mainstream prominence. If it wasn't for college radio stations, David Byrne, Bono, and so many others would be doing something else besides recording.

[Erose999]

2. I love college radio, but sometimes they take "eclectic" too far....

every now and then I tune in to 88.5 in Atlanta (GA State's station) and I'll hear some "noise artist" making 8-10 minutes of feedback. Not even Radiohead style "noodling", just a constant tone of w~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o and maybe a drumbeat. Do people really enjoy that sort of thing?

[CBGLuthier]

3. Yes, some of us do enjoy it.

Sure, it is a tiny small niche but yes, drone and noise music does have its following.

I prefer mine without any pulse or drumbeat but to each his own.

Here's a little SUNN O)))) to set the mood. This is more "melodic" than their usual fare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FycBfIxm2BA

[DBoon]

4. and a shout-out to KXLU in Los Angeles

from Loyola Marymount University in Westchester

[Gold Metal Flake]

8. Beat me to it. 88.9

Also a shout out to KTRU Rice University 91.7 in Houston which was very important to me in the 1980s.



http://www.kxlu.com/


http://www.ktru.org/

[hermetic]

5. Another shout-out

for Radio K, the award-winning student-run radio station of the University of Minnesota, playing an eclectic variety of independent music both old and new.

http://radiok.cce.umn.edu/

[Evasporque]

6. 88.9 Radio Milwaukee...Diverse Music for A Diverse City

HipHop, Indie-Pop Rock, Metal, Latin, Local, Freak Folk, Alternative and rare classic R&B, Soul, Rock, World even late night DJ and Electronica...

http://www.radiomilwaukee.org/Article.asp?id=363115

They have a iPhone App too... 88Nine

Intermixed with insightful community building radio features like the "Neighborhoods Project" a series covering the various neighborhoods in Milwaukee, the history, people and leaders that live there, "The First Summer of the Rest of Your Life" another series following at risk youth's last summer in Milwaukee before leaving for college.

(That one made me cry...)

all mixed together with no commercials...

When you listen...if you don't like the song playing the next one you will.

Really one of the best radio stations I have ever heard. It is button #1 on my presets.

[TheMightyFavog]

7. Nobody mentioned WWSP is Stevens Point?

Great station, and home to the World's Largest Trivia Contest!