This week I’ve been largely fixated on digging into the details of LPFM applicants from all over the country. As I mentioned last week, it looks like there could be around 100 college radio groups applying for new licenses, including a few in the San Francisco Bay Area. Upon further research, I found out that one of the applicants, Peralta Community College District, already operates an online student radio station at Laney College in Oakland. With a new LPFM license, it’s hoping to take 9th Floor Radio to the airwaves.
Another new LPFM applicant, University of Virginia is a very interesting case. Although the university already runs FM station WTJU, that station is run by a professional staff of non-students and 90% of its programmers are from the community. University of Virginia is applying for a LPFM license in order to take its new student-run station WTJX to the airwaves. Currently an online and campus-only 1620 AM carrier current station, after just a few months, WTJX already has around 80 volunteer DJs.
In other college radio news, interested college radio DJs are being invited to enter a DJ competition that’s part of the International Radio Festival in Switzerland. The winning DJ will get to travel to Zurich to accept his or her award. The deadline is March 14th and in order to qualify you must be a college student in the United States or Canada.
York College’s (City University of New York) online radio station York College Radio was able to renovate its studios thanks to a donation from the person who built the campus-only (now online) station in 1974. It’s another reminder of how important college radio is to many station alumni.
A Boston College alum is about to launch a new social app for students that will also have a college radio feature. Initially targeted at Boston College students, the StudentNation app will, have a “…live radio feature that facilitates access to WZBC and other college radio stations from around the country.”
We’d written previously about an impending college radio station sale. Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina has submitted an application with the FCC in order to assign the FM license for WGWG to Columbia Bible College Broadcasting Company (a subsidiary of Columbia International University). According to the asset purchase agreement, the sale price is $1.2 million. Pending FCC approval, the new owners plan to air a contemporary Christian format to complement its New Life 91.9 brand.
I just saw a great profile of Duke University station WXDU, which also goes into detail about the important role being played by other local college stations in the Raleigh-Chapel Hill, North Carolina area. The article states, “Along with Chapel Hill’s older WXYC and Raleigh’s oldest WKNC, WXDU formed a triumvirate of local stations that made space on area airwaves for lesser-known and more adventurous music. That purpose persists.” Speaking of WKNC, for stations that were not able to attend the recent College Broadcasters Inc. conference, students from WKNC put together a handy summary of some of the sessions.
Another station recently profiled, Blue Colt Radio, is an interesting example of how a student radio station works in tandem with broadcasting classes at Middlesex County College in Edison, New Jersey. And, a continuing education student at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois was just profiled for his smooth jazz-blues-oldies show on WHCM FM. Up on Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth shared a profile of a student DJ at its station WUMD 89.3 FM. The piece points out that the profiled DJ was influenced to attend the university in part because of the radio station.
We cover the culture of college radio every Friday in our College Radio Survivor feature.
