On the Radio Survivor Podcast this week, I talked about the ongoing controversy at college radio station WMUA at University of Massachusetts, Amherst surrounding changes to the station’s programming schedule which are reducing the number of hours devoted to non-student programming. Matthew Lasar brought my attention to the protests surrounding the decreased number of hours for polka music shows and he gave an update on this on Monday.
Contributor Aidan Herrick brings us another musical relic from the KZSC record library, this time highlighting a Bruce Willis LP from the 1980s.
Other college radio stories that caught my attention this week include:
Martin Luther King Speech Found in College Radio Archives
I love college radio history and was excited to hear that the Amherst College radio station had a historically significant gem in its collection. According to the Boston Globe, Amherst College’s student radio station WAMH gave a box of reel-to-reel tapes from the 1950s through the 1970s to the school’s archivists in 1989. In the course of cataloging those items, a recording of a 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. speech was found.
The Boston Globe writes, “The result is a clear recording of King’s deliberate delivery of ‘The Summer of Our Discontent,’ in which he offers reasons for civil rights activism during the summer of 1963. The speech was delivered at the New School in New York City on Feb. 6, 1964, and was broadcast by the student radio station at Amherst College on Dec. 8, 1964.”
Items like this are what thrills me about the efforts of the Library of Congress’ Radio Preservation Task Force. The group is working to identify radio archives and has already signed up an impressive number of affiliate collections, including some with college radio holdings.
If you are at a radio station, institution, or organization with archival materials, please consider signing up as an affiliate collection. Additionally, we’ll be having a meeting of the College, Community and Educational Radio Caucus (Laura Schnitker and I are co-chairs) of the Radio Preservation Task Force on Saturday, February 27 at University of Maryland during the Radio Preservation Task Force Conference. Registration details can be found on the Task Force website.
Drexel’s Student Radio Station WKDU Revives Sports Broadcasting
Long absent from college radio station WKDU‘s airwaves, Drexel University sporting events will soon be a staple, according to The Triangle. Coverage of men’s basketball games has already begun. The Triangle reports, “Coverage has so far included the first two colonial association games and WKDU will continue to cover the remaining men’s basketball season.” The last time that men’s basketball games were on WKDU was back in the 1970s.
