From the WPRB history exhibit: Recruitment poster for WPRU. Photo: J. Waits

College Radio Watch: 100 College Radio Station Tours, WNYU History, Time Shares and More News

By Jennifer Waits on September 21, 2018 in College Radio, College Radio Survivor

It’s official. 100 college radio station tour reports are in the books, a milestone that I hadn’t even realized that I’d met. Thanks to my newly launched Radio Station Tours page, it’s much easier to peruse my radio station field trip accounts by station type and region. While putting the finishing touches on the list, I was pleased to see that I can now safely say that I’ve been to more than 100 college radio stations.

The grand total of ALL stations toured and written up is now at 147, owing to the community, high school, public, religious, commercial, and other miscellaneous stations that have been on my journey over the past decade. And for those keeping track, by my calculations, my visit to University of Chicago’s college radio station WHPK is my 100th published college radio station tour. Princeton’s WPRB still holds the distinction of my 100th OVERALL published radio station tour. Now, who will be number 150?

Another “Best College Radio Station” List

I weigh in on a topic near and dear to me… Is it possible to have a best college radio station list that doesn’t provoke controversy?

KUNV and WUEV Updates on the Podcast

On this week’s podcast, Radio Survivor Show #159, we share some recent updates about University of Nevada, Las Vegas radio station KUNV. The mostly jazz-oriented station has been the topic of several Radio Survivor podcasts. In 2015 we covered a proposal by Nevada Public Radio to take over programming of the station. Protests ensued and the university opted to keep the station under control of the campus. Part of the ongoing plan included a focus on student involvement, which then-General Manager Frank Mueller mapped out for us in Podcast #113.

This summer, KUNV made additional programming changes, which led to some amount of controversy, as some community-hosted shows were eliminated from the schedule.

Also on the podcast, we share some additional updates on rumors surrounding the possible sale of the FM license for college radio station WUEV at University of Evansville. Notable to me is that WUEV supporters successfully convinced school administrators to keep the station on campus when sale rumors were broached in 2005.

WNYU Radio History and College Radio Time-Shares

If only I could be in two places at once! Yesterday, Kate Jewell spoke at New York University about her current research into college radio history and the culture wars. In advance of the talk, “Constructing the Collegiate Sound: College Radio in New York City since the 1960s,” she shared on social media that,”The paper includes the story of WNYU’s FM founding and the origins of its share-time agreement with Fairleigh Dickinson, plus some other material from my archival research.”

I’d completely forgotten that WNYU shared the 89.1 FM channel with Fairleigh Dickinson station WFDU. It’s not surprising that my memory has faded, as my trip to WNYU was one of my early station visits (#6! back in 2008). The group tour was arranged as part of the CMJ Music Marathon and as an added bonus, Kurt Vile did a live set in the studio while we were there.

Speaking of college radio time-shares, on this week’s podcast, we spoke a bit about radio license time-share agreements and I mention a long-standing one (since 1991) between Villanova University’s WXVU 89.1 FM (see my tour) and Cabrini University’s WYBF 89.1 FM (see my tour). While those are full power FM stations; we are seeing more and more low power FM (LPFM) stations in time-share agreements due to the often intense competition for licenses in the recent application windows. Do you know of other college radio stations with time-share arrangements? Let us know.