College Radio Dying... Total Bummer..

[Matximus]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/business/media/06stations.html?src=me&ref=business

 

Backs up what Mr. BlueS was saying about his kids. Maybe it's all gonna start at the college stations first... those licenses are crazy valuable.

 

Back when I went to the college in the early 2000s, nobody really listened to the radio station that much either - least not students. But working at a college radio staton was like some of the most fun I ever had ... I'd spin records for like four hours straight through the middle of the night... Bring in local musicians... freaking heaven...That experience will be remembered as a relic of the times...

 

But yeah. It's an expensive endeavor - I can see why Colleges are going to slice them...

 

 

 

By JOHN VORWALD

Published: December 5, 2010

Recommend

Twitter

 

E-Mail

 

Send To Phone

Print

 

 

Reprints

 

Like many college radio stations across the country, Rice University’s KTRU and Vanderbilt University’s WRVU play a broad swath of music — from undiscovered indie bands and obscure blues acts to ’60s garage rock and ’80s postpunk. It’s a mix largely absent from commercial broadcasts, and students active in radio say their stations add distinct voices to their cities’ broadcast landscape.

 

But as colleges across the country look for ways to tighten budgets amid recession-induced shortfalls, some administrators — most recently in the South — have focused on college radio, leading even well-endowed universities to sell off their FM stations. That trend was felt this summer at Rice and Vanderbilt, among the most prominent of Southern universities, stirring debate about the viability of broadcast radio, the reach of online broadcasting and the value of student broadcast programming.

 

“We play music that you won’t find on any other Houston radio station” said Joey Yang, a junior at Rice and station manager for KTRU. “KTRU’s mission is to broadcast exactly what you can’t find elsewhere on the dial.”

[daddymack]

This was a long time coming. Even the NPR college stations are hurting big time since the CPB cut them adrift.

One would think that the FCC would cut some slack to these low power, local interest stations that do serve a specific community....but no, they are still the FEDERAL Communications Commission...our tax dollars working against us.

I too started in college radio, and worked in the biz on and off for decades both on-air and off, and at one of the most well known stations in the industry. It saddens me to see what has happened to radio in general, and that there is a lessening of support for college radio, and not just in the South. I blame the pursuit of the quick buck for much of this, but in many ways, the technology has surpassed the medium, and it may well be time to change the nature of terrestrial radio.

[Poker99]

Sad, but not surprising.