WSJ: College radio transforming on university deals

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MicrophoneSeveral college radio stations have transitioned away from playing local and lesser-known artists after their university owners decided to sell or lease their licenses and air time. Georgia State University’s WRAS, for example, has been taken over for 14 hours a day by Georgia Public Broadcasting, which paid the university $150,000 and will continue to cover WRAS’ operating costs.


Since June  the station has undergone an overhaul: Instead of cutting-edge music, it now airs local- and national-news programs 14 hours a day, including during the peak daytime hours, noted a Wall Street Journal story. Excerpts:

“The transition hasn’t come without a fight. GSU students, alumni and supporters lit up Twitter to protest the deal. R.E.M., which has a huge social-media following, posted on Facebook and Twitter: “Big Money and power politics closes down a vital student radio station that helped launched [sic] R.E.M. and a host of others … #saveWRAS.”

WRAS isn’t the only college station to be transformed. Cash-strapped universities are discovering that their student stations are lucrative assets. They are finding eager partners in public-radio stations and religious broadcasters. The public and religious radio channels are looking to own the equivalent of beachfront property on the FM dial, which has a limited number of frequencies reserved for noncommercial radio. Often, public-radio stations that already host an all-news signal want a second signal to play classical or jazz music to appeal to their target audiences, as music and news generally don’t coexist well on one signal.

Those changes mean decidedly different fare for college stations. Rice University’s station was known for playing local Houston artists like rapper Fat Tony and indie pop group Wild Moccasins. The University of San Francisco’s station used to play the likes of AFI, the Dead Kennedys and MC Hammer as well as cultural programming for Chinese immigrants and the disabled. Both were sold in 2011—USF’s license for $3.75 million and Rice’s frequency and tower for $9.5 million—and now public-radio networks use the frequencies to play classical music all day.

In 2013, Pennsylvania College of Technology sold its station—on which mass-media communications students used to spin blues and jazz music—to the local nonprofit Williamsport Lycoming Broadcast Foundation. More than a dozen other educational institutions have sold their licenses, including Lehigh Carbon Community College and Michigan’s Spring Arbor University.

In the music city of Nashville, Vanderbilt University’s WRVU 91.1 FM station had long stood out, helping to popularize indie artists like Mumford and Sons and The Civil Wars.

Four years ago, Vanderbilt’s student communications group announced it was selling the station’s license to Nashville Public Radio for $3.35 million. Tune into that frequency now on a Friday afternoon, and you’ll hear François Boieldieu’s Harp Concerto or Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Horns.

The sale, which the university’s student media group said was made to provide a stable revenue source for its campus media groups, rocked WRVU’s loyal fan base. “It went from very eclectic, very powerful music to very close to elevator music,” lamented Sharon Scott, a former WRVU general manager and the founder of Friends and Family of WRVU, an advocacy group that filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission to try to block the sale.

College-radio fans say the deals threaten rock innovation and experimentation. Many fledging bands still get their start on college radio, where the lack of profit constraints allows the stations to experiment with music and expand listeners’ horizons, they say.

At GSU, the agreement allows the public-radio affiliate to have control over the frequency for 14 hours without acquiring the station’s license. WRAS continues to broadcast its own programming online. “The partnership provides Georgia State with valuable new assets, but most important, it opens the door to considerably expanded and enhanced collaboration that will benefit students and the university well into the future,” University President Mark Becker wrote in an email.

Many WRAS current and former staffers argue that their popular, professional operation gives them more opportunities for networking and job preparation than the internship opportunities and daily-TV airtime that Georgia Public Broadcasting has given GSU as part of the deal.

“With our oversaturated commercial radio market … college radio is necessary,” said outgoing WRAS general manager and GSU senior Anastasia Zimitravich.

See the full Wall Street Journal story here

Our RadioDiscussions.com community is discussing this here:

 

http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?668265-College-stations-sold-or-leased-to-NPR-religious-etc

RBR-TVBR observation: Sure, the money helps these universities, but it’s no wonder why listeners keep abandoning traditional radio as a source of music discovery. Also, without a hands-on outlet for students to learn how radio works, it does decrease the number of graduates out there wanting to try radio as a career. See how many of your staff worked in college radio—from sales to on-air to engineering.