What successful commercial radio music format has originated at student-run college stations?
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WCSB Flips to Jazz
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You can see many of the Gavin reports at GAVIN REPORT - music and radio industry music tipsheet and newsletter
Finding old Gavin issue is amazingly hard. If anyone here knows of any that I do not have yet, please email me at [email protected]
Considering the cost of the station, even the administration admits money wasn't the issue.
And I don't consider it inevitable that they're not learning skills either way, just because it's not teaching them how to do commercial radio. There's immense value to it.
If I'm a taxpayer I don't mind my $1.35 a year going to public radio, or whatever amount going to WCSB. I'd rather it go to them than Amazon or Space X.
And I don't consider it inevitable that they're not learning skills either way, just because it's not teaching them how to do commercial radio. There's immense value to it.
If I'm a taxpayer I don't mind my $1.35 a year going to public radio, or whatever amount going to WCSB. I'd rather it go to them than Amazon or Space X.
From all the news reports, Ideastream was offered a $1 million donation to put JazzNeo on a full signal. So in that way, money was an issue.
They obviously couldn't blow up WKSU or WCLV. Ideastream lost over $2 million in CPB funding two months ago. They had to find a way to replace it.
By who?
This was in an article in Post #3:
More detail from Ideastream here:
Ideastream Public Media Announces Transformational $1 Million Gift from Char and Chuck Fowler for NEOJazz Legacy Project
Ideastream Public Media is proud to announce a landmark $1 million gift from Char and Chuck Fowler to support the creation of a dedicated studio for JazzNEO.
www.ideastream.org
Or Austin City Limits. Or American Masters. Or the great Ken Burns documentaries. Or Nova. I guess you never heard of those shows.Don't forget the travel shows with Rick Steves.
Char and Chuck must really love jazz, but must lack the ability to tune in with a HD Radio or stream. So the best option was to donate $1,000,000 to get Ideastream to place NEOJazz on a standard FM broadcast which barely covers all of Cuyahoga County, plus a studio for live on air performances?
They are obviously familiar with the JazzNeo on HD. They didn't do this for themselves. That's not what foundations do. They do this to benefit others. As Char said, "This project is a great opportunity to ensure that the sound and spirit of jazz continue for future generations.”
As I said, Ideastream needs to replace $2 million in funding rescinded by the government. This is a way to start.
VintageMac
Banned
Who says they need the $2 million? There's waste in any organization. The donors that gave the million should have just given it to Ideastream for general operations not just for jazz which is a niche format anyway.
Your defense of Ideastream again sounds like you're an insider despite your denials.
VintageMac
Banned
It sounds like the usual entitlement mentality from wealthy individuals who want to get what they want. They could have just donated the money to Ideastream for general use. That is their choice but I'm sure the students that volunteered or worked at WCSB would have appreciated that kind of help in the past. Very unfortunate for them and using the police to escort them out seems a bit much but that is the political time we live in at the moment even at a public university.
No successful radio format has come from college radio stations; however, several successful songs and some music trends (think 80s New Wave) can be traced directly back to college radio.
That's only going to be a short-term fix.
That's what running a non-profit is all about. You go from crisis to crisis.
One of the founding principles on this board is that we discuss ideas, but we do not attack other members.
Don't keep going down this route if you want to stay here.
The money was applied for and already spent. That's how the grant process works. You have to itemize in detail how the grant money will be spent. People were hired using that money. Facilities were booked. Then the government decided it wanted to punish NPR, so it rescinded all the money. So that money needs to be replaced, or people will be fired.
It's not defense when you're explaining the facts. If anything I've said is incorrect, please show proof.
If the rationale is that Ideastream just lost funding, then is acquiring the responsibility of another FM signal the best move for them?
WCSB was only costing $40K a year, and the bulk of that was for "ES" scholarships, at $28,800. The rest went to covering engineering.
This is one of those situations, like with the GPB duplication of public radio programming on WRAS that was already offered by WABE, where I as a person who generally supports public radio, think that it was a solution in search of a problem. I'm glad it's still a public station as opposed to, say, EMF, but this station obviously had an audience and wasn't a huge financial drain. There are multiple ways this could have gone differently and better, and I don't like seeing larger nonprofits do things like this without respect for what came before them.
WCSB was only costing $40K a year, and the bulk of that was for "ES" scholarships, at $28,800. The rest went to covering engineering.
This is one of those situations, like with the GPB duplication of public radio programming on WRAS that was already offered by WABE, where I as a person who generally supports public radio, think that it was a solution in search of a problem. I'm glad it's still a public station as opposed to, say, EMF, but this station obviously had an audience and wasn't a huge financial drain. There are multiple ways this could have gone differently and better, and I don't like seeing larger nonprofits do things like this without respect for what came before them.
It wasn’t an acquisition. Cleveland State continues to own and administer the license. JazzNEO was already existing for a year and does not require any startup costs; it’s merely being simulcast on WCSB. (One of the three local hosts on JazzNEO, John Simna, also doubles as WCLV’s music director.)
The Fowler grant is one of the ways Ideastream is trying to recoup lost funding, and the grant was very specific.
You're not looking at this from the POV of the university. Go through my previous posts.
I see no indication that they were forced or pushed into this. They wanted to get out of radio. Someone made them a good offer,
The WRAS example you give is similar. So is KUSF. Universities want to get out of radio. The only question is about how. More to come.
I said "acquired the responsibility" - they're still responsible for an additional FM signal as the result of this, and the coverage isn't that great. Engineering, upkeep, all of that, now falls on them.
I'm simply taking the university at their word. They, themselves, said it wasn't financial. You seem to think I'm suggesting it should or could be undone. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying they were very shortsighted in how this was handled, and it's getting more people upset than you'd think. It looks bad from all angles. People who might even have supported a jazz station don't respect how the parties involved in this behaved or made the change.
The WRAS example is suspect to me, because the government of the state of Georgia directly replicated NPR programming in market at taxpayer expense. Theory is, they did that to slant the "local" programming in favor of the government. Had nothing to do with what was or wasn't being done on WRAS or its sustainability. And even then, they let the students have nights to continue programming music. KUSF had a different set of factors. I'm speaking to what is, and as a public radio supporter, I don't like seeing public radio get an additional PR issue because of its own missteps. Now's not a great time for that.
It's also amazing to me that WCSB does in fact have the level of support it does. Some of these stations don't. People are noticing, and not in a good way.
On a personal level, I like jazz. I also don't think the decline in student radio is good for culture, and in fact, we're seeing stations with high levels of student interest once again. There's a valid role for student radio to play, and reasonable arguments in favor of its continued existence.
As you say, more to come. But I don't think it's good - for the students or community. And you might see more pushback than you expect. Do you really want to accelerate the message that FM is only for large donors and more elite non profits and declining corporations? This is how you send that message to students and community members who cared enough to be involved with actual radio. Not an audience I'd say radio needs more disinterest from.