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Non-Comm / Public Radio in Philly

R

rtetro

I recently returned from a trip to Boston, and in so doing, passed through my old New York City stomping grounds. Being the radio freak that I am, I of course tuned across the dial to see what (if anything) was interesting. As I tuned through the non-com portion of the FM band in a lot of the northeastern cities I passed through, I noticed a big difference between those markets and Philadelphia.

This concerns the number of good sized non-coms owned and operated by colleges and universities. For example, In the Boston metro (a large market for sure, but still smaller than Philly) there are at least nine full-power FM stations run by colleges. In the New York metro there are at least 10. Even in New Haven there are at least three, in Hartford four, and in Springfield four. In Philly, there are just three (not including low powers 100 watters like Vilanova). Three in a market that boasts how many colleges and universities? And these non-com numbers don't include independent non-coms like WGBH in Boston, WNYC in New York, or WHYY in Philly.

I know this question is more rhetorical than anything else, but what happened? Why didn't other regional colleges get into the act? One would have thought that colleges like LaSalle, Uarts, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and so on would have built substantial FMs when the spectrum was available.

Just an observation. I think we missed out on a lot of the divserity that a preponderance of such stations brings.
 
I'm a believer of quality instead of quantity, and Philly has a great college station with WXPN. They've always been cutting edge there in terms of music. It represents its school well. Same with WRTI. Not as great a jazz station as KLON or some of the others, and I'm not a fan of the split programming concept. But it does a fine job.

The real issue with regards to college radio is how to pay for it. With college endowments and giving down, the first thing these colleges are looking to get rid of is the college radio station. I know of at least a dozen colleges that are looking to sell their non-com licenses around the country. Most will end up in the hands of religious broadcasters, who have no shortage of money.
 
rtetro said:
In the Boston metro (a large market for sure, but still smaller than Philly) there are at least nine full-power FM stations run by colleges.
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Hi, Rene', I don't think this affects your point, but as a resident of the Boston area and a died-on-the-wool radio geek, I sure can't count nine full-powered FMs owned by colleges in this market. With very charitable definitions of full-powered and owned by colleges, I get seven (WMBR, WERS, WGBH, WZBC, WBUR, WHRB, WBRS). I think a lot of people would come up with a smaller number. For example, I don't think it's fair to count WICN, which is licensed to Worcester and is not audible on most FM receivers in the Boston area because it is first-adjacent to Boston college's WZBC. If I'm not mistaken, WICN is also directional to the west to protect WZBC. Also, WICN is not owned by ONE college, but rather by a consortium of colleges. Do you include such stations in your total? I have included the Boston area's most powerful FM signal, WGBH, in my total even though it is owned not by any one college but by a non-profit organization whose shareholders include several colleges and universities. AFAIK, no single college or university controls WGBH.
 
TheBigA said:
I'm a believer of quality instead of quantity, and Philly has a great college station with WXPN. They've always been cutting edge there in terms of music. It represents its school well. Same with WRTI. Not as great a jazz station as KLON or some of the others, and I'm not a fan of the split programming concept. But it does a fine job.

The real issue with regards to college radio is how to pay for it. With college endowments and giving down, the first thing these colleges are looking to get rid of is the college radio station. I know of at least a dozen colleges that are looking to sell their non-com licenses around the country. Most will end up in the hands of religious broadcasters, who have no shortage of money.
Click to expand...

But can you really say that WXPN and WRTI are college stations? Sure, they are both owned by a college, but XPN receives no funding from U of P. Not sure about Temple funding RTI. Both stations have a professional on air staff. If students of the respective institutions are involved, it's probably behind the scenes. I would contrast these two stations with say the stations operated by Drexel or The College of New Jersey or WBZC out of Burlington. These seem to have a high student involvement both on and off the air. To me, XPN and RTI are really professional non-comms, not college stations.
 
wesdev224 said:
But can you really say that WXPN and WRTI are college stations? Sure, they are both owned by a college, but XPN receives no funding from U of P. Not sure about Temple funding RTI. Both stations have a professional on air staff.
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That's how WFUV at Fordham is run. Not many students at WKCR Columbia. WFMU was once owned by a college, but it went bankrupt.

College radio will have to be self-sufficient in order to survive. Colleges simply to have extra cash to bankroll a station. I'm still in touch with my old student-run college station, and they're fortunate to have the money come from a student activities fee. But even they are trying to raise extra cash from alumni, because the academics at the college won't support the station.

The point is that these are well run radio stations with a college connection. They're run well enough that their listeners pay for it! And if they're like most professionally run college stations, there is student involvement in areas where they can learn about station operations.
 
Protection of WPVI-TV on Channel 6 is definitely a factor in Philadelphia. In order to run "full power" in the NCE-FM segment within the protected contour of a TV 6 station, the FM transmitter usually must be in a sparsely-populated area or co-located with the TV (in the Roxborough antenna farm). Temple and Penn were able to raise the funds to move their transmitters off campus, but the smaller schools could not. Cap Cities (former owner of WPVI) was very vigilant in tracking NCE-FM applications and demanding full protection.

In large markets, the FCC FM allocations plan normally permits a high power station every 800 kHz. Working down from the lowest commercial frequency, 92.5, this would have allowed five "full power" NCE stations at 91.7, 90.9, 90.1, 89.3, and 88.5.

Instead, 91.7 became a channel for low power on-campus Class As, (WCUR, WKDU, and WMPH) due to its wide frequency separation from WPVI-TV. On 91.5, WSRN and WDBK were allowed to operate third-adjacent to WHYY-FM by way of interference waivers.

At one time, 89.3 could have accommodated a much higher power facility if not for the TV 6 constraints. This was originally the frequency of WHHS, a Class D.

WXPN was allowed to shift from 88.9 to 88.5 and increase power only by moving off campus to co-locate with WPVI. In fact, the original application for this move proposed a combiner to feed the FM transmitter into the TV antenna. After 88.9 was abandoned, the share-time operation of WXVU and WYBF was approved on 89.1 under a waiver.

Several of the college stations in Boston obtained similar third-adjacent waivers. Although part of the Boston market falls within the protected contour of Channel 6 in New Bedford/Providence, this TV interference could be excused in areas with city-grade coverage from a local station with the same network affiliation.

I should also mention that consulting engineer Ed Perry, who is based near Boston, is very skilled in finding opportunities for college stations to maximize their facilities.
 
Play Freebird said:
In large markets, the FCC FM allocations plan normally permits a high power station every 800 kHz. Working down from the lowest commercial frequency, 92.5, this would have allowed five "full power" NCE stations at 91.7, 90.9, 90.1, 89.3, and 88.5.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting number. It accounts for the entire Philly dial with some exceptions. I'm wondering why there are stations on
99.5 (in Wilmington)
100.3
101.1, and
103.9

Instead of moving each of those up (or down in the case of 103.9) by 200 kHz as the "every 800 kHz" algorithm would have it. Especially because there are stations in NYC on the first three of those four.
 
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