Tensions at WITR

[JakeLongwell]

Any of you who know me personally know that, for me, the issue of college radio stations being open to community members is sort of a "hot topic". And so, when I read about the strife at WITR in this week's Northeast Radio Watch, I had to comment here.

For those not aware, it seems the current student board at WITR feels there are too many community volunteer DJs at the station, and they feel most or all of the non-student shows should be eliminated in order to make room for more student programming. I presume this would mean more time given over to the modern rock format heard during the day on the station.

I know some of you will disagree, but I have to side with the community jocks in this case. WITR is the closest thing Rochester has to a freeform radio station these days. In fact, when WRUR became part of the WXXI family, WITR seemed to pride itself on being independent, and community driven. Now, it appears they regret having such an open door policy, and they want to revert back to a student station. I say it would be a mistake for them to go in this direction. The station already has a reputation as a nainly community programmed outlet, with several niche formats that have no other home on the radio in the Rochester metro area. If these shows are taken off of WITR, where are they to go? Surely not to commercial radio.

I am sure some on here will respond by saying that WITR was originally designed as a hands-on lab for training RIT students for future careers in broadcasting, and, as such, should be student run with a consistant format. That may very well be. However, the administration at RIT should have thought of that before deciding to open the station to non-student DJs all those years ago.

By ditching the volunteer jocks and their programming, they may be going back to their roots as a teaching tool for students, but they will at the same time be alienating the majority of their listeners. I guess the quesiton is, which is more important?

As a community volunteer who is part of a college radio station, I hope that there can be a reasonable compromise worked out between the students and the volunteers, many of whom have been with the station for decades. If not, then I suppose WITR will become yet another typical college rock station, giving us the same music which can already be heard 24/7 up the dial at 90.5 or 94.1 respectively.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

I've been pretty close to what's going on there as a current hockey play-by-play broadcaster for RIT and a station manager as a student back in the early 1980s. The current student managers asked me to meet with them recently to ask some questions and find out some historical information.

Unfortunately the reporting on this has been pretty one-sided and in the case of Jeff Spevak, wildly inaccurate. Spevak's story from Saturday quotes a "Greg Hydro," combining the GM's first name with the PD's last name -- it's not clear which one he spoke to. Spevak also said that the Reggae Sounds program is no longer on the air, while two of the show's three hosts have continued the program after one of them left the show. He has not responded to my note pointing out those errors and I've not seen a correction in the D&C (though I haven't looked at today's paper.)

Scott Fybush's brief mention on Monday in NERW was accurate, but doesn't tell the whole story.

Here's what is happening:

1) Over the years, what had been conceived as an eclectic format like KEXP or The Current in Minnesota has instead become a lot of block programming with a tremendous amount of inconsistency in both what is presented and in program elements, station identity, etc. The GM and PD are looking to return to something similar to what had been the format from about 1980 to the mid-to-late 90s. This would be a format that combines current indie music with other genres that the station broadcasts like world music, reggae and blues. It was a fairly loose framework of "consistent diversity" back then that worked well -- room for creativity for the host but with some guidelines to give the listener some reference point -- and the return to it is not a minus, but a plus for music lovers. (And it was a format that in 1984 drew better than a 1-share in a.m. drive and from 6 p.m. to midnight.)

2) Most of the specialty shows that have been on WITR will continue. Some will be at new times. Three of the programs that have been discontinued were Christian rock programs and another three were those that the station management did not see a compelling reason to continue.

3) Community DJs will still be part of the station. RIT's student government had demanded in September that all community hosts be eliminated and the station fought against that, despite what has been reported. What will probably change is that those community folks who have had a vote in electing the student managers will probably no longer have that say. Student government was outraged to find that they did. Though WITR is licensed to the university, its funding is virtually all from student fees except for a small amount of underwriting, the largest amount of which comes from its broadcasts of RIT hockey. The idea of a student organization funded by students having decisions made for it by non-students has not sat well.

4) A push toward better recruiting and training has given WITR a huge contingent of students looking for air time. There were so many prospective trainees in the fall that many were deferred until this academic quarter to be trained.

5) WITR's station manager is not some kid, but a former Entercom PD who went back to school looking for a new career. His guidance is making a big change in the attitude the students have toward radio -- a far more serious one than I've seen in several years, despite an advisor who stated to that she does not consider WITR "a real radio station" when the GM told her that they wanted to run it like a real station, one in which students actually learn something about radio.

Bottom line, what is happening is a return to how WITR operated for the first 15 years or so after its increase to 1kw in 1982. Specialty programs will continue to be part of the programming as will community members. The programming will not become like WBER or WZNE, but rather a decidedly indie eclectic mix -- the original intent of WITR's slogan, "Modern Music and More."

I've been very disappointed to see how this has been treated both in the press and on a Facebook page. I hope this sheds some light.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

An additional note or two -- community volunteer program hosts who had their shows discontinued have been offered the opportunity to continue as hosts within the station's main format, and at least three are going to do so.

I think that the format direction that WITR is headed in will be a plus. It will tend to focus a bit younger and a bit edgier (though with some overlap) than WRUR's AAA/Americana programming. It will be far less commercial and far more eclectic than WBER or WZNE.

I probably would not have handled the schedule changes exactly as they have, but they are balancing being both a student organization and an FCC-licensed service to the community. They face political pressures within the campus, the need to meet organizational and legal requirements as a student club and as a licensed operation, and they need to do this while balancing school.

Finally, I think it is great that they have community members, but in doing that they become something quite odd among other student organizations. I don't see community people demanding to be writers for the weekly school newsmagazine, or alumni insisting that that publication be formatted in a certain way, or alumni insisting that the activities board bring in only the sort of concerts they'd want.

 

[Bob1370]

I'm not here to weigh in on the WITR issue, or WRUR, or any of the area's college-related stations--you'd have to be there to understand the specific issues, which are often unique to each. It seems to me, though, that one problem they all have is attempting to define their real mission. Are they attempting to be teaching venues for aspiring broadcasters within the student body? Are they trying to be an entertainment vehicle for students with any off-campus listening at best an incidental benefit? Are they trying to be community service voices first, teaching tools second? Are they hoping to be competitive forces in their city of license trying to challenge commercial stations for audience? Have they sat down, at this stage (often 50 or 60 years after their first broadcasts) to even ask, let alone answer, the basic question--"what's our mission and purpose?"

There's no one right answer to that question. It varies all over the lot. At one extreme there are all the carrier current and low power FM stations that are purely for student recreation and entertainment. Most campuses have one of those, sometimes more than one. (WJPZ in Syracuse and WBNY at Buff State come to mind immediately along with the carrier-current dorm-only services at Fisher and Nazareth.) Then there are the stations that primarily serve as arms of mass media faculties like WICB in Ithaca and, to an extent, WAER in Syracuse. You have the community stations that blend public service and informational programming with community voices, alternative programming for a larger community audience, and teaching functions to one degree or another. All of these stations have one thing in common--a gradually evolving and shifting emphasis that's often not precisely defined.

There are also stations like WBFO or WRVO that, while licensed to and nominally tied to university campuses, are essentially community-oriented public stations for adult regional audiences, like most NPR affiliates; their prime mission is regional public service and it's well defined.

Then at the opposite extreme, there are the student-owned co-op groups that run their stations as pure commercial licensees chasing Arbitron dominance in 12-34 demo cells, fiscally independent of their universities (and often with studios and offices physically located in an off-campus neighborhood and transmitters on elevated land at the edge of town) though staffed and managed by enrolled students. Those stations include classic rock WVBR-FM in Ithaca (Cornell University), active rock WBRU in Providence (Brown University) and rhythmic CHR WUVA in Charlottesville (U. of Virginia), and a few others around the country. Those stations seem to be the only ones that have consistently defined themselves, and they've chosen to define themselves as profit-making enterprises that incidentally teach students broadcasting simply by making them do it real-world style day by day while offering them at the same time a chance to make some $$$. That isn't an option open to most college stations unless the student organizations running them had the foresight to make themselves fiscally independent of their colleges and get themselves a license in the commercial part of the FM band back when those allocations were going begging in the 1950s.

Everyone else seems to be struggling to define their mission, and maybe that's where the discussion ought to begin. Once you know just what it is you're trying to do, you won't have so many arguments about what you're doing and how well you're doing it.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

Everyone else seems to be struggling to define their mission, and maybe that's where the discussion ought to begin. Once you know just what it is you're trying to do, you won't have so many arguments about what you're doing and how well you're doing it.

Very well said. And indeed, I think that's where the difficulty is.

Is WITR licensed by the FCC to serve the community? Yes.

Is it intended to be programmed to serve more than just the student body? Yes.

Is it a student-funded and managed club? Yes.

Is it there to train students? Yes.

Do community volunteers contribute to all of its goals? Yes.

Keeping all of those things in view and in balance requires a lot of work. It requires the university to understand that while WITR is a student organization, it is also a licensed broadcast outlet that needs to serve its community of license and thus needs to be organized and managed with a certain level of professionalism. It requires community volunteers to understand that it is primarily a student organization. It requires students to value the long-term contributions of community volunteers and to understand that the station was there before them and will be there after them. I think all of these purposes can co-exist if each group recognizes the need for each element.

When any or all of those get out of whack, difficulties will arise. Some of what's going on now, in my opinion, is the result of the student managers trying to put things back in balance. I think that from the advisory side, there's been too much emphasis on the club aspect and too little on the radio aspect. I think the community volunteers have increased their presence and influence as a result of the vacuum left by too little emphasis on "real radio" and they have kept the station afloat while the main programming format has floundered.

If the current student management can right the ship and put some organization back in place, their legacy will be appreciated for many years. I know that back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, a strong sense of organization and passing that organization along from year to year existed. That sort of well-oiled machine fell apart over the years and this group is trying to put it back together. I just hope they get the institutional support and guidance from the administration, particularly on the broadcasting side, that they need.

 

[aaronread]

By definition, trying to keep all those goals...many of which are mutually-exclusive...will inherently create tension at all times. How much tension depends on a host of factors, some are universal to the concept of college radio, some are unique to the station, the market, the college and the community.

I'm mentioning that just to point out that WITR will ALWAYS have these tensions as long as they stay with their current model. That's not to say I think that's a bad thing per se. I don't think it's ideal, and in an abstract sense I'd argue it's something to avoid, but it is what it is and for most stations...no doubt including WITR...you usually can strike a balance that'll leave everyone happy enough to outweigh any unhappiness.

BTW, does RIT have a radio broadcasting curriculum? Or any sort of communications or journalism curriculum?

I ask because that's something very important to keep in mind. If your parent college doesn't have that curriculum, then your station will ALWAYS be deemed "outside of the core mission" to the college. And rightly so...if you're not directly supporting a curriculum, you're not core-mission. It does however mean that as a student activity...and a (comparatively) obscenely expensive one at that...you'll want to make sure you have solid community support. That can save your bacon if a new administration comes in...or if there's a budget crisis...and people start wondering why they're spending all this money on the radio station. Remember, if you're getting, say, $40,000 a year in budget and you feel that's too low (and it probably is) you have to remember that for a lot of student activities, their budget is less than a tenth of that, and they serve for the direct benefit for as many (or a lot more) students.

One good way to protect yourself is to have the threat of a P.R. disaster if the college meddles too much with the station.

Another, of course, is to lower your "cost" to the parent college. Has WITR considered doing more fundraising and/or underwriting? It's impossible to overstate how powerful a factor that can be; very few departments in a college have the ability to generate their own revenue of any kind. If you haven't already, you might want to check out WRUW's "How to Beg" fundraiser guide...it's a very good website.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

By definition, trying to keep all those goals...many of which are mutually-exclusive...will inherently create tension at all times. How much tension depends on a host of factors, some are universal to the concept of college radio, some are unique to the station, the market, the college and the community.

The amount of tension likely is overblown by some very bad reporting.

BTW, does RIT have a radio broadcasting curriculum? Or any sort of communications or journalism curriculum?

RIT does not have a radio broadcasting curriculum, but it has undergrad programs in advertising and public relations, journalism, and professional and technical communication, as well as a graduate program in communications and media technology. In addition, there are pertinent activities for other majors and WITR draws many computer and electrical engineering students to help on the tech side, business majors, and other arts majors.

Another, of course, is to lower your "cost" to the parent college. Has WITR considered doing more fundraising and/or underwriting? It's impossible to overstate how powerful a factor that can be; very few departments in a college have the ability to generate their own revenue of any kind. If you haven't already, you might want to check out WRUW's "How to Beg" fundraiser guide...it's a very good website.

WITR does do some fundraising, but in actuality its budget has not kept pace with inflation over the last 20 years. And it's not a huge impact on the student activities budget, it seems. With a student enrollment exceeding 15,000 and an annual student activities fee of $210, WITR's portion of that budget is far less than two percent.

 

[dustintv]

Having done some work at WBSU myself I personally believe stations like WITR should be a student-run/orientated community station. On the flip side getting help from the community itself is greatly appreciated and that college radio stations should also think outside of the box. Now that doesn't mean throwing the sleep-inducing Democracy Now! or some excruciating racial/social affairs program(hello Native News and Africa Today!!!) onto the line-up but to bridge a connection between students and the local community.

 

[aaronread]

Hi Ed, bear in mind that I'm partly playing devil's advocate here...but I wouldn't assume that because WITR's budget is "only" 2% of SAF that it's "safe". What matters is the ROI calculation per student. In other words, how many students are directly involved with your student activity? Not listeners or indirectly benefited by promotion or whatnot...I mean how many people physically show up and do "work" of some kind in the studios or at remotes? I'm going to guess it's somewhere between 50 and 150 students, probably on the higher side of that range? Okay, now divide that number into your total compensation from the SAF. That's your ROI per student.

With most radio stations at colleges, the ROI per student is most lopsided of any of the student activities because most student activities have significantly smaller budgets. Granted, most activities also have fewer students involved, but having only 10% of the students gets offset by having only 1% of the budget consumed. The one major exception is campus concerts, which tend to cost a helluva lot more than the radio station (with "name acts" easily running $50k-$75k these days) but also tend to draw far more students...enough so that the ROI still ends up better than the radio station.

The amount of tension likely is overblown by some very bad reporting.

Probably, but unless you're out there saying something to counteract that reporting, and saying it on a platform that reaches the people who matter, then that bad reporting is going to become "truth".

RIT does not have a radio broadcasting curriculum, but it has undergrad programs in advertising and public relations, journalism, and professional and technical communication, as well as a graduate program in communications and media technology. In addition, there are pertinent activities for other majors and WITR draws many computer and electrical engineering students to help on the tech side, business majors, and other arts majors.

That certainly helps quite a lot. Does anyone get actual course credit for anything they happen to do at WITR? If so, you're already halfway to home in the "being safe" game.

Now that doesn't mean throwing the sleep-inducing Democracy Now!

Tut, tut - there's quite a few people out there that live and die by Democracy Now. Personally the show puts my teeth on edge half the time as it claims to be "objective journalism" when, at best, it's "advocacy journalism" (if not raw commentary) but I'm not going to deny it's appeal and reach. If WITR wanted to add more news/public affairs programming (and I'm not saying they should...in fact, I'd argue they shouldn't*) then Democracy Now would be an excellent way to do it. Easy to add, pretty much zero-cost, and automatically gets you lots of listeners.

* I say they shouldn't because WITR is primarily a music station, and mixed news/music stations rarely do well with listeners...something I frequently grapple with at WEOS.

 

[Mark Giardina]

With many small market radio stations having gone from live personalities to automation and syndication, the only place students can get hands-on experience are at college radio stations.

As with any situation there are always a few "bad apples" in the bunch that cause problems. In this case it's students who think its okay to swear on the air or try to be another "Howard Stern." But the vast majority of student-run programs are very entertaining.

When it comes to community programs that have been on the air for decades, well that's another story altogether. Of course the hosts of such programs are going to be upset when their shows are cancelled. Some have just up and quit.

All I can say is welcome to the world of real radio!

I don't mean to come across as being cruel and heartless, but stability is not a word often used in broadcasting.

Also remember that six months or a year after a show or on-air personality is missing from the airwaves, a majority of listeners forget the show or host ever existed.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

Hi Ed, bear in mind that I'm partly playing devil's advocate here...but I wouldn't assume that because WITR's budget is "only" 2% of SAF that it's "safe". What matters is the ROI calculation per student. In other words, how many students are directly involved with your student activity? Not listeners or indirectly benefited by promotion or whatnot...I mean how many people physically show up and do "work" of some kind in the studios or at remotes? I'm going to guess it's somewhere between 50 and 150 students, probably on the higher side of that range? Okay, now divide that number into your total compensation from the SAF. That's your ROI per student.

It's still not that bad, then. 150/15000 is 1 percent and the budget is about 1.75 percent. (Budget has not been an issue at all in any of this, though I know it is in many places.)

I don't believe there is any school credit involved with the majors I mentioned.

 

[ThePickleReport]

I had an almost identical situation happen at my alma mater after I left. The key phrases are "college" and "student activity fee". If there's demand from students that's a healthy thing---when participation declines, that's where you see colleges cash-out and sell their frequencies or start time-sharing.

There's nothing in FCC rules that says they have to have outside volunteers. Do I think it's beneficial to do so? Sure. I think the interaction between college and community is beneficial. Those community members can help keep the station on the air during semester and summer breaks as well.

It looks like there's some compromises there, and I expect that story is slightly overblown.

 

[TheBigA]

This just in: Vanderbilt University in Tennessee today issued a new policy about community volunteers at their campus station:


http://www.tennessean.com/article/2...lt+radio+station+s+fans+protest+local+DJ+cuts


The fact is the University owns the station, and the students pay for it. This is why some colleges are selling their licenses. It's too much trouble, it can lead to bad PR for the University, and the students have better uses for their activity fees. These radio stations are not supposed to become defacto jobs for non-students. Especially if they're not bringing operations money to the table. It's great that alumni are involved. I'd also suggest an alumni council, who can help represent the students to the University. They need to know there are some responsible adults involved. Otherwise, this station may find itself on the chopping block.

 

[Bob1370]

There's a clear conflict between students who feel they're paying the freight, community volunteers who've been helping them fill the schedule without asking for pay (mostly out of a combination of the satisfaction of being heard, and the kindness of their hearts) and the powers that be in administration who see "their" station as an educational tool with academic benefits (if not course credit, although that can also factor into it). This is a genuine battle among people who all are legitimate stakeholders. Seems to me the RIT situation is what you get when everyone lets the issue drift without resolution for an extended period of time. Stakeholders who've committed time, effort and personal prestige are going to get hurt no matter what the outcome.

How do you settle it? Seems to me this is something senior administration of the university needs to take hold of, to bring together all the stakeholders and work out a compromise solution.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

How do you settle it? Seems to me this is something senior administration of the university needs to take hold of, to bring together all the stakeholders and work out a compromise solution.

The solution, involving the appropriate level of administration, has already been worked out. The majority of shows hosted by community volunteers will remain but most will now be no more than two hours in length (as will other air shifts, to accommodate the number of students.) Those volunteers whose shows were cut have been offered shifts within the main format. The student managers will implement the rest of the format tweaks after the holidays.

All of this had been settled before the original post in this thread.

 

[aaronread]

All of this had been settled before the original post in this thread.

I'm sure it was, but was it Radio-Info for if not kvetching ad nauseum? (I'm not excluding myself, either) :

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

---All of this had been settled before the original post in this thread.

But it's a good thread which opens the discussion and airs issues that are relevant to public radio, college-university radio, serving to the college communities as well as serving the communities in which the colleges are located. For many years, WCVF Fredonia, under the guidance of now retired communications department professor Dan Berggren, opened the station to community volunteers, especially in the summer months when WCVF might otherwise have been understaffed or off the air.

SUNY colleges, particularly those in rural communities (the Normal Schools) pride themselves on the bond they have established and maintained for decades with their communities and their non-student residents. Geneseo, Fredonia, Oneonta and Oswego are among the few that I'm familiar with. These colleges are connected with the communities so intimately that it seems natural for the residents to play some role and take part in the activities of the college community.

This said, it probably would not be a good idea if 53 year old Eddie Barnushka, a non-student from Lovonia sat first chair of the college music department's jazz ensemble or 47 year old non-student Sylvia Bubella played the lead role in the college theatre department's presentation of A Streetcar Named Desire. We get that.

The Vanderbilt policy seems to take into consideration the needs of univerity's students and a commitment to serve the college community while allowing for a measure of community participation within the college radio station.

Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised and impressed by the number of college students who are interested in participating in the college radio stations, learning the craft and being on the air. Perhaps the patient has a pulse afterall.

 

[aaronread]

It's still not that bad, then. 150/15000 is 1 percent and the budget is about 1.75 percent. (Budget has not been an issue at all in any of this, though I know it is in many places.)

Speaking of ad nauseum, and I know we're drifting far away from WITR specifically and more into "general principles" but that's not how the "ROI per student" equation I mentioned works. It's not a useful number by itself, it only works when compared to the "ROI per student" of another student activity.

So if you have 15,000 students total, at $200 per student annual fee, that's $3mil in the total SAF pool. All well and good. What matters is if your activity has 150 students/yr, and your budget is $50,000/yr, your ROI per student is $333 each year. Compared to, let's say, the anime club which probably has a budget of $500/yr and benefits perhaps 30 students (I'm just kinda making this up) and thus has an ROI of $16 per year. Even a weekly campus newspaper typically doesn't cost much more than $20-25k/yr and that can have upwards of a 100 people working in it (ROI = $250/yr) AND usually can defray a lot of its cost via advertising, in many cases pushing the actual burden on the SAF to zero or close to it...either way significantly lowering the ROI number.

At MOST colleges, this calculation tends to reveal that the radio station has the worst (highest) ROI per student number of all the student activities. Admittedly, at a technical college like RIT that could easily not be the case. But running these numbers goes a long way to help explaining things to students who wonder why the administration is acting like the station has a target on its back when the budgetary sniper rifle comes out.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised and impressed by the number of college students who are interested in participating in the college radio stations, learning the craft and being on the air. Perhaps the patient has a pulse afterall.

Terrestrial broadcasting may not be with us forever, but programming will. Students now can have their family back home or friends at other colleges hear their shows. They can podcast interviews, create video, meet artists ... all that is fun stuff that makes the college radio experience even better than it was even a decade ago.

Whether it's broadcasting, promotions, PR, or something non-related, the experience is applicable and worthwhile.

Now that this tussle is behind for the most part, the student managers at the station are gearing up for what's forthcoming. They're excited. It will be good for Rochester radio. And it will be good for the long-term health of WITR.

The Vanderbilt article mentioned "institutional memory." The institutional memories there are short. For recent alumni, it's just a few years, and for them, things have "always been this way." I've been fascinated that this group of students has independently come up with a format and an organization that is so similar to what had been the sound of WITR for so long.

It's probably the most savvy and capable group of student managers that I've seen there in 15 years -- not to put down the ones in the interim -- and their view is for the long term. They wish to create a sound that will catch on and an organization that will live on after they've gone.

 

[Ed Trefzger]

At MOST colleges, this calculation tends to reveal that the radio station has the worst (highest) ROI per student number of all the student activities. Admittedly, at a technical college like RIT that could easily not be the case. But running these numbers goes a long way to help explaining things to students who wonder why the administration is acting like the station has a target on its back when the budgetary sniper rifle comes out.

It's a very good point you make in general.

I think specifically for WITR, the amount RIT spends on various communications -- a large and excellent University News operation, SportsZone on cable, the production of HD broadcasts of home hockey games -- makes the WITR expenditure still a drop in the bucket.

A well-managed student media outlet that can carry RIT sports, live call-ins with RIT's president, live broadcasts of commencement speakers and other major events, promotions of campus events and so forth, should be looked at in its overall value to the university. A budget of well under $60K per year which is already partially offset by underwriting, is a bargain.