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WCSB Flips to Jazz

WBRU is a bad comparison to just about anything here. It had a full class B FM signal in an under-radioed market, and the usual not-fully-informed Inside Radio article you're quoting didn't really get the situation right either. As with many of the Ivies, Brown didn't own the WBRU license or oversee the station operation as either a student club or an academic program. Brown Broadcast Service was a commercially-run business that happened to be designed to be operated by Brown alumni and students, just like WVBR at Cornell.

My recollection of the decision to sell the WBRU FM license is that the university didn't register any opinion about it, because it wasn't anything the university controlled. If you can find evidence otherwise, I'm all ears. It was simply a case where the value of the asset was peaking and at least one faction of the board (of Brown Broadcast, not of the university) believed it was best to unlock that value and refocus its mission elsewhere.

I don't think the LPFM has done much for them, and I am not current on whatever they're doing digitally. I know there was a loyal audience for the modern rock format WBRU ran, and there was some public outcry, but the better comparison there would be the recent WLUM situation in Milwaukee - another small commercial owner deciding business circumstances dictated a sale.
 
fybush said:
WBRU is a bad comparison to just about anything here.
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The bottom line is it's ultimately a financial decision. Somebody has to pay for it. When that entity wants out, that's the end. No amount of protestation will change that, because nobody else wants to pick up the expense. Other than a religious broadcaster.

Can you think of examples where a decision like this happened, and protests led to the university reversing its decision? I can't.
 
Protests? No. Negotiations behind the scenes? Yes. One of the clients I am working with is a college station (state university system) that came within days of having its license either returned or put up for sale, but students and alumni were able to sit down with school leaders and make a case to include the station as part of a larger student media production center that had a budget line attached to it.

Those are the stories that don't make headlines in the trades while they're happening, but they're the ones I most enjoy working with as a consultant and/or broker.
 
fybush said:
part of a larger student media production center that had a budget line attached to it.
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That's the key thing. You need a budget line. There is no budget line for college radio at CSU. There was no academic purpose or connection for this station. The student GM isn't majoring in communications. The students don't care about internships because they aren't interested in radio as a career. That's what's missing here. Maybe another college could find a way to pay for it. But in this school, with its financial crisis, this was the best opportunity.

From what I've read, the main connection is about music, not radio. One of the articles in this thread said the university spoke to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That would be an appropriate conversation. They have music connections, and that's what this radio station is about.
 
No disagreement there. But I think you're still missing the key point I've been trying to make all along.

There are some college licenses that disappear without any real passion behind them. I've brokered some of those, too.

What the parties on both sides of this deal didn't seem to understand before they went public was that the WCSB license came with baggage attached. There were people and emotions and community connections. Did those show up on the bottom line? No, of course not.

But look at it this way: part of managing any large public institution that's part of a larger community is knowing how to manage your way out of human situations that go beyond just the bottom line. Otherwise, every university president would just be a CPA.

And this wasn't handled well on a human level. Whether or not the WCSB operation had any financial value to the university, it clearly carried community and human value that needed to be taken into at least some consideration.

Compare it, if you will, to an old building that might be in the way of a larger building expansion project. Maybe it still needs to be torn down in the end - but part of human and community management, beyond the bottom line, might involve looking for a way to relocate the building or to preserve its facade even as the property behind it still gets rebuilt in a way that serves the university's bigger needs.

I've worked with enough nonprofits and community groups over my years in the business to have developed a good sense of the leaders who know how to handle people and communities, and to have seen plenty who don't.

I don't know the principals in this particular situation, but from the outside, it certainly looks to me like nobody on either side (Ideastream or CSU) had any sense of what the human and community implications of their deal were actually going to be. You can get away with that if you're a CFO at iHeart or Audacy, but the type of thoughtful leadership that's needed in a community institution has to be different in order to both serve the bottom line AND the larger mission.
 
fybush said:
I don't know the principals in this particular situation, but from the outside, it certainly looks to me like nobody on either side (Ideastream or CSU) had any sense of what the human and community implications of their deal were actually going to be.
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I agree, because there was no academic connection between the university and the station. The station spent more time cultivating its relationship with the community. The students didn't see that the university was in financial trouble. To the university, this was a club. A very expensive club. The university is struggling financially, so this was another asset to deal with, along with the president's house and the sports arena. Ideastream's relationships are with a different part of the community. They were able to handle the loss of WCLV when it was sold.

As I said, the only other solution is for another community group to come up with a financial plan of some sort. Maybe the city or the public library. Years ago Upsala University in East Orange NJ was in the same situation. They owned WFMU. They ultimately sold it to a local community group. That might have been an option here. But WFMU's community base was able to raise a lot of money. So far, I haven't seen anyone offering that.
 
fybush said:
I don't know the principals in this particular situation, but from the outside, it certainly looks to me like nobody on either side (Ideastream or CSU) had any sense of what the human and community implications of their deal were actually going to be. You can get away with that if you're a CFO at iHeart or Audacy, but the type of thoughtful leadership that's needed in a community institution has to be different in order to both serve the bottom line AND the larger mission.
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The issue I am still confused about is whether anyone actually listened to the huge assortment of programs on the station. It seems that many were in love with the concept and a bunch of program creators loved doing their shows.

My observation is that there may have been more program creators than listeners, and that the public response has more to do with “the cause” than with the content.
 
Cleveland.com is investing a lot of time trying to stoke the flames of anger against the university and Ideastream. The fact is the only reason this deal happened is because of the financial crisis at the university. Meanwhile, cleveland.com keeps pushing the fiction that things could return to the past, and the university could be forced to return the station to the students. That doesn't address the financial crisis affecting the university. The only alternative to the current plan is the university selling the station to someone else. That someone else is likely a religious broadcaster.

What cleveland,com and others should be looking for is alternative funding plans for student radio. It costs a lot of money to run broadcasting. The amount the students were able to raise from their listeners didn't cover ALL of the expenses. Ideastream had a plan to cover all of the expenses.

I get it. People want the students to get their radio station back. They need to focus on raising money. Lots of money. Because the university can't afford to run this station. Otherwise the next article cleveland.com writes is about the bankruptcy of a once-great university.
 
What did the student management do to address the warning signs leading up to this. They should have seen the writing on the wall. There adviser was let go. hints of finacial issues. Did they do anything to set up a plan B?
 
TheBigA said:
Cleveland.com is investing a lot of time trying to stoke the flames of anger against the university and Ideastream. The fact is the only reason this deal happened is because of the financial crisis at the university. Meanwhile, cleveland.com keeps pushing the fiction that things could return to the past, and the university could be forced to return the station to the students. That doesn't address the financial crisis affecting the university. The only alternative to the current plan is the university selling the station to someone else. That someone else is likely a religious broadcaster.

What cleveland,com and others should be looking for is alternative funding plans for student radio. It costs a lot of money to run broadcasting. The amount the students were able to raise from their listeners didn't cover ALL of the expenses. Ideastream had a plan to cover all of the expenses.

I get it. People want the students to get their radio station back. They need to focus on raising money. Lots of money. Because the university can't afford to run this station. Otherwise the next article cleveland.com writes is about the bankruptcy of a once-great university.
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I have a feeling there's probably some tension and friction going on between Ideastream and Cleveland.com/Plain Dealer. This seems to be the PD's way of hitting back. The whole CSU-Ideastream saga is even in the front page of the PD.
 
MediaLover said:
I have a feeling there's probably some tension and friction going on between Ideastream and Cleveland.com/Plain Dealer. This seems to be the PD's way of hitting back. The whole CSU-Ideastream saga is even in the front page of the PD.
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Unfortunately it's bad for radio. Which I guess is good for the PD. But hitting Ideastream isn't the way to make things better for Cleveland. And it won't get the students their radio station back.
 
xmtrland said:
What did the student management do to address the warning signs leading up to this.
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18 to 22 year olds in college can't be expected to understand this kind of development.

How many 18-year-old commercial radio station managers do any of us know?
 
MediaLover said:
I have a feeling there's probably some tension and friction going on between Ideastream and Cleveland.com/Plain Dealer. This seems to be the PD's way of hitting back. The whole CSU-Ideastream saga is even in the front page of the PD.
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This certainly is not the Plain Dealer I knew for many decades!
 
Ray Carr has announced on his show's Facebook page that it will move to WJCU 88.7 on Saturdays at 1pm starting on November 22nd. He was one of the many hosts who were displaced by WCSB when it flipped to JazzNEO.
 


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