What happened to WERS 88.9?

[Eli Polonsky]

So if I understand you correctly, Eli...today's radio programming comes down to a choice between copycatting everybody else's format and hoping the audience cume will be high?

That's basically what commercial radio must be all about, in order to keep the masses tuned in.

The masses does not include the minority of us radio and music aficionados who post on boards like this. Because we are avid radio fanatics, we've had radios practically glued to our ears all our lives. We've heard all the common music hits and all the mainstream programming ad nauseum, and we truly want to hear something unusual and different. We pay attention to radio and scrutinize it with a critical ear in a way that casual listeners don't.

The masses, the vast majority of casual listeners who just turn on the radio for their daily commute or to run in the background of their workday, don't really want to hear anything unusual or different. They will say that they want "variety", which is why the stations all claim "the best variety", etc... but the programmers know that they really don't. They just want to hear their favorite short-list of hits, over and over again. They want to be able to hear a song that they can sing every lyric to, or play every "air guitar" lick to, at all times. If they hear something unfamiliar, they just turn to another station that's playing a song that they know.

Commercial radio, and even professional public radio to an extent, must program to the masses of casual listeners to survive, not to the minority of avid listeners.

OR...attempting to interest less of an audience...and potential advertisers...in a concept that might not be audibly attractive to as many listeners?

I certainly understand the differences between college and commercial radio, but what bothers me is that the radio group owners---who have enough money to attempt a different format (even during non-peak listening hours)---DON'T! And the few PD's who try music or talk programming that takes a sidestep from their standard everyday format is rarely promoted! ???

"Attempting to interest less of an audience" is something that a commercial programmer would never do. It's a business, and a business must always attempt to maximize it's number of customers. I'm not sure what you mean by "not as audibly attractive to as many listeners", but any concept that isn't as attractive to any of the stations listeners must be avoided in this extremely competitive business.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

there's a college station down in Orlando ( I think) which absolutely kills in the market...even better ratings than BRU, but is slightly unfair since these aren't "real" college stations...to me a college station should be run by students for students.

The FCC would disagree with you Travis, and so would I. A college radio station with an FCC license is forbidden from being owned by a student group, and the FCC takes a very dim view of students managing it as well. At least not without a professional to oversee things (like what WMLN does).

The FCC's "dim view" of student-managed college stations doesn't have much effect on reality. M.I.T. decrees that the GM and PD of WMBR must be M.I.T. students. There is also a trustee board made up of M.I.T. and WMBR alumnai, and a couple of former WMBR volunteers who went on to professional radio elsewhere, who hold the station license and occasionally deal with legal issues, but they remain distant from the day-to-day internal operation of the station and it's programming. Some members of that board haven't even been inside the station itself for decades. They defer practically 100% to the student GM and PD for all internal management and programming issues.

As far as I know, WZBC, WMFO and WBRS are also student managed with very little, if any, college or professional supervision of any sort. WZBC has had one professional supervisor at times, but I don't know if they still currently do. These stations may also have license-holding trustees, but if so, like WMBR they have very little involvement in daily operation of the station.

Similarly, every FCC license is licensed to a city, not to a campus. The signal doesn't stop at the campus borders after all. That station is expected to serve the entire city it's licensed to and that often can mean programming that the student body probably doesn't care about.

Part of the problem is that often the host institution couldn't care less about whether their student college station serves the greater community that they're located in and heard throughout. I've been a longtime community volunteer at WMBR, so I know their situation best. The only regard that M.I.T. has for WMBR is that they consider it to be an M.I.T. campus student activity, partially funded from the campus student activities budget. As such, it must comply with student activities regulations that it be student-run, and must be staffed with at least 50% students versus off-campus community volunteers.

All other aspects of the fact that it's a radio station are completely immaterial to M.I.T. The institute is largely unaware of it's existence although studios and transmitter are both on campus, and the programming (as long the content is legal and doesn't cause trouble) is not considered to be their concern.

On the merits of it's own internal staff of students and community volunteers for over four decades, WMBR does a pretty good job for the most part of serving the greater Boston community as an eclectic college and community station. Many of their fairly unique and unusual music and public affairs programs have small but rabidly devoted followings (especially those by longtime community hosts who could build an audience over a number of years). The stations successful fundraising results at annual pledge time bear this out, and a 0.1 overall market share for a small eclectic college station that essentially changes it's format every two hours (the maximum allowed length of a show on WMBR in order to ensure room for new student turnover) isn't too bad.

However, this is all immaterial to M.I.T., and with their policy of mandatory and completely deffered student management, there is nothing to prevent a zealous student manager with no appreciation for serving the community from coming in swinging axes trying to transform the station into something that just a small clique of his friends wants to hear. This happened there about four years ago. A number of their more popular shows and hosts were suddenly canned, and some others left in disgust of what was going on. Their annual fundraiser, which had always been ticking up a bit every year, was down by a whole 25% that year. But, no one in authority seemed to care!

Fortunately, just over a year later that manager and his PD resigned, though typically claiming that their changes and the negative results had nothing to do with it. (I think the trustee board members may have finally made one of their rare step-ins behind the scenes, but they didn't say). The subsequent GM's have been fair-minded students who have seemed to recognize the balance that WMBR must maintain to serve both student and outside community obligations. The station slowly recovered, and last years pledge drive broke all previous records.

It would be nice to think that lessons were learned, but I don't think so. M.I.T.'s position of complete deference to student management provides no safeguards against what happened four years ago from ever happening again at any time.

However, on the other hand, if M.I.T. actually decided to step in and take a look at the station and take a hand in it's programming, they could just say "Hey, why don't we go professional with this thing, call in some consultants to reprogram it, and make some money off of it?" Then, all of the existing unique programming that its current listenership enjoys would be canceled, and it would become just yet another professionally staffed, formatted Public Radio station in the market.

Therefore, we community volunteers who do radio at WMBR regard M.I.T.'s lack of administrative involvement as not only a precarious risk, but also as the carte blanche which allows us our freedom to serve our specialized audiences in the greater Boston area with programming that's not considered mainstream mass-appeal (even by Public Radio standards). It's a double-edged sword no matter how you look at it.