I’m not sure college radio will ever completely go away, but colleges are either scaling back or eliminating their radio broadcasting programs, largely due to lack of interest.
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Which format will be the next to go?
- Thread starter jp1996
- Start date
I’m not sure college radio will ever completely go away, but colleges are either scaling back or eliminating their radio broadcasting programs, largely due to lack of interest.
They SAY it's lack of interest, but the students say otherwise. The real reason is money. Student interest hasn't changed.
The one at the university where I work has a full-time paid station manager and a full daily schedule during the academic year, there are very few automated slots. There's certainly no lack of interest in being involved among the students. It broadcasts live 9am-midnight seven days a week, but it's online-only (there's never really been the tradition of FM college radio in the UK).
What is particularly nice to see with it is that well over half the people involved are women and non-binary people, it's a far cry from the boys' club that a lot of radio became in the 90s and 2000s.
I have to think that broadcasting majors would be way down at most schools, and that would be how people at the top would gauge interest. I also know firsthand that colleges and universities are operated a lot more like publicly traded corporations than they were even 10 years ago. States have steadily cut their funding for public universities for decades. If you’re not taking in enough tuition and fees from students enrolled in your program, you’re likely to get cut, at least in some areas.
Even 30+ years ago, my father was adamant that he would not send me to college to study broadcasting. He said you didn’t need an education for it, let alone a $3,000/year (not including room and board) education. I majored in communications with a focus on disorders until I switched to computer science. For me, it came down to me not being good enough or interested enough in the science behind communications to be able to get into such a program in graduate school, which was required to have any career in a related field. Plus, getting on the campus station wasn’t going to happen, especially with me struggling in anatomy of the speech and hearing mechanism!
I ended up with an offer from the classic rock station in town but had already made the decision to leave and go somewhere else. If the offer had come a few weeks earlier, I probably would’ve taken it. That station, however, didn’t last much longer after I left, and I likely would’ve been out with most of the rest of the staff.
Depends on the school
Approaching this from a different angle: how many broadcasting trade schools are left? Reason I ask is that there are many different things you can do with a college/university education even with a degree that has a professionally-oriented curriculum, while a trade school is more narrowly focused and vocational in nature.
How many are there? The ones like The Wave in LA are now really Urban AC or Rhythmic AC and not "smooth jazz".
Related to this, some j-schools also limit how many students they allow in. So you can be accepted as an undergrad to the main university, but still have to apply separately to the j-school and do an essay and all that.
Almost all non-ethnic general market buys now are for 25-54 or some subset, although the Black and Hispanic stations target 18-49 because of the much younger age of those groups and the younger age of family formation. This has been the rule for at least three decades.
And CHRs have simply broadened because the music that 25-34's liked a decade or more ago is now much broader.
It was in the 50's and 60's and into the early 70's because Hooper and Pulse did not offer such specific demographic data. Arbitron gave more data, and advertisers matched it with their products
A lot of the interest in the stronger college stations I'm aware of through various connections isn't from people who want to do broadcasting, but can be enthusiasts of all majors. Many have wonderfully eclectic and informed musical taste, some are journalism or political science or philosophy types that enjoy the spoken word or cultural aspects. The skills in doing college radio well can be a great confidence builder and social connector, regardless of any intent to do traditional broadcasting in the future.
CHR has really fragmented. The many flavors of CHR are: Mainstream, Rhythmic, Urban, and the latest being Adult CHR, which in my opinion is a renaming of Hot AC. WBBM-FM in Chicago refers to themselves as Adult CHR. We can expect more and more CHR's to become ' Adult'.
How many are left? Very few. In the early 80's, I completed a 9 month course at a broadcasting trade school that lost their accreditation and was shut down. I learned afterwards about the bad reputation many of these schools had, paying a lot of money for little in return. I wish I had just taken the broadcasting courses at Phoenix College with community college tuition. IMO, the broadcasting trade schools should be avoided if there is a college alternative.
I was streaming WEMP, and heard a PSA for this job fair. So yes, there are still job fairs for broadcasting, at least in Wisconsin. Any RD members looking for a radio/TV job in Wisconsin, update your resume. It's on Feb. 22.
Job Fair at Lambeau Field
In accordance with the WBA’s Assistance Action Plan For EEO Compliance, your WBA will be holding a job/career fair in conjunction with our Wisconsin Broadcasters Student Forum at Lambeau Field…
www.wi-broadcasters.org
I would question what the value of that is to the school. It turns the radio license from a valuable part of training of broadcasting & journalism majors into the most expensive club on campus. No other club requires retaining a communications attorney in D.C.
When I was in college, over 20 years ago, the school restructured the communications department and eliminated the requirement for students to work at the campus radio station. As you can imagine, student participation tumbled and the quality of the on air product slipped as well. When the school finally sold the license, student participation was practically nil, it was just a computer playing music 90% of the time.
True, but even 50 years ago AOR was becoming a song-based format. Granted, not all those songs were released as singles, and they all fit within a relatively narrow genre but it was getting harder and harder even then to find an AOR that wasn't formatted with a fairly tight playlist (larger than, say an AC or CHR to be sure, but few AORs let the jocks pick the music).
I thought college-aged people "don't listen to the radio". Your response seems to contradict that.
That's exactly right. If you look at the R&R AOR charts from that time, you'll see specific songs listed. There might be multiple songs from the same album played (we see this now at Americana stations), but they didn't play every song from those albums. There were focus tracks. That started very early in the format, and became even more selective by the 80s. You hear the results of that now with adult hits.
Depends on what you call "radio." The college-aged kids are interested in DOING radio. They like being on the programming side. That doesn't necessarily mean they listen. Some do. What we know is they're more likely to listen if it's on FM than if it's a college owned streaming station. If it's streaming only, then it competes with Spotify, and that's a losing proposition.
I disagree that having a radio station isn't valuable unless it turns out more broadcasters. The skills in producing content can be applied across platforms. It's a great forum for expression, connection, confidence building and community. The skills in various positions within the station can apply in many other careers. A well run station, particularly with the tools available today does not have to be an undue burden on the licensee.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to find a CHR which isn't adult CHR. It seems like they all play golden oldies from the 10's and even the 00's.
Those are oldies now? Wow....
I didn't care for the stuff when it was new. They only seem better now because the music that has come around since has been significantly worse. And this isn't saying much.
c
The music hasn't been getting worse or better. You've been getting older. Popular music stays the same -- a snapshot of the songs and styles those in their music discovery prime (ages 18-30, mostly) associate with the most memorable and, in most cases, enjoyable years of their lives. Today's hip-hop star is your father's rock star is your grandfather's crooner, and so on down through the years.
That's for sure.
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