Will RIPR's Newport Station Be Built In Time?

[aaronread]

No. What I am suggesting is another way for whichever school to increase their public view. As for U.R.I. & P.C., I wonder if anyone even cares about them anymore either. I can remember the interest when P.C. was in March Madness in 1995. Now? Does anyone know P.C. has a basketball team?

Clearly people care about PC Basketball or WEEI wouldn't be putting them on 103.7FM. They're undoubtedly paying PC a pretty penny for the rights to do that.

As for raising the profile of the schools, for PC the station (WDOM) has ZERO impact for that. Nothing against the students there (I've met many of them and they're cool) but that's not what WDOM does well, nor is that how PC does their marketing. Having worked in higher ed, either directly or indirectly, for most of my career...and being married to someone who's worked directly for colleges for nearly 15 years...I feel pretty confident in saying that for most schools, especially private schools, that public outreach to the local community via a radio station is a not an effective means of recruiting new students. That's what recruitment via guidance counselors, direct mail, and a host of other methods are for. Also, who's to say that PC wants to attract local students? A lot of colleges are specifically trying to expand their draw from other regions (especially Boston and NYC) and I'd be surprised if PC were really all that worried about marketing here in Providence.

There are some colleges that advertise on radio stations, but most of them advertise on PUBLIC radio and for good reason: they're not trying to reach potential students, they're trying to reach the PARENTS of potential students. Different ball of wax entirely, and not one you're going to succeed with using the typical "college radio" format of programming.

Granted, there are schools like NYU, Syracuse and Emerson where the station is an important selling point, but more in terms of being part of an official or unofficial class curriculum. In other words, it's not about the programming being heard by listeners...it's about the students on a campus tour, trying to decide if they want to go to a school, and seeing that they can be DJ's on the radio and how cool is that?!? ;D

Now, URI is a public institution so that's a somewhat different beast. There's a more direct connection between what's "good for the campus" and what's "good for the local community". Especially in as small a state as Rhode Island. That said, I don't see WRIU being an integral part of the marketing campaign to raise awareness in URI's target audience. It might accomplish that piecemeal, but it's not part of a holistic strategy to do so. Not with a block-format lineup, even if WRIU does a lot of sports.

FWIW, sports can be very detrimental to a station's audience if not done properly. At WEOS, an NPR format station, we routinely got complaints about Hobart football and lacrosse interrupting NPR programming. There's a lesson there: music and news listeners don't usually care much about college sports...it's two very different audiences...so if you're not getting listener complaints when sports come on, it's probably because you don't have many listeners to your music/talk programming in the first place.

 

[N1WVQ]

I had heard that P.C. PAYS 103.7. Forgot where I heard that but remember hearing it. In any event, Friars ball isn't what it was 20 years ago. I think the success of Boston's teams in the past decade contributed to that.

Right, WDOM has negligible impact but it could! That's what I'm saying! It could be used to raise a level of awareness of the school that it doesn't have! I think they may be doing that on a small level in that because I've heard students airing games in the past few years (since moving to Middleborough, 91.3 is WSHL & 91.5 is WBIM-FM).

One final word: WRIU, I hope, always stays as it is. I've donated money in the past to keep its programming on & once I get this new job with more money, will do so again (I can hear them in Middleborough under WSMA). WRIU is a real gem to the state. The other college/H.S. stations are diamonds in the rough. I think they can be programmed a la full service stations, which the listeners to could expect to hear local sports as well as local news & information. A bit of work? Perhaps, but with so many tools at their disposal now, it may not be as daunting as one might think.

 

[aaronread]

Right, WDOM has negligible impact but it could! That's what I'm saying! It could be used to raise a level of awareness of the school that it doesn't have!

Again, this isn't a slight against WDOM, but no it couldn't. I challenge you to ask fifty communications departments of private colleges with small Class A FM's and find me ONE that would argue that marketing through the campus radio station provides effective ROI. How could it? The vast majority of high-school-age students don't listen to radio at all. The "college radio" eclectic format is a giant turn off for most parents in the 45 to 60 demo. So who's gonna listen that would impact recruitment rates?

Sports coverage is not a marketing arm for student recruitment nor is it an effective tool for student retention (another perennial concern for any college). It is, yes, a tool for alumni relations and thus alumni giving, but not much of one; webcasting has almost totally supplanted traditional media there for the obvious reason: webcasting provides a better product (i.e. video and PPV) with much wider reach. Times have changed; colleges act a lot more like businesses these days. If the ROI ain't there, they're not going to do it...that's why so many have sold off their licenses in recent years. And times have changed for radio, too; no station can muddle along and expect to get listeners anymore. Not in the Era of the iPhone.

Also FWIW, quite frankly, these stations DO NOT WANT to become marketing arms for their parent colleges. That's a dark path that once you go down, forever shall it dominate your destiny. Usually leads to an LMA with the local NPR station, for that matter. Given my current job I obviously don't view that as necessarily a bad thing, but I imagine some folks would.

I had heard that P.C. PAYS 103.7. Forgot where I heard that but remember hearing it.

It's entirely possible. The only rule about whether or not a station pays the college or the college pays the station is how popular the sports program is. If it's popular enough that a station feels they can make money by selling ads on it, and the college knows it, then usually the station pays the college. (Entercom pays, or used to pay, BC for the rights to air the Eagles football games...although last time I checked on that it was several years ago) Otherwise, it's the college who has to pony up the cash to buy airtime.

 

[N1WVQ]

I'm in agreement about the college eclectic format. It's one I liked when I was in high school (20 years ago this fall, ugh!) but I think a structured format would be better, albeit one with full-service elements. For example, a dance-leaning top 40 format with news & college ball for WQRI targeted to Fall River.

As for webcasting, yes it CAN have a wider reach but more often than not, only has a couple of people at a time. That's not reach, that's narrowcasting. It's a glorified P.A. system. The only advantages to students are that 1. mobile devices (not radios) pick the streams up & 2. they can say & play offensive content unless the school dictates otherwise because they aren't bound by the content laws that broadcast stations are. However, the steep fees by the RIAA make an F.C.C. license seem better! I've had an internet station & got out before the R.I.A.A. went full-bore. I'd rather have an A.M. license than pay their extortion! Come to think of it, I don't even use web radio to listen to because I find the content lacking. So, your comment about radio stations muddling along also applies to web stations.

Back to the college radio aspect, one of the reasons I chose the school I did was that they had a licensed radio station (as opposed to an on-campus one). Now, this was in 1996. Just a couple of years ago, I saw the radio station touted in the brochure. This is a 10kW station that's student- & community-programmed. It gets the college more goodwill in the community. When it signed on in 1993 at 6kW, the 100kW N.P.R. station up the road wanted it to repeat the N.P.R. station to which the then-vice president (now president) of the college told them no. They wanted it for the students & community. WQRI can do this as well as WJHD & WDOM. They COULD! Yes, there are differences in the scenario of my college & up here. They are more stations & WRIU largely fills the community voice role for the state...but not entirely. These stations could choose to do that in their respective communities & get real world experience, or they could go web-only & broadcast to 2 of their friends and be 99% completely closed off from the rest of the world. I wouldn't consider being on a licensed F.M. station to be 99% closed off to the world, no matter how low the power.

Maybe soon the F.C.C. will open up 76-88 for more N.C.E.s at which point R.I.P.R. can get a high-powered one & we'd both be happy! You could cover the state on 1 signal & I could get more school & community stations on the air!

 

[aaronread]

Maybe soon the F.C.C. will open up 76-88 for more N.C.E.s at which point R.I.P.R. can get a high-powered one & we'd both be happy! You could cover the state on 1 signal & I could get more school & community stations on the air!

I have heard from multiple reliable sources that this idea is DOA at the FCC. They still care a lot more about TV than about radio, so without substantial pressure, TV will always take priority in spectrum allocation. And since the only pressure source is the NAB, and the NAB's dues are from both radio and TV, it ain't gonna happen.

In fact, the FCC cares a lot more about wireless (cellphone) than it does about broadcast, because cellphone companies throw a hell of a lot more money at Congress (and also pay a lot more in spectrum auctions, another thing Congress likes). So if there's any reallocation of broadcast spectrum it'll be given to cellphones, not to other broadcasters.

 

[Dighton Rockhead]

FCC cares a lot more about wireless (cellphone) than it does about broadcast, because cellphone companies throw a hell of a lot more money at Congress (and also pay a lot more in spectrum auctions, another thing Congress likes). So if there's any reallocation of broadcast spectrum it'll be given to cellphones, not to other broadcasters.

So true! For years now, the Commission has only had visions of broadband dancing around in thier heads.
Television?...EH...let them keep compressing into less and less spectrum....they're digital now, arent they?
Radio?...What's THAT ? ? ?

About the best we can hope for is....IF we're all good little children, and brush our teeth, and say our prayers....is that MAYBE.....just maybe....The Commission will free up 87.5, 87.7. and 87.9 for use as radio broadcast frequencies for NCE's.

The frequency spectrum is a banquet...and we'll be lucky to get thrown a crumb or two!

 

[N1WVQ]

I fear Aaron & D.R. are correct in this regard. I don't know what they think they'll do with the abandoned spectrum between D.C. & F.M. (mainly VHF lowband & A.M. if it ever goes away. Aero beacons?).

 

[aaronread]

About the best we can hope for is....IF we're all good little children, and brush our teeth, and say our prayers....is that MAYBE.....just maybe....The Commission will free up 87.5, 87.7. and 87.9 for use as radio broadcast frequencies for NCE's.

87.9 already is available, it's Channel 200. It's just that it's restricted to Class D's and FM Translators, and only under specific circumstances. Some of those circumstances are dictated by international treaties with Mexico and Canada so forget about that ever changing; Congress would have to get involved and we've been over that already.

Plus even with TV6 being a lot less populated than it used to be, there's still already a lot of stations on 88.1 out there. There's not many places that don't have means to get a station on other frequencies (i.e. the NCE filing window of 2007, the LPFM window of Oct.2013) where 87.9 would help much.

There's also no real advantage in reallocating 87.5 and 87.7 alone to the FM band; the cost and time of getting a new receiver base out there that can hear those frequencies is huge, but the payoff is minimal. Now if you reallocated all of TV5 and TV6 to FM, *that* is another story. But again, it ain't gonna happen.

The sad thing is that if the NAB stopped repeatedly shooting itself in the foot and instead allowed the FCC to adopt a more European model of spectrum allocation, and if the FCC stepped in and mandated HD Radio adoption (I'd want some concessions from iBiquity for that, but that's another story for another day), then the existing FM band could easily handle migrating all AM stations to FM digital multicast channels and have plenty of room left for new voices as well.

 

[N1WVQ]

What do you mean by European spectrum allocation? Do you mean adding a band for DAB? That I can get behind.

 

[aaronread]

It's a little weird, but think of it like this: in America, there isn't any distinction between the guy who holds the license, and the guy who controls the programming on that license. In Europe, it's two totally separate things, with the government being "the guy" in the "hold the license" part. It was born out of necessity in part because Europe is composed of several smaller countries all jammed up next to each other, so they couldn't afford to have the nonsense of station owners playing games trying to move their licenses all over the place.

Actually, a really good analogy is satellite radio. Just imagine that instead of XM/Sirius controlling the channels' content, that control was licensed out to dozens of other operations who had little to no say in the technical platform, because the technical platform is managed for the good of the entire enterprise by XM/Sirius.

Personally, I think it's a much better system. Largely because "stations" compete based on content and promotions, rather than via the reach of their signal. And you don't have a zillion useless little stations of questionable technical viability that're doing little more than raising the noise floor.

Of course, its virtues are its downsides, too. Europe doesn't have small, independent operations or "college radio" the way we think of it here in the USA. Instead, you have a hefty portion of the dial (up to, or more than, a third of all frequencies in a region) that are devoted to government-subsidized operations, like the BBC channels. Typically those are viewed as the "creative outlets" for broadcasting and in fairness, they do a really good job of it in many countries. It's often like "college radio" but much more extreme, as you've got paid professionals and hefty budgets backing up all that creative freedom. The result can be really weird sometimes, but often it's pretty sweet...not unlike college radio.

It's not perfect, of course, but neither is American radio. But yes, one major advantage is that with government control and coordination of the technical facilities, it makes issues like expanding the FM band or migrating the AM band to an all-digital FM band completely moot. Their governments decide on a plan and they do it. The rollout is often very smooth. Of course, the decision part can be a nightmare...just look at DAB.

 

[iyiyi]

The ROI of a college NCE is the opportunity for students to gain hands-on radio broadcasting experience; in all phases of the genre.

Period.

-

 

[aaronread]

Ummm. No, not really. That argument is why several stations have been sold by their parent colleges as of late. I wrote at length about this roughly a year ago:

[url]http://friedbagels.blogspot.com/2011/12/protecting-your-college-radio-station.html[/url]