From: ebm@corvair.almaden.ibm.com (Eli Messinger)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.noncomm
Subject: How did college radio get to be so influential?
Date: 11 Apr 92 01:04:14 GMT
Reply-To: ebm@almaden.ibm.com
Organization: Pandora's Box

We were discussing this question over dinner the other night.  When I started
out in college radio in the mid-70's, it was a pleasant sideline to the prog-
ressive/underground commercial FM stations in the market.  In my market that
was mostly KSAN-FM (San Francisco) and KTIM-FM (San Rafael).

Going to work at a college station I was much more steeped in the broadcasts
of the commercial underground stations than I was in the low-wattage (10w)
college stations.  While I didn't try to exactly emulate the commercial
stations, I was certainly influenced strongly by what I'd heard all those
years.  The staff at the college station was a collection of younger college
students and older graduates/community members.  Quite a few of the people
at the station had been in and out of commercial broadcasting.

There was a distinct, unique identity to our station, but I can't really say
I had a feeling of our "mission" being all that different than that of KSAN
or KTIM's (in the artistic sense -- obviously we were missing their major
financial interest).  I always thought of our station as one of a coterie
of stations that made up the 'radio scene' of the underground.  I never felt
our station had the sort of make/break power that KSAN did -- we simply
weren't the community centerpost that KSAN was.  Not that I felt bothered
or oppressed by that -- I *loved* KSAN, like I've never loved another radio
station since.  It's hard to imagine now a commercial station that could
break records like Elvis Costello and AC/DC (as KTIM did) without them having
*any* presence on the national radio/chart scene.

During those years I felt that our little college station was an addition to
KSAN/KTIM's broadcasting as opposed to a completely different alternative.  We
did stretch further, and we did program a broader mix of musics (or at least
we purported to do so).  On the other hand, our library wasn't much deeper
than KSAN's, and our DJ's certainly weren't, on average, nearly as steeped in
music and broadcasting as those at KSAN.  I never felt in competition with
the commercial stations -- it felt more like an alliance.

Now switch to today's picture: college radio has become increasingly important
in making and breaking records and artists.  There are large "college radio"
marketing departments at the major labels, there are several journal/tip-sheets
centered on college radio, there are college radio conferences, there are
articles in Rolling Stone about college radio.

What happened?  How did college radio get to be so important?

(Looking back even further in college radio's history you find that many of
the stations start out as hobbyest stations for early radio-electronics
wizards... they were put on the air more for the technical novelty of getting
an FM station broadcasting than for any particular programming agenda.  The
jump from those humble beginnings to the current state is even larger.)

One thought I have is that the death of true alternative commercial radio in
the late 70s, the tightening of consultant-prepared playlists (the Top-40-
ization of underground radio into AOR), and the explosion of "new wave" and
"punk" acts in the same timeframe formed a confluence.  There was all this
new product, and an ever-shrinking radio arena in which the majors could get
it exposed.  Could that have led the majors to look at college stations as a
new outlet for this "new" music?  What tipped them off?  What signposts are
there to show this?  What year did CMJ start publishing -- were they the
chicken or the egg in the process?

Is REM as important as I have a feeling they are in flagging down the majors
and making them realize the power of a united college radio front?  Did the
majors help foster the homogenization of college radio -- did they have a
plan to harness the low-wattage stations as a whole to make a new marketing
tool?  Did the changrs in FCC regs that caused most college stations to boost
from 10w to >100w play a big role in this?

Anyone have any ideas on this?  Pointers to articles (Milo?)?
--
	      "Phish is good."  --James Treworgy, March 18, 1992
       CSNET: ebm@almaden.ibm.com / UUNET: ...!uunet!almaden.ibm.com!ebm