why save WRVU?

21 Feb 2011

So, this is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but it comes from a genuine curiosity and a real question: why is WRVU worth saving? I’m not convinced that it is. I realize and appreciate the value that college radio had in years past: providing a voice for people and music that normally couldn’t make the cut on mainstream radio. Maybe I’m being naive, here, but does anyone listen to the radio anymore? And even if they do, is it a demographic that intersects with the people that most need the voice of college radio? When I think of radio’s current core demographic, I think of an older generation. Hence, the boom of conservative talk radio – the only thing I imagine keeping radio alive. Somehow I just don’t imagine kids out there getting their first doses of new/broader horizons via WRVU anymore, sorry. Are we trying to save it out of a misplaced sense of sentimentality, or an out-of-touch overestimation of its value? I don’t get it.

And this isn’t because I don’t appreciate the *content* on WRVU. I have friends that have/had great radio shows on WRVU that I’d love to listen to, but I never can, because .. who has time to listen to the radio? I don’t even own a radio. (no really – even my car doesn’t have one). Give me a podcast, or at least a live stream, and now we’re talking.

If you want to preserve what was valuable about WRVU, ditch the airwaves and move to a medium that actually reaches people. Start a non-profit/consortium that collects donations to pay for streaming costs, start a blog. Whatever. Let the radio station die a natural, peaceful death – the rest of the traditional broadcasting industry will be following right behind it anyway.

Am I missing something obvious?