Nearly every major college and university has a functioning and relatively well-known radio station on campus. However since I started working at the Pepperdine radio station my freshman year in 2006 it has practically slipped into obscurity. Where we used to have 14 working microphones in the broadcast studio and interview room there are now only seven frayed and half-working units left. There once was talk that 101.5 FM KWVS would be broadcast on campus and still there is no steady radio signal no online streaming options no podcasts— nothing. Sure the fact that we have a Pepperdine student TV station (Channel 32) is great but we need a working radio station too.
So what’s the excuse?
When Pepperdine students tell me “I didn’t even know we had a radio station I wonder how the faculty and administration can rationalize that this is acceptable. How is the station’s programming expected to grow when, with no listeners, all the disc jockeys can do is talk to themselves?
Radio is one of the greatest forms of free expression, and here at Pepperdine you can participate in it no matter what your major, what you believe or who you are. There is no excuse; we need a good station.
Yes, there are several steep challenges facing the broadcast of the radio station— there is a huge expense involved in upgrading the broadcasting tower and radio station, Federal Communications Commission guidelines are a confusing maze and publishing our music online incurs a steep price.
Since the station has not been updated in years and still is cruising on 1970s equipment, the necessary and initial overhaul of our gear for online broadcasting will tip into the tens of thousands. However, compared to the immense amount of money that Pepperdine spends on other student media projects (like 15 high definition cameras priced at $6,600 each), it does not add up to that much. As far as the radio tower goes, the FCC mandates the location and height of our broadcast tower. OK, the tower is out of Pepperdine’s hands, but there are other areas where the administrators could cut us a break. For example, the radio station could broadcast in Joslyn Plaza free of charge, immediately juicing up our listener base.
But to be able to achieve anything takes some financial investment. Student directors seemingly lost their whole operating budget for the station. The DJs and station managers have paid out of pocket for everything from cookies for meetings, to event funding, to programming.
You may say, Jeff you’re a business major. You know that radio is losing demand to iPods and other digital media markets. How is spending a little money to save the radio station going to make a difference?” I would have two answers for you.
First broadcast radio appeals to a low-income market that makes up a huge part of Los Angeles and the United States as a whole. Let’s face it— not everyone can afford iPods and decked-out CD players.
Second I am not just asking for analog radio improvements though those are still necessary. After the hefty cost of fitting our studio to stream online the process would only cost $1000 per semester at roughly 19 cents a song; just imagine downloading podcasts of your friends’ shows for free right off the Pepperdine homepage. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.
And those aren’t the only difficulties the radio station has encountered. Here’s an example: some of the DJs and I plan to go into sound design and audio production in the future— thus experience in a professional production room is invaluable. But what has happened to Pepperdine’s tiny production room? Some months ago the University kindly offered to upgrade our extremely outdated equipment took everything apart and never finished installing the new stuff. Our sleek monitors and glorious mixing board lie blank and dysfunctional in our production room. Even when we had functional equipment the communication division bogs down its tiny supply of staff audio engineers to the degree that they are unable to adequately train us on it.
The overall lack of attention and funding the radio has received needs to change— and quick— if we want Pepperdine student radio to exist at all. The radio gives us the ability to make our voices heard but if we can’t speak our minds about the disrepair into which our station has fallen and affect some change our DJs will continue to broadcast over non-existent airwaves. We pay tuition so we might be taught to find our own voices but what happens when the institution that teaches us to speak out loud won’t give us the opportunity to be heard? At the end of the day we are the reason Pepperdine radio was founded. We are the voices that keep radio vibrant and alive. We cannot stand aside and let it die.