Love is in the airwaves.
While college students often turn to the Internet and blogs to access new music, a passionate group in the college community expresses and explores its love of music through a more traditional medium: radio.
College radio DJs not only explore a personal love for music, but also share alternative, fresh choices with an audience, their passion reflected in the station’s programming choices.
The specific programming models vary from station to station, but college radio generally focuses on broadcasting music by lesser-known, independent artists.
The differences between the programming of college radio and of a top-40 radio station such as Los Angeles’ KIIS-FM couldn’t be more striking. These difference are most likely due to the different demands and goals between the forms of radio.
“We’re not in it to make a living,” said Tyler McCauley, the music director at UC Berkeley’s KALX, of his volunteer-only station. “We aren’t involved in radio to try and get famous or be important because there’s no glory in college radio. You’re there because you love music.”
While love inspires college radio DJs to fill the airwaves with sound, KIIS-FM’s programming is motivated by a different source. DJs aren’t always able to play the music that satisfies them personally.
Michael Martin, programming director for KIIS-FM ““ “L.A.’s number one hit music station” ““ said that he generally likes the music his station plays, but that his personal musical preferences sometimes differ from the station’s selections.
“My tastes are a little bit on the odd side,” Martin said. “So if every station played the songs that I wanted to hear we wouldn’t get any ratings.”
Fulfilling commercial demands is crucial to a station like Martin’s, where much research is done to find out what people are downloading, what videos are being played on TV, and what songs listeners are requesting on the radio.
“As much as people criticize how much we play the same songs, when you realize what people want to hear, those are the exact same songs that we’re playing over and over again,” Martin said.
College radio, in contrast, isn’t subject to the same pressure from ratings. As a result, one of the elements of college radio that is particularly unique to its context is the opportunity for DJs as well as listeners to discover new music on a constant basis.
Airtime can be devoted to new music on the off chance it may be interesting to someone. Some of McCauley’s favorite finds have come from chance encounters.
“It’s happened a handful of times and it’s amazing,” he said. “There’s no other feeling like it. I feel like college radio really facilitates those moments where you come up against something that blows you away.”
In addition to discovering new sounds, college radio provides an opportunity to create something, and to meditate on the relationships between music. McCauley feels that playing music on the radio bridges the gap between listening and playing by actively forming a product.
“When you’re on the air at a radio station, you can put a Miles Davis song next to a Wu-Tang song, and you’re creating something new,” McCauley said. “You’re creating a connection between artists that other people wouldn’t have thought of.”
This sort of active commentary present in the programming encourages college DJs to collaborate on their musical theories. Thinking into the background of music becomes a pastime, and the convergence of ideas moves the medium forward.
UCLAradio.com general manager Laura Katz has noticed the bond between college radio DJs; they all seem to know each other.
“With radio people, it does seem that we’re interconnected, even if it’s not planned or on purpose. It just comes out,” Katz said.
The College Music Journal Music Marathon conference in New York City last week is an example of just that. College radio station representatives met for a week to attend concerts, panel discussions, and other events aimed at uniting radio and indie music lovers from across the country.
Megan Costello, former news director at KALX and a veteran CMJ attendee, said that the first year she went, she focused primarily on experiencing the concert aspect of the marathon. But this year, she was able to meet people from other radio stations, and was struck by the connections formed between them.
“There are people who passively like music, but we actively go out there and do something about the music we like,” Costello said. “There is something different that makes us do that. I don’t know what it is … but it’s something.”