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Student Radio deserves FM airtime
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Student radio has long been considered the vanguard of progressive music. If you doubt that, then look at Billboard Magazine and check out which songs are getting airtime on college stations across the country.
You only have to take a look at the sorry state of corporate radio to realize the potential of student programming. Behemoths such as Clear Channel Communications are swallowing up radio stations across the nation and filling the airwaves with their brand of corporate mediocrity.
They have no stomach for risky, vibrant music, preferring to spend millions generating a pabulum of focus-group-approved play lists guaranteed to appeal to the broadest base of consumers.
Students who have yet to be anesthetized by the cubical culture can do it better.
And Boise State should let them.
However, opportunities for BSU students interested in producing radio are limited. Student radio is restricted to 12 hours of pre-recorded programming on the AM station, which turns down its frequency strength to avoid interfering with an out-of-state station with the same frequency at night.
Rather then getting a shot at primetime, student radio is stuck on an AM frequency so low, it can’t be picked up in several areas north of the Boise River. In addition, student programming receives no promotion from KBSU, and no timeslots during the day.
Administrators involved with KBSU are dead set against providing a forum for students on either of their two FM stations.
Jim East, KBSU assistant general manager, said KBSU “is not a place for kids to play.” That’s an insulting argument considering that he helps run a university radio station, which receives considerable support from education dollars.
According to an independent auditing report by Deloitte & Touche, the Boise State Radio Network received $451,502 in support provided by Boise State and $40,561 in student fees in Fiscal Year 2001.
John Franden, executive assistant to the president, said student access to the university’s stations is contingent upon quality programming.
However, quality programming is in the ear of the beholder.
Communication professor and Student Radio adviser Bob Rudd said he would put student-produced programming up against any commercial programming in Boise.
In addition, Rudd said quality concerns are a poor excuse for a university radio station to deny access.
“[That's a] very offensive argument, and someone who makes that argument doesn’t understand what the function of the university is,” he said.
East points out that students don’t fill the 12 hours of airtime allotted to them and said he wants students to “step up” and prove they want airtime.
However, we suspect the administration sees KBSU as a tool for public relations and doesn’t want to offend the brie and wine sensibilities of patrons in the community.
That attitude is in direct opposition to their oft-repeated mantra of a ‘real education for the real world.’
If administrators are sincerely interested in providing a real education, then they need to relax their grip and allow students live airtime on one of their FM stations. After all, we help pay for it.
If KBSU wants student radio to step up, then they should give students an outlet worth stepping up to.
Arbiter editorial board