College radio at its finest

By Jessica Winter

"Love Talk" is, in a nutshell, everything that college radio is supposed to be about: undergrads kicking back and goofing off on-air, as intent on amusing themselves as their presumably small audience. The easygoing banter of broadcasts like "Love Talk" typifies WYBC, Yale's undergraduate radio station.

The premise of the Yale Broadcasting Company, during its inception in 1941 and today, "was first to be a training ground for people interested in radio, and second as a common link between Yale and the New Haven community," Wayne Schmidt, WYBC director of operations, said. WYBC's staff includes paid "community members," who work in conjunction with student volunteers.

Relations between students and local workers at WYBC have improved from recent years. "Spectrum," an urban-contemporary show, once solely staffed by community members, now contains 30 percent students within its ranks. The historically student-dominated "Nü Rock" has also diversified, and gained more community membership. Renamed "Frequency," non-undergrads now make up 15 percent of its staff.

"The community members view radio as a career. The students just do it for fun," Frequency Format head Jorge De La Rosa, BR '96, said.

Frequency, one of WYBC's premiere programs, takes a free forum, consisting largely of specialty shows geared toward myriad audiences. The specialty shows include "Beat Farm," which spotlights techno and industrial music; a new, as-yet-unnamed ska show; and "Sound Museum," which targets indie-rock fans, as Nü Rock did earlier.

Although the spectre of money looms large over WYBC's affairs, nobody is too alarmed. Board of Governors Chairman Carleton Loucks, SY '54, said, "The station is in very good shape. It's nothing like the day-to-day panic of several years ago." Loucks predicts that the station will be out of debt within two years.

Economic anxieties are not foremost in the minds of rank-and-file WYBC members though. "The more chances people have [to get radio experience], the better," Frequency music director Jason Koo, TD '98, said. "[WYBC] is just there for the deejays to have fun. I know for me, when I'm deejaying, it's not because I think people are listening. It's because I get to play music for two hours."

The spirit of college radio has begun to thrive at Yale through WYBC. Back to the Freshman Issue...