Tuning in to the radio scene with WYBC

College radio. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes annoying, but always surreal. At least that's the way most college stations sound on the air, with caffeinated student DJs pushing eccentric playlists into obscene hours of the night, filling dead time with on-the-spot, free-associative segues.

Free-form or pre-formed; obsessive obscurantism or mass appeal any way you want it, Yale has a radio station for you. There's "the rhythm of the city," WYBC 94.3 FM, which is oriented toward the New Haven commercial market rather than student interests. And now there's a new kid in town, the recently purchased 1340 AM, which aims to please all comers, as long as those comers bleed eclecticism. The choice is yours.

WYBC started in 1942, with news, war bulletins, and nightly Morse Code classes. Since then, the station's programming has fluctuated, moving into classical, and then to a groundbreaking free-form format in the '60s. In 1997, then-program director Emad Abdelnaby, DC '99, switched the station to "contemporary hits radio" (CHR), a change that expelled the remaining student programming in order to improve professionalism and ratings.

Because of Abdelnaby's move, a recent Arbitron report placed WYBC-FM second in the New Haven market, with its highest ratings ever, attracting 49,100 people weekly. WYBC-FM student DJs now have "access to the ears of the community," WYBC General Manager Ephram Lustgarten, PC '99, said. "We put on a very professional product on the FM, the strongest flagship college station in the country."

While this strength allows student DJs to hone skills for later use in the radio industry, it also denies the possibility of DJ authorship. "We work to give the community what they want," says Jason Knight, ES '00, whose Sunday gospel programming outdraws the competition by 50 percent. And what the community wants is a regular playlist of commercial R&B, hip-hop, and smooth jazz, along with a smattering of sports and talk shows. FM's fun lies in the creation of a scripted "jock" persona for an audience of thousands.

The AM station, on the other hand, resists scripting as best as it can. New CDs enter a rotation, which "is not designed to constrain the DJs," WYBC Rock Director Rajeev Muttreja, SM '00, said. "It's to get them to play new music, it's pretty much a free-for-all." When the AM is at its best, serialism battles Delta blues as a sanity-impaired few impose their taste (or lack thereof) on unwitting listeners' ears.

The current melée derives from the terms under which the station was created. Last summer, in response to demand for student-programmed radio, Yale bought the license and equipment to operate the bankrupt WNHC. The new AM station went on the air at the beginning of the school year, with music, sports, and news departments, a lot of big plans, and very few constraints.

Now, WYBC is trying to raise its on-campus profile. Last year, they sponsored a range of events, including Spring Fling weekend (which brought Yo La Tengo and Rusted Root to campus) and the Winter Ball. Recently, WYBC has formed a concert committee, with a budget large enough to produce a few good shows every year.

But the true strength of WYBC lies in the freedom it affords DJs. Most commercial radio is slicker than Teflon, market-researched to hit the target audience right where it hurts. On that level, radio is a business, and the polished intonation of the "jocks" is pure salesmanship.

WYBC has no such constraints; but to achieve a critical mass, WYBC needs bodies. Hands to work the mixing deck, voices to commentate at games, brains to dream up promotions. Failing that commitment, what WYBC really needs from you is ears to listen.

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