Who controls the rhythm of the city?

You think khakis swing? The mighty administrative pendulum of the Yale Broadcasting Corporation puts those hot-footin' pants-peddlers to shame. Last week it careened back toward embracement of "collegiate" (read: non-commercial) radio by cementing plans for a free-form AM station, WYBC-AM 1340. This move comes just nine months after the WYBC Executive Board's abrupt summary dismissal of most of its student DJs during finals week last December and the station's concurrent adoption of a single format called "CHR-rhythmic" (read: Boys II Men, Mariah Carey, and Gap-like revenues).

Remember all those sordid tall tales floated by WYBC last year about wayward radio personalities trashing the on-air studio and urinating into Snapple bottles? Recall those same indignant deejays agitating for the impeachment of the Executive Board members who ousted them? It is these two bitterly divided camps who will be soon working together to start up the new AM station from scratch. Jump, jive, and wail, indeed.

"It's kind of ironic," WYBC general manager Mike Corwin, SM '99, said. "A lot of people were disturbed by what happened last year, and that's understandable, because people lost the opportunity to play certain types of music. But in the end it's our commercial success with the new format that allows for this new free-form, eclectic format."

WYBC's switch to "CHR-rhythmic," sure enough, resulted in the highest ratings of its 57-year history. The station's increased advertising booty meant that Yale's perennial poster child of insolvency--which historically require considerable financial help from WPLR, the station that really, really likes Aerosmith, sells WYBC's ads,and pays the college station a flat monthly income--could now cover the operating costs for two stations.

The two stations will be very different in mission and practice, promises program director Emad Abdelnaby, DC '99, who serves on WYBC's executive board with Corwin. "The only thing I could call [the new station] is `multi-format,' which is the industry name for a mishmash of everything," Abdelnaby explained.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Andrew Goodwillie, JE '01, works the mic at WYBC's old FM station.

Early proposals for time slots include a Yale College Council-hosted call-in program entitled "Students Speak," a prime-time sports show with the participation of the athletics department, and chunks of indie-rock, folk, and jazz--music genres that were erased, along with the DJs playing them, from the WYBC slate with last year's executive decision. Corwin said that such programming variety is possible because the AM station will not be beholden to the almighty dollar--it can leave such crass concerns to its FM sister signal.

"This station is not going to be commercially oriented at all. There will probably be very few commercials, and certainly not any commercial stipulations," Abdelnaby said. Taking a look at the quickly expanding list of proposals for the AM station,Abdelnaby continued, "I really don't see anything not being approved. Unlike the FM station, there is nothing we are ruling out. There are no limitations."

Anarchy! Can we really hope for a return to WYBC days of yore? Meditative stretches of dead air and DJs barking into the microphone? LPs by The Residents played beginning to end? Illicit micturation (stories of which we're pretty sure aren't true, but we sure wish that they were)? Can listening to Yale college radio be--I don't know--fun again, or something?

Last year's banished DJs--whose return to WYBC, until very recently, seemed about as likely as the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup getting back together--aren't convinced that no means no when it comes to the limitations that the station could impose. But Rajeev Muttreja, SM '00, said, "Apparently we're going to have a lot more freedom than we did on the FM station."

Muttreja was the music director of the indie-rock format "Frequency" until last December's purge; that experience, in his view, leaves a cloud of doubt and suspicion hanging over the Executive Board's plans for an anything-goes AM signal. "If they wanted to, they could at any time become just as strict as they did before," he said. "I mean, I don't think they will, but recent history tells us that anything's possible."

Lucas Oppenheim, BK '99, a leader of last spring's efforts to impeach Abdelnaby for never-proven violations of station bylaws, has tough words for the new station's prospects. "There are a lot of DJs who were thrown off the air who would be willing to come back if they have autonomy to create the AM station as they see fit," he said. "If Mike and Emad say, `Here's what we've decided for you' like they did before, then everyone will just walk out. If Mike and Emad haven't grown enough in the last year to realize their mistakes, then this grand scheme to open a new station won't go anywhere."

JULIA TIERNAN/YH The WYBC-AM studio awaits an uncertain roster of once and future DJs.

Even Corwin's satisfaction in what he sees as a matter of short-term unpleasantness leading to long-term benefits doesn't find strong echoes of agreement on either side of this uneasy cease-fire. Abdelnaby stands by his original claim that last year's temporary dismissal of DJs was not related to long-standing plans for WYBC-AM, which as a concept has been bandied around the station's offices since 1994.

"The programming changes were made to make the FM station better, to produce a better product and create a more professional environment," he said. "They were not dovetailed with plans for another station. It just worked out that way." Abdelnaby's statement doesn't quite fit into Corwin's view of last year's "difficult circumstances" as the necessary route toward a two-station system "providing the best of both worlds." When asked if he felt his much-criticized decisions would be vindicated by the success of the AM venture, Abdelnaby replied dryly, "I don't think I'm seeking vindication."

The happy irony of this scenario is likewise lost on Muttreja. "What they did was so bad and pissed off so many people that I don't think they'll be forgiven for it," he said. " In the long run it did work out better, but it wasn't necessary to make those changes the way that they were made. It caused so much stress, so much wasted time, so much anger. I'd rather this never happened and things were just the way they were." Oppenheim added, "This is not about having two stations. If it were, then no one would be going back."

So if the ends haven't justified the means, then why, exactly, are the DJs going back? For them to return and stay, Oppenheim said, is contingent upon three conditions: "a sense of control, freedom of programming, and a minimal amount of contact with Mike and Emad."

But that contact is crucial to the future of the AM station, according to Muttreja. "If we don't come back now, and we just leave the design of the station up to their discretion, then who knows what they'll come up with," he said. Since a new executive board will be elected in November, "In the long run it's better if we just keep down our rage for a little while," Muttreja explained.

It's not just wounds from nine months ago that are still festering. Many DJs were incensed to discover that WYBC's entire vinyl record collection--mostly out-of-print and therefore irreplaceable music, and an especially rich backlog of jazz recordings--was thrown in the trash sometime during the summer.

"They said they would eventually need the storage space," Muttreja recalled. "There were enough records to line the walls of a common room. It was horrible. They're not concerned with music; they're concerned with running a corporate station, an efficient office."

A publicity campaign for the new station, which will go on the air Sat., Sept. 19, with a broadcast of the first Yale football game, is already in full swing, but Muttreja said he is "not too concerned with how many people are listening. The whole point of college radio is to challenge your audience, to push the envelope. I would never compromise to get more listeners."

During this last tumultuous year, few players in the ongoing WYBC drama can be accused of having compromised their beliefs. Yet it remains to be seen whether this self-righteous temperament--which seems to be all that WYBC's politburo and proletariat to have in common--will serve the station's AM project for better or worse.

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