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NEWS

WSUM ‘geeks’ air student voice

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Also by Carl Jaeger:

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Officials debate Wiley's legacy (December 10, 2007)
'No guarantee' in UW success (December 10, 2007)
New rules apply for UW seg fees (December 7, 2007)
Regents hear about booze, textbooks (December 7, 2007)

by Carl Jaeger

Monday, November 5, 2007

Twenty-four hours a day and 365 days a year, the Wisconsin State University-Madison is being aired across the University of Wisconsin campus and throughout the Madison area.

WSUM is UW’s student-run radio station, which boasts a staff of approximately 200 students — nearly all of whom are volunteers — providing music, news, sports and public affairs to 4,900 listeners each week, with even more people listening to the station online.

In addition to being student-run, WSUM is also student-funded. The station receives student-segregated fee funding — a fee included in all students’ tuition — totaling $307,589 to operate for the 2007-08 academic year.

The station, located on State Street above Urban Outfitters, has three studios, space for live performances and a large, eclectic music collection with 22,000 CDs and 7,000 records.

UW senior and WSUM Station Manager Jackie Sutherland said it is hard to quantify what exactly brings people to the station, but described it as “magnetic.”

“It’s like one big community, and we’re all a bunch of music geeks and talk geeks,” Sutherland said. “But everyone is really passionate about what they do here, and I think that’s what draws us all together.”

She said the diversity of interests at the station varies widely among the staff, but they are nonetheless bonded by common interest.

“Even though we all have such diverse tastes in music, we’re all just really passionate about it, and so it’s a common thread,” Sutherland said.

Jonna Shallbetter, UW sophomore and host of WSUM program “On Wisconsin,” agreed, adding the radio staff’s social, music and academic interests vary greatly, as “no one is majoring in radio.”

“It’s just a great way to bring people together who are completely different, and there’s a real unifying force that connects not only students to one another, but also students to the community,” Shallbetter said.

Shallbetter said WSUM is fulfilling for her because it’s “an opportunity to talk to students as well as residents with all types of backgrounds and different interests.”

“No matter how many listeners I might have, it’s just good to know I’m able to provide the community with a nonbiased approach to what really goes on at our campus,” Shallbetter said. “It’s a great outlet to not only the campus community, but also the city community as well.”

Dave Black, general manager for WSUM, said although the station is available for all students to listen to today, WSUM’s journey to become what it now is involves a 50-year struggle.

A component of nearly every major university in the country was a student-run radio station, but until the 1990s, UW was not included in the group, Black said.

The idea of a student-run UW radio station began in the basement of a Lakeshore residence hall March 29, 1952. A group of engineering students got together to create the WMHA radio station, which at the time had such a weak signal that it only reached other Lakeshore dorms.

After facing issues with the Federal Communications Commission, the station reformed as WLHA in the 1960s, named after the Lakeshore Hall Association.

As student radio was becoming more popular than ever, an additional station was formed, WSRM, to serve residents in the southeast dorms who were unable to reach the signal from WLHA.

Within the decade, popularity fizzled and WSRM folded. A campaign began in an effort to start an additional station, although funding and licensing issues arose. WLHA continued to thrive until 1993, when it was forced to shut down due to the lack of an FCC license — a necessity to broadcast.

As students were desperate to revive student radio at UW, funding was eventually granted from the newly restructured Associated Students of Madison. An FCC license was granted to the renamed WSUM, although it was issued to the UW System Board of Regents.

With both funding and a license, only one major barrier stood in the way of an official UW student radio station: a radio tower.

After a lengthy lawsuit against the town of Montrose, where the tower was to be built, WSUM won the right to build the tower. During the lawsuit, anxious students began streaming content over WSUM’s website.

WSUM premiered live on the air Feb. 22, 2002 at 2:22 p.m. and continues to be transmitted today.

Black said given the history of WSUM, he anticipates the station will be around long into the future.

“I think the fact that people worked so hard to make access for students to create this media speaks for itself,” Black said. “There can and should be a place on radio “

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Anonymous (November 5, 2007 @ 7:06am):

$300,000 a year for something that only gets listened to by 5,000 people? UW needs to follow the lead of other schools across the country and allow students to request their student governance fee back.

Anonymous (November 5, 2007 @ 10:09am):

5,000 people PER WEEK and ON THE RADIO plus more on the internet -- they are not the same 5,000 people every week AND given that they don't spend any seg fees on advertising and don't have the best signal, that is VERY GOOD

You should be complaining about the $192 per year (for 30 years) students pay for the Union repairs/rebuild, most of which goes to demolish Union South and put another building no one will go to.

Anonymous (November 5, 2007 @ 12:22pm):

Its not limited at 5000 people. More people can listen, and that is the goal, to get more people to listen.

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