"We sent the train too quickly down the track," says an e-mail from UVA administrators yesterday that postpones proposed changes to UVA’s struggling but much-loved radio station until August. "We’re resetting the process to bring you and your ideas to the table while still not losing sight of those three key goals of increasing listenership, student involvement and revenue," the e-mail, written by Marian Anderfuren, Carol Wood, of UVA’s Public Affairs department and new station manager Burr Beard continues.
Administrators were met with consternation at the station when DJs first heard that programming would be day-parted—which means the same things will happen at the same time every day—and DJs would be required to rotate songs from playlists, effectively putting an end to the free-form programming.
The proposed changes are in part intended to remedy a financial situation that is, "to be frank, not good," according to an e-mail sent earlier this week from Anderfuren, Media Relations Director at UVA’s Department of Public Affairs, which has run the WTJU since 2008. The station, which had a revenue budget of $350,500, fell short of its fundraising and underwriting goal by $23,000 in the 2008-2009 fiscal year, according to Anderfuren. (Numbers are not yet available for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.)
DJs have continued to voice concerns expressed at savewtju.blogspot.com. That blog was started by WTJU DJ Tyler Magill and has hosted comments from some WTJU alumni offering different courses of action to remedy some of the station’s problems. UVA will launch a new blog today on WTJU’s website "on which you will be able to express your thoughts about key issues facing WTJU," according to yesterday’s e-mail, before the "New WTJU" is launched in August 23. Watch the WTJU home page for the URL. "This is your invitation to help shape WTJU."
New WTJU manager Burr Beard’s changes have been met with widespread resistance at the station.
"Currently on average only 7500 people listen [to WTJU] each week," wrote Burr Beard, the station’s new general manager, in an in internal e-mail last week. "That’s the smallest audience of any non-comm station serving Charlottesville." Indeed, it is small anywhere. Steve Kramarck, who manages WVUD-FM, University of Delaware’s student radio station in Newark that, like WTJU, is staffed by student and community volunteers, says via e-mail that the station’s most recent listener data suggests “15,000 or so different individuals per week” listen to WVUD. (Newark, Delaware has town and student populations of about 28,500 and 19,500, respectively; Charlottesville has populations of 41,500 and about 25,000.)
“From a competitive posture, it’s tough to compete with an audience of that size,” says Jim Principi, general manager of the Charlottesville Radio Group, which runs local commercial stations, including 106.1 The Corner. “Unfortunately, for every ying there’s a yang. If you’re filling a niche in the marketplace that isn’t being served by a comparable types of formats, the uniqueness of the format may make you a destination for certain people.” Listenership numbers are not “a one answer fits all,” he says.
Reached for comment, former station manager Chuck Taylor declined comment. He wrote an e-mail to station volunteers yesterday urging them to give Beard "your utmost attention."
Reached for comment yesterday, former WTJU GM Chuck Taylor said that it would be "100 percent inappapropriate" for him to speak about proposed changes before they were rolled out. Taylor wrote in an e-mail to volunteers yesterday, "Please give Burr Beard your utmost attention. Listen carefully, cogitate, consider seriously and engage."
Though originally student-run, WTJU was envisioned as a community station, Taylor writes in the e-mail, as opposed to the university’s "campus" radio station WUVA 92.7. Taylor suggested that readers look at WTJU’s Wikipedia page, which reads, "The station allows its volunteer DJs to play anything they choose, as long as it does not violate Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules for decency…The rock music tends to be highly eclectic, with a heavy emphasis on music that is rarely, if ever, heard on commercial radio stations."
One local twitterer asked a DJ at 106.1 The Corner, “with only 7500 weekly listeners of #WTJU can we call a DJ revolt an uproar?” But the proposed changes, though postponed, have already prompted DJ walkouts and e-mail campaigns to save the station’s format.
The DJ uproar stems from the popular perception that the station has long been a stronghold for UVA’s artistic elite. “Starting in 1986, I have wonderful memories of the WTJU studio in Peabody Hall’s basement,” writes Bob Nastanovich in an e-mail, a member of the influential rock band Pavement, who served as station manager in the late ’80s. “To me, it was locally broadcast radio at its best. The deejays, who loved the musical genres they studied, had complete freedom to do as they pleased with their shows. Emphasis was on the music played over the technical aspects of deejaying.”
Bob Nastanovich, auxiliary member of the legendary slacker rock band Pavement, was station manager of WTJU in the late ’80s. "Emphasis was on the music played over the technical aspects of deejaying,” he wrote in an e-mail to C-VILLE yesterday.
Nastanovich rattled off a list of former DJs that might easily be relabeled as a kind of UVA Arts Hall of Fame: including himself and Pavement godhead Stephen Malkmus, the list includes David Berman (of the Silver Jews), James McNew (of Yo La Tengo), Star and Steve Keene (the artists whose work can be seen everywhere around town), Tom Frank (editor of erstwhile lefty mag The Baffler and author of What’s the Matter With Kansas).
“There was a beneficial competitive spirit amongst much of the rock staff which led to camaraderie,” says Nastanovich. “Amongst others, I cemented lifelong friendships with Berman and Malkmus in that basement,” referring to the station’s former location in Peabody Hall.
Is UVA simply delaying the inevitable?
Correction: The story originally included a tweet that was erroneously attributed to 106.1 The Corner’s Brad Savage. The tweet was in fact directed at him and not written by him. See his comment below.
Read past C-VILLE coverage here.
