New England Radio Watcher: Etc.

Harvard University's WHRB-FM 95.3 (3000w @ 110', and yes
that's commercial!) has traditionally been a dead carrier from
the end of Harvard's session in June until September. They don't
turn it off because they lease a subcarrier year-round. As of
last week, their main carrier is now active with a simulcast
of UMass Boston's WUMB-FM 91.9 (660w @ 205').

Up in Manchester NH, Bob Bittner has put his WKBR 1250 (5000/5000w,
DA-2) back on the air, with automated easy listening.

In Turners Falls MA, (the Greenfield area), WPVQ 93.9 is on
with satellite country.

Still no sign of the new WCRN-830 Worcester.

-=Scott Fybush - fyb...@world.std.com=-

(on New England radio)

Don't know why WHRB ran a dead carrier all summer (or how they
get away with it)...or why they just simulcast someone else for no
money...do you?
Student co-op-owned stations sometimes end up as big
money-makers. Look at WBRU in Providence making its way as a
AAA station, or WVBR-FM in Ithaca, now #2 in the Ithaca-Elmira
Arbitrons with a more standard AOR format. They have com-
mercial licenses and sell spots year-round...usually 8-10 minutes
per hour 6 am-midnight, a couple minutes an hour on the overnight.
(They are 24 hour operations.) And the best part is...the air staffs
get PAID! Minimum wage or not much more for the most part,
but it beats the hell out of washing dishes in the student union
cafeteria...
WVBR-FM gave me a start (and some bucks that made life as
an undergraduate less impoverished). There are others for whom it
was the first step toward gigs on everything from network TV to
national radio...why don't they let 'HRB do the same thing? Bob

One thing to keep in mind is that WBRU and WVBR both have the
advantage of having relatively strong signals in relavtively small
markets. WHRB's situation is quite the opposite. There's no way
'HRB can compete for advertising dollars against the larger Boston
commercial FM's with only 3000 watts (and an extremely low height
above average terrain to boot). Plus, WBRU is a first-adjacent to
WHRB, and their signal washes out 'HRB once you start heading out
into the 'burbs. And there are already AAA and AOR stations in the
Boston area, all of which have a stronger signal.

With all that going against it, I'm afraid WHRB will never be the
strong "money-making" venture that its Ivy League brethren are.
I don't see any likelihood of them being able to upgrade their
signal, either...

-Shawn Mamros
E-mail to: mam...@ftp.com

>(on New England radio)

WHRB was kicked out of its longtime studios under Sanders Theater in
early June. Harvard University does not value its radio station very
much. If WHRB went off the air they wouldn't much care.

New studios are under construction at 389 Harvard Street, Cambridge,
Massachusetts. The simulcast of WUMB-FM is being done temporarily as a
way to serve WHRB listeners during the construction.

In past summers the undergraduate management of WHRB has felt (wrongly in
my opinion) that it was better to be off the air than offer programming
not produced by WHRB staff. They have a clause in their license
specifically authorizing them to go off during summer vacation, so that's
what they've done. Since they leased their 67 kHz subcarrier to Italian
American Communications of Newton, MA they've kept the carrier on,
unprogrammed except for hourly station identification, using a dial-up
remote control system.

WHRB has very poor coverage. Their transmitter location is awful (110
feet HAAT), they're short-spaced to WBRU (first adjacent channel, 39.7
miles away), and they're in one of the most competitive markets in the
country. If you live more than 5 or 6 miles from Harvard Square you
probably can't get them clearly. A construction permit for a new
transmitter location was granted earlier this year, but with ridiculously
low power and a directional antenna. Even so, it is being challenged by
WBRU.

WVBR, WDCR/WFRD, WPRB, WYBC and WBRU, all student-run commercial FMs (and
all considerably more successful than WHRB) have none of these problems.

Also you need to know that the students who run WHRB aren't particularly
interested in radio as a business. What they want is to expose Boston to
their particular tastes in music-- mostly jazz and punk rock with some
classical. It's not a serious commercial enterprise. To become one they
would occasionally have to play music that was not to their liking; all
the cajoling, admonishing and downright threats which various alumni have
expressed will not move them.

I am one of the very few WHRB alumni that works in commercal radio for a
living. Nothing would make me happier than to see WHRB return to the days
when they did serious radio.

Why don't they become more commercial on their main channel? For
one thing, it's a LOT harder to be competitive commercially in market
6 than in Providence (WBRU), Princeton (WPRB), or Ithaca (WVBR), just
to name a few commercial Ivy stations. More telling, I think,
is the Hahvahd factor. I.e. -- "This is Hahvahd. We don't do that
sort of thing here. How (sniff) crass!"

Whatever the case, WHRB does OK for itself. They're moving into
new studios this summer, and they have a power upgrade planned.
Weep not for them...

-=Scott Fybush - fyb...@world.std.com=-

As for the fellow from the Ithaca station, thank you for mentioning us. We are
alternative/cutting edge, not AAA, by the way, and air staff are only paid
during summer, winter, and spring breaks (and Thanksgiving weekend, but that's
piddling). But we were Rolling Stone's station of the year, medium market.

- Aaron Schatz
Morning sportsguy, WBRU
*************************************************************************
Aaron Schatz "The one problem with academia
Zeta Delta Xi is that you can't grow
Brown University potatoes in it."
st00...@brownvm.brown.edu
(401) 521-2513 - Justin Blumenstiel
P.O. Box 3994, Providence, RI 02912
*************************************************************************