President Bennet met with the Board of Directors of WESU on Sunday to formally present his plan to affiliate 88.1 with National Public Radio (NPR) member station WSHU.
According to this tentative plan, WESU would broadcast WSHU, programming for roughly half of its airtime, during the middle of the day, and would broadcast student and community shows the rest of the time. Selling this airtime to WSHU, a Fairfield, Conn. station, would bring in approximately $50,000 a year, which would go toward general costs. The extra money would also help to hire a station manager who would supervise the station and the Board of Directors and assist DJs in developing their programs.
At the meeting, Bennet informed the Board of Directors that it had one week to formulate an alternate proposal to meet Bennet’s requirements for improving the station.
According to Luke Snelling ’05, who volunteered to take on the bulk of this proposal, Bennet’s main dissatisfactions with the status quo of WESU are that it is not fulfilling the educational mission of the University, that it is not economically viable and that it is in violation of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) standards by not serving the community as well as it could.
Bennet’s decision came as a result of student concerns brought to him last spring about the status quo of WESU and his own thoughts on the possibility of making WESU a professionalized station and an educational resource, according to Justin Harmon, Director of University Communications.
If President Bennet rejects the Board of Directors’ proposal next week, Snelling will write another proposal that includes the use of NPR programming.
If the decision is officially made to affiliate WESU, the station can make the transition in two weeks, according to Harmon.
“I don’t expect him to go with our proposal,” said Ben Michael, a Middletown resident who has volunteered at WESU since 1998.
The future of community positions at WESU hangs in the current negotiations between Bennet and the Board of Directors.
“Recently we’ve secured a few community spots,” said Jesse Sommer ’05, General Manager of WESU. “I’m hoping that at least one third of the programming will go to the community.”
As negotiations currently stand, 88.1 will broadcast WSHU programming from about 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and from 6 a.m. until noon on Saturdays. The remaining hours will be a mix of student and community member broadcasting.
According to Sommer, one of the main concerns of WESU members is that under these changes, 88.1 will no longer be a free form station. Free form means that the station’s management gives DJs complete control over the content of their programs, within FCC regulations.
“ At the meeting Bennet told us that we need to abandon the ideal of WESU as a free form station,” Michael said.
According to Harmon, the students who are on the air will still be the voice of the station.
“That’s how it should be,” Harmon said. “This is not going to be a big-brothering broadcast. There’s a big difference between administrative governance and the more important issue, which is the voice of the station.”
“The purpose of having a general manager is not to control student programs,” Bennet said. “It is to create an environment in which students can learn about programming and public affairs broadcasting.”
According to Sommer, the Board of Directors brought a list of concerns to President Bennet last spring, which Bennet outlined in his Wespeak on Friday Oct. 29. These concerns had to do with security, running the station over school breaks, and compliance with FCC regulations. The Board of Directors proposed either a $500 surveillance system or an ID card system to improve security, and asked for a station manager, to be paid for with underwriting, who would be responsive to the Board of Directors, and who would re-establish contact with the University.
“When we were relocated from Clark Hall in 2000-2001, they told us we were being relocated temporarily to Broad Street,” Sommer said. “During that time we were pretty much cut off from the University. We had no advisor, and no direct supervision.”
When students returned in the fall, Bennet, the former President of NPR, essentially presented the Board of Directors with only one option, according to Sommer.
“He had been thinking about the larger set of issues, and the possibility of what WESU could be as an educational resource,” Harmon said. “Doug [Bennet] said he’d welcome other plans.”
President Bennet has the final decision-making power on the matter, because Wesleyan owns WESU’s FCC license.
Until 2003, the license was owned by the Wesleyan Broadcasters’ Association (WBA), a student corporation that functioned similarly to the current Board of Directors. According to Sommer, in 2003 the WBA went defunct, and the University informed WESU that since the license was in WBA’s name, the license had lapsed. The University then persuaded WESU to sign the license over to Wesleyan, under the condition that WESU would maintain it’s autonomy, according to Sommer.
“Now here we are, two years later in the midst of us changing our programming, and changing 65 years of community partnership with Wesleyan,” Michael said.
According to Sommer, Sean Sokoloski, a community member and member of the Board of Directors, recently found on the FCC website that the WESU license was actually renewed in 2001, and that the license had not actually lapsed when WBA went defunct.
The Amherst, Williams and Vassar radio stations are all student and community run, supported by underwriting, which broadcast student and community shows.
“I’m disappointed about this decision, but I’m optimistic about making it work,” Sommer said.