With all the effort extended to win the awards, little thought has been given to find them a proper place.

“At least they’re not on the floor anymore,” one director joked as the meeting began.

Despite the success of Impact in the recent past, many other college radio stations have had to make substantial cuts, with some universities even selling their stations.

Fading signals
Impact has become one of the premier college radio stations in the country in a time when many universities have sold their radio licenses to offset rapidly decreasing higher education funding.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a trend that began in the 1990s picked up steam this year when three prominent universities — University of San Francisco, Rice University and Vanderbilt University — sold their broadcast licenses in multimillion-dollar deals.

The increasing value of broadcast licenses in the private market has put pressure on a number of universities to decide whether college radio is worth the investment, said Steve Wildman, director of the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law.

“It’s a political decision as much as an economic decision,” Wildman said. “Universities are looking around, and they’re saying, ‘What can we cut, and who’s going to complain if we cut it?’”

An undesirable alternative
Although several universities found college radio to be too expendable, smaller colleges are fighting for the chance to get on the air.

At Grand Valley State University, student radio is limited to the internet, despite significant interest in acquiring an FM station.

The station — currently known as The Whale — could become a low-power FM station after President Obama signed the Local Community Radio Act, creating an opportunity for more local community FM stations, staff adviser Len O’Kelly said.

“We’re waiting patiently to see what the (Federal Communications Commission) will do with the low-power FCC bill,” O’Kelly said.
“There’s tremendous support for applying for one of those signals.”

Universities considering selling their licenses have pointed to the potential for an online station being a viable alternative.

Because anyone can launch a website, O’Kelly said an FM station provides crucial credibility.

“Schools can quickly point to stations like us that are only over the internet and say, ‘Why can’t you do it like that?’” he said. “It’s (about) legitimacy and perception more than anything else. There’s more credibility give to an over the air station than an internet station.”

Making an Impact
Developing a consistent audience is often what separates struggling radio stations from the elite, and Impact general manager Gary Reid said remaining relevant is often the station’s biggest challenge.

“We talk about relevancy every week,” Reid said. “It’s important in terms of the music we play but also the people we hire. Staying connected with our listening audience is tremendously important.”

The station plays a majority of ‘90s alternative and indie rock music, but what differentiates Impact from other radio stations is their wide variety of programming.

Program director Ethan Yerks, a media arts and technology senior, said the station’s musical offerings span the full gamut.

“The cool thing about being at a university is that you encounter so many different people from so many different walks of life,”
Yerks said. “We have people from all over the country that come here to work at the Impact. … So we get a lot of different cultural tastes.”

Graduate student Tucker Wilkinson listens exclusively to Impact and credits them for turning him on to his favorite band, Moneen.

“I get tired of listening to some of the other radio stations that play the same songs over and over,” Wilkinson said. “It’s nice to hear different stuff that you don’t normally hear.”

After not having good enough grades to enter MSU out of high school, Yerks worked at the radio station in his community college and said the quality at MSU is more than a step up.

“It’s a whole escalator up,” he said. “At my community college, we had a budget that was mere fractions of what we have access to here at the Impact.”

The university’s support for broadcasting continues to grow with the recent announcement that WKAR TV and Radio will join MSU’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences beginning July 1.

Reid will take over as the acting director of broadcasting for WKAR starting July 15, and he credits the university-wide support for student broadcasting as being paramount to their success.

“I think that level of synergy is just a godsend,” he said. “I’m just thrilled that we’ll be able to work with our students here, with the professionals at AM, FM and television, to do some things that I don’t know have been done at any university in the country.”