Seven years ago this May, University radio station KWVA finally took to the air with the apt choice of “Hey Mr. DJ” by They Might Be Giants.
After three years of fighting red tape, KWVA [88.1 F.M.] finally received its permit to broadcast from the Federal Communications Commission. Its first broadcast came at 1:32 p.m. on Thursday, May 27, 1993, three years after students voted to use fees to support a college radio station.
At that time, KWVA only had a staff of about 20 people and was not yet running 24 hours a day.
KWVA has seen many adjustments in the last seven years, but General Manager Kelly Lea said the station’s dedication to diversity is unaltered.
“I can’t think of any factions of the student populace that aren’t in some way represented here,” Lea said.
Lea points to the over 100 volunteers and their wide variety of musical tastes as being KWVA’s main resource.
“They cover pretty much every genre you could want,” Lea said. “It’s definitely not the same thing every day.”
Since its infancy, KWVA has been greeted with mixed reviews. While some students praised the station’s diversity, others complained, saying that they rarely recognized a single song and didn’t appreciate the overall musical selection.
“There is always going to be people that don’t like what’s different,” Lea said.
“I can’t tell you that I don’t hear music here that scares me occasionally,” she said. “But I also hear a lot of music that I really like that I haven’t heard before,” Lea said. “It’s kind of luck of the draw.”
Junior Lydia Nelmes likes that KWVA is student run and thinks that KWVA is an acquired taste.
She said that although the programing seemed random to her at first, she has recently been giving the station more of a chance and in turn has begun to like it more.
“You need to listen to it more than just turning it on,” Nelmes said.
KWVA will be celebrating its birthday with a concert at the WOW Hall on Monday with The Dub Narcotic Sound System. Dub Narcotic front man Calvin Johnson, also the founder of indie label K Records, is no stranger to campus airwaves himself. Johnson worked for 15 years at Evergreen College station KAOS in Olympia, Wash. He was a DJ and still drops in occasionally to lend a hand.
Johnson said that non-commercial radio is significant because it provides a voice for the disenfranchised. He said he believes that the mainstream media is becoming more and more homogenized.
“The fact that fewer and fewer people are controlling the voices of mainstream media means that alternative perspectives aren’t being heard,” Johnson said. “The most exciting thing that non-commercial radio is doing is public affairs and news broadcasting.”
Johnson said that alternative news sources are important because the mainstream media are not always an objective news source.
Lea says that KWVA’s alternative news program, has a loyal following and that the station receives a flood of phone calls if for some reason the show doesn’t air.
“So much of the news you hear on the commercial stations or even on your nightly news is so questionable. You really have to wonder what it is they’re not telling you and how accurate what they are telling you is.”
Lea said that the show is getting away from that because it is a sphere where you don’t have to please everybody all the time.
“There are all kinds of music out there, but you’re not hearing it on mainstream media. That’s why non-commercial radio is providing such an important outlet for people to hear and to be heard,” Johnson said.
Although Lea’s job as general manager may seem thankless, she says that there are payoffs.
“When a person calls up to say, ‘I’ve never heard this band before, they’re great,’ — that’s very rewarding.”
The Internal External and the Sub-Debs will open the WOW Hall show, which starts at 8 p.m.