Changing frequency: newly formatted Black College radio stations work to jazz up their image, while serving campus and community

Black Issues in Higher Education, Oct 9, 2003 by David Hefner

NASHVILLE, TENN.

Before Fisk University's radio station recently began using the tagline "Smooth Side Up" to refer to its new smooth jazz format, the station's broadcasting image was upside down. At best, it played a hodgepodge of music, with no connecting format, and was known more for its somewhat low-brow syndicated programming and local talk shows, many of which were nothing more than fillers, according to the station's new boss.

In an attempt to achieve some local market share, the station, WFSK, aptly tried to appeal to Nashville's growing international community--with locally produced programs directed toward Latinos, Ethiopians and East Indians. But such attempts appeared to get lost amid the station's overall disorganization.

That changed in August 2002 when Fisk University President Carolynn Reid-Wallace hired Peter Woolfolk as vice president for communications and public relations. Woolfolk, a former communications consultant for a division of the National Institutes of Health, spent years in radio in the Washington, D.C., area. He says before he was hired at Fisk, he asked that the radio station be restructured under his control, a move that Reid-Wallace accepted. Before then, the station was under auxiliary services, he said.

"For all practical purposes, it was an embarrassment," Woolfolk says of the radio station before he came. "There was Celtic music on there; there was Hindu music; there was pre-recorded programs on there from various parts of the country. The quality of the broadcast was not good in terms of broadcast standards.... The perception of the few listeners that were out there is that it was awful. You could barely find anyone who knew Fisk had a radio station and fewer who would listen."

Now, just over a year later, and with the potential to reach 900,000 people in the Nashville area, thousands of residents are tuning into the first radio station on the FM dial--WFSK-88.1. The university's smooth-jazz format--which offers the flexibility of playing instrumental renditions of popular music, as well as the hip contemporary sounds of neo-soul artists like Jill Scott--has struck a resounding chord here.

Along with the new format, which was launched in December 2002, Woolfolk cut many of the old programs and added others. The station now features a news program hosted by a local columnist, who has brought several newsmakers to the show. Many of the international programs have remained but with a clearer focus.

The university has not yet conducted any research to indicate who is listening to WFSK and why, but anecdotal evidence suggests that a cross-section of listeners--multiracial and educated--are tuning in. According to Robert Luke, the morning on-air personality most associated with Fisk's new format, a recent Arbitron rating suggests that WFSK is gaining market share, particularly in the morning amid the stiff competition of "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" and the "Doug Banks Morning Show."

"If you're going to compete with the Doug Banks and the Tom Joyners, then you have to break that racial divide," Luke says. "Smooth jazz has the ability to do that. It's not offensive to anybody.... The support is really there."

SERVING THE COMMUNITY

Fisk is among at least 54 radio stations at historically Black colleges and universities, and many of its counterparts share similar straggles, according to Lo Jelks, chairman of Black College Radio, a trade organization founded 25 years ago to help support Black college radio stations.

Most campus radio stations are set up to serve as a training ground for students interested in broadcast communications. According to Jelks, many Black college radio stations suffer from poor leadership and expertise--hiring managers with no broadcasting experience. Many stations, he says, try to compete with commercial radio stations by playing hip-hop music with no provocative, locally produced educational programming. The net result: under-resourced stations trying unsuccessfully to mimic commercial stations at the expense of critical needs of the mostly Black communities in which they're located.

"Black college radio stations have a unique opportunity to do a tremendous service not only dealing with their particular campuses but with the community they serve," Jelks says. "These stations have the ability to make a difference in their communities. Many of them are doing that but too many of them aren't. And what I mean by that is that many of these stations are trying to duplicate the commercial stations. We're heavy on entertainment, but we lack information.

"I wouldn't classify (the state of Black college radio stations) as being an 'F' rating, but we're dealing with about a 'C.' If there were one wish I had more than anything else, it would be for these stations to explore different types of formatting and if there could be new emphasis on information rather than all of this music. Then I think these stations could better serve their communities," Jelks says.

Some stations are adding more informative programming.