Short-circuiting college airwaves - radio station WCDU-FM and radio stations at college campuses - includes related article on University of the District of Columbus' financial problems

Black Issues in Higher Education, Sept 18, 1997 by Ed Wiley, III

The Sale of UDC's Radio Outlet Raises Concerns About the Future of Campus Stations

Last fall, Davey Yarborough, jazz studies director at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., was prepping the members of his youth orchestra for an upcoming performance. He was trying to teach them a little-known Duke Ellington tune called "Daybreak Express," but the students were missing the expressive nuances the great composer intended.

Yarborough knew that the sheet music wasn't enough. He had to find a recording of the piece. He called the Smithsonian Institution and found that it had transcribed the music, but didn't have a copy of the recording.

In fact, he couldn't find a copy of the recording anywhere in the city until he called WDCU-FM, Washington, D.C.'s all-jazz public radio station housed on the campus of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC).

WDCU, whose mission is to play jazz and report on local public affairs, has the fourth-largest Black audience of any public radio outlet in the country, according to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

"Without WDCU, I'm not sure we'd have performed the piece," says Yarborough, a saxophonist, who has gained international accolades as both a musician and educator. "I always say that 35 percent of teaching jazz is listening. With WDCU, my students have unrestricted access to one of the best listening libraries in the country."

That's important, says Yarborough, because neither the school - which is part of D.C.'s cash-strapped public school system - nor the majority of his students have the resources to purchase music on their own. Over the past fifteen years, the station has become a hands-on lab for students to develop broadcasting, programming, and business management skills.

So when UDC trustees announced in June that they would sell the station to a nonprofit arm of one of the nation's largest Christian broadcasters, Salem Communications, for $13 million, loyal listeners and educators like Yarborough were outraged.

"It is one of the most short-sighted moves I've ever seen by a university," Yarborough says. "What self-respecting university would sell its library or computer lab because it faced financial problems?"

Salem eventually backed out of the deal. Insiders said the company feared its purchase of WDCU would be delayed indefinitely as several groups - including Save Jazz 90 (a community group opposed to the sale) National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - filed challenges against Salem's FCC application for a license.

Salem transferred its right to purchase WDCU to C-SPAN. John Maynard, a spokesman for C-SPAN, says the new station will air congressional hearings and other national public interest programming. There are no plans to include jazz music or local community service shows on any C-SPAN-owned station, he says.

It also is unlikely the FCC will attempt to interfere with C-SPAN's $13 million purchase of the license, experts say. C-SPAN initially had entered a bid of $10 million.

Show Me the Money

Yarborough is joined by scores of other educators, station managers and public radio advocates - including UDC trustee, Frances Murphy - who fear that mega-buck transactions such as that involving WDCU undermine the core mission of public universities. These critics contend that the unprecedented price for a noncommercial station is a clear signal to other well-heeled broadcasters that they can entice financially feeble municipal or university licensees with attractive offers.

"[At any time] there could be a dozen or two dozen stations, where, if the right offer was made at the right time to the right person, it would be seriously entertained by folks who hold the license," says Tom Thomas of the Station Resource Group (SRG), a prominent public radio station cooperative.

The offer for WDCU was five to ten times what its license and physical assets were thought to be worth, suggesting new levels of the perceived market values of public stations nationwide. If WDCU can invite offers of up to $13 million, other public universities which have seen their budgets severely slashed at the state and federal levels over the past several years will likely opt for the cash, some observers speculate.

At Texas Southern University in Houston, George Thomas, general manager for campus jazz and public information station KTSU-FM, also has received offers. The university has its own "financial challenges," according to Thomas, but "the offers have not been accepted."

KTSU has implemented other survival measures, such as changing its jazz format to "smooth jazz" during drive times to broaden its audience and attract additional sponsors. KTSU, established twenty-five years ago, boasts one of the top-rated [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] listening audiences in the market - including a No. 1 share on Sundays - and is less vulnerable because the campus president. James M. Douglas, is "pro-KTSU," maintains Thomas.

FCC regulations preclude reserved frequencies such as those held by many campus stations from being sold as commercial enterprises. However, there is nothing to prevent them from being incorporated into the nonprofit arm of a religious broadcaster who could make a whopping profit by transferring an existing, donation-based commercial service to the newly acquired one and selling the unreserved station.