One of the things that struck me most about this chapter was the complaint on the first page about how the station is "reluctant to air politically progressive programming in order to accommodate conservative listeners and local business interests." In the rest of the article, I learned that WFHB's 'motto' was how it is "community radio." Even though Bloomington was described as a more conservative town, it is important to reach the interests of the community members, especially with such a slogan as "community radio." How can it be considered "community radio" when it only rings home with specific target listeners? This was interesting to me since WPRK's slogan is "the best in basement radio" - should we choose a slogan that is more relating to our listeners? Or, is the goal of that slogan to get the listeners to connect with us? Or, is it trying to leave the theme open so that WPRK doesn't have to stick to one genre or one target audience? Whatever the answer may be, that might be something more to explore.
Throughout this chapter, it demonstrated how much effort it takes to make and keep up a radio station. It's amazing WPRK has made it to 60 years, and I think after this class and hopefully after the campus gets more involved, it will have many more years on the air. I would love to hear how WPRK came about and how long it actually took for it to become an actual radio station.
I agree. It's so easy for a community org to only connect to PART of its community. It's one of the strongest things about WPRK, except for the fact that it used to largely ignore students. That's changing, thankfully, do to some great leadership with the staff this year.
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