On a seemingly annual basis, The Voice prints an article talking about our school’s radio station, WCNI New London. This year, Lauren Shenfield stated, “Not only is the eclectic and creative FM station streamed online and available to anyone desiring to listen on the College’s campus, but it is also a station that can be reached by anyone in the New London area. The station…has a rich history with Connecticut College and involves an impressive staff of community members and student DJs committed to producing quality shows ‘for the love of music.’”
That all sounds wonderful, but it doesn’t change the fact that nobody on campus is listening to the station whose radio waves actually permeate the air they breathe. We all walk past the glowing red WCNI sign and see the enormous transmitter antenna on a near-daily basis. Tour guides boast about the station to high school students and their parents, but students simply don’t listen to the radio in their spare time.
There are several things that can be done to raise awareness about WCNI on campus.
If you’ve ever set foot inside the school’s post office, you’ve heard the generic adult contemporary station playing at a barely audible level. Why not switch out one near-imperceptible station for another? After all, the on-air DJ studio shares a wall with the post office. Obviously, I have no right to dictate the music choices of the post office employees, but it would certainly liven up the room.
There are still more options.
An ever-present fixture of Oasis snack shop is the television playing CNN on mute. Since they’re already missing out on the dulcet tones of Anderson “Silver Fox” Cooper’s voice, I think students would love listening to their fellow students and community DJs on the air. As an active member of Connecticut College Community, Inc., I’m obviously biased, but the jockeys at the station work hard to produce eclectic, energetic shows. Provided the volume is kept to a low, non-distracting level, playing WCNI in Cro will allow those who would never otherwise tune into 90.9 FM listen to snippets of their peers’ shows. I’m convinced students are not avoiding WCNI by choice – if they are presented with an easy way to access the signal, they will tune in more often in their spare time.
The most effective and least intrusive way of raising awareness would be to place a link to “listen live” to WCNI on the Connecticut College website. As of now, the station operates from wcniradio.org, where programming information, concert schedules, news, and the signal stream are located. Placing a link somewhere on c1onncoll.edu or CamelWeb would not only allow current students and faculty to access the web stream, but would let prospective students check out a potential extracurricular activity.
While Pandora and iTunes have obviously supplanted terrestrial radio, WCNI DJs – many of whom you probably know – continue to produce entertaining, specialized programming.
