Words from a college D.J.

["Gavin B. Burt" <prospect@email.msn.com>]

(When responding to this e-mail, please send to radio23@hotmail.com, and not
the address seen above).

I have been seeing a lot of discussion here on what college radio should be,
and the dispute over WVCR going to all-Urban.  I am currently a D.J. for one
hour a week at carrier current WHVC at Hudson Valley Community College in
Troy, N.Y., and thought I should add my opinions here.

First off, I would not really be surprised if WVCR is being programmed as a
commercial sounding station against WAJZ.  I believe college radio should be
diverse, and as someone stated in the Albany Times Union, someone who grew
up on Green Day can't play a Lauryn Hill song very easily.

The weekly show I do on WHVC is what I call mass-appeal oldies.  I play
music from 1963-1977, but with a strong lean towards 1966-1974.  About 60%
of the show is from the 1960's, and 40% of the show is from the 1970's.
While many may think the idea of oldies playing to people no older than
about 19 years old is a bad idea, I want to program an oldies station
someday.  I grew up on oldies since I was 9, and could not spend one hour
playing Lauryn Hill, Green Day, or the Spice Girls.  I don't know the songs,
I don't know the intros, if they have obscenities, or otherwise.

And who am I reaching with oldies.  Well, I have always felt that there
might be some people my age who might enjoy hearing some 60's and 70's
music.  But more importantly, I realized after having done my show a number
of times that I was reaching a minority in our campus center:  older
students and employees of the school.  I have had two people in two weeks
come and say they enjoyed the oldies.  One was a janitor, the other was
someone in this forties.

If we got a new advisor, and we were told that we would go all-Urban, I
would quit.  I wonder if some of the announcers that didn't play Urban at
WVCR felt that way.

Gavin Burt
radio23@hotmail.com

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