Music for the Masses?

It's about 10:30 p.m. on a Thursday night, and the phone is ringing inside 389 Harvard St.

Dan G. Appel '99 answers it. He's nodding, and a few seconds later puts the receiver back on its hook.

"It was a collect call--from an inmate at a local prison," Appel says, explaining that his caller rushed to request a song before the operator disconnected the call.

The anthropology concentrator-by-day, Record Hospital deejay-by-night contemplates whether to comply and play a tune by the punk group the Dead Kennedys. This has happened many times before.

After a second phone call from the same prisoner, Appel cues up the song.

"We get this all the time," he shrugs. "A lot of our calls are from convicts that seem to relate to the angst-ridden music."

It's just another night at 95.3 FM, WHRB.

The College in College Radio

The College's only student-run radio station aims to fill a gap in the airwaves.

The station courts a "different" kind of listener--the devotees of esoteric classical, jazz and underground rock music.

Cambridge's elite--and, yes, inmates at the state penitentiary--fall into this category.

Harvard undergraduates generally do not.

"Our audience base is not students," writes WHRB President Ashwin Vasan in an e-mail message. "The fact that we are in some sense `college radio' is only reflected by the fact that we are staffed and run by undergraduates."

Other than publicizing comp meetings and their famed Orgies--the station's lengthy celebrations of an individual artist during reading and exam periods--WHRB does not actively pursue a student audience, according to Vasan.

Sending program guides to every undergraduate's mailbox would probably be too expensive, he says, though the station has not explored the option.

The result: most students skip by 95.3 on their FM dial.

According to a recent informal Crimson survey, more than three-quarters of students who listen to the radio do not listen to WHRB, either because they dislike the station's format, or they are simply unaware of the station.

"Increasing student listenership is valued, but not key to the station's long-term survival," Vasan says. "We see our-selves as a commercial radio station in the Boston market filling a unique listening niche."

The relative lack of attention to students is disappointing to some, especially those who had dreams of their own talk shows on college radio.

Thomas L. Hobbs '99 says he didn't comp the station because "my music interest and theirs didn't match at all."

WHRB Comp Director Matthew A. Carter '99, who is a Crimson editor, acknowledges there have been potential compers who are turned off by the station's musical tastes, but says WHRB is not and should not be the place on campus where everyone can play everything they want on the air.

"We're not claiming to be the Massachusetts College of Communications," Carter says "Most people enter college with the idea that [student radio] is a musical free-for-all--spinning disks with and for your friends. I imagine--were we to serve the tastes of the student body--we might fold."

Carter adds that "there are other radio stations in the Boston-area that have a community philosophy," and interested students who are unwilling to give WHRB a try could look for a job there.

While he calls the plight of budding deejays who don't share WHRB's tastes "unfortunate," Vasan says the station is ultimately about its programming.

"We draw upon Harvard resources, namely students, to produce a product for the world beyond Harvard," Vasan writes. "The only preconception I see as holding this perspective back is the notion of college radio as a media for and about students."

In other words, students should not expect WHRB to cater to their musical interests--or serve as their launch pad to the airwaves.

"Not every student group on campus need exist for the purpose of satisfying the tastes and needs of other students," agrees Undergraduate Council President Beth A. Stewart '00. "Only the U.C., in my judgement, has an inherent responsibility to be responsive to the whole campus. Other groups such as The Crimson or the IOP [Institute of Politics] may choose to be responsive because it fits with some larger mission, but they may just as well decide that responsiveness is not a priority."

Last week's Crimson survey found several students who cited the recent Ella Fitzgerald orgy as "awesome."

From the station's standpoint, it is great that there are students who like WHRB's programming.

But for everyone who does not, there are other radio stations in Boston.

"I don't really think students don't know where to turn for the music they want to hear," Carter says.

A Unique Arrangement

As a not-for-profit commercial radio station, WHRB's operating costs are not covered by the University.

The station, which moved its transmitter from the top of Holyoke Center to One Financial Center in Boston after a fundraising drive in 1995, sells on-air advertising to subsist, and plays the time-tested music that its loyal listeners enjoy.

"If we were to allow students to have their own `shows' on any musical selection, our air would become fragmented, more so than it already is," Vasan writes. "This would reduce our commercial viability. In radio broadcasting, format fragmentation is extremely harmful for long-term viability."

According to Alexandra J. McCormack '00, WHRB general manager, many of the station's listeners have been following the station for years. In the literature it prepares for potential advertisers, WHRB states that it appeals to the educated, affluent Cambridge audience.

"Our listeners have well-developed tastes," McCormack says. "We're filling a niche in programming that makes us very valuable in the greater Boston area. The idea is to give our audience something original--something that they won't find anywhere else."

Most students, Appel realizes, are turned off by bands like Vomit Launch and Meat Puppets.

The Record Hospital, the underground rock department at WHRB, plays "very obscure, difficult, weird, odd sounds that, for the most part, Harvard students don't seem to like to listen to," Appel says.

But a "small sector of society finds it blissful and beautiful," and Appel says HRB is "fulfilling a pretty important role for those who depend on us for unconventional [music]."

It was the "spirit of not pandering to the prevailing idea of what rock music should be like" that compelled Chris A. Hunter '02 to comp the station.

"There's more out there than the Stone Temple Pilots," Hunter says. "Most people don't know that or don't care enough to find out."

Carter says WHRB offers its listeners "an invitation to broaden your tastes."

Station Vice President Danit Lewin '99 agrees. "We don't want to be a CRB [102.5 FM] or a Kiss 108," Lewin says. "There's just too many of them."

Because the station is non-profit, there is less pressure to placate every listener's tastes.

WHRB does not pay for ratings information and therefore does not know its market share, the average number of listeners who tune in at a given time.

According to an official from the Arbitron Company, an international media and marketing research firm which measures local radio audiences, WHRB does not have enough listeners to appear in its Boston-metro report.

But as long as they balance their books--with the help of their business and sales departments--WHRB retains some room to explore the unfamiliar, taking their open-minded listeners on a musical journey.

"We have this luxury--all we have to consult is our own tastes and quirks," Appel says.

Quality Programming

While students like Paul L. Greer '01 may be frustrated by a station that "sounds like it's trying to target Boston intellectuals," for WHRB listeners, the quirks work.

In her Boston Globe column during Thanksgiving 1994, Diane White wrote she was grateful for the station's longstanding program, Hillbilly at Harvard.

The Globe and The New York Times have praised the station as a beacon of originality and innovation.

DJs and station leaders tack up fan letters onto a board mounted in their Pennypacker Basement headquarters.

One listener wrote from Sunnyside, N.Y., urging the station to broadcast theirprograms on the Internet: "WHRB would provide animmensely valuable service to classical musiclovers all over the country--and beyond." Vasantold The Crimson that "the possibility [ofbroadcasting via the Internet] is very real,hopefully in the near future," but would notelaborate further.

The same listener also criticized "the mindlessand superficial `Top 40' type of programming whichhas become more and more the norm and erodedprogramming standards to the point where FMclassical music has become a wasteland ofrepetition, predictability, excerpts, warhorses bya handful of overly familiar composers, andsystematic neglect of the vast treasures ofrecorded music."

Another faithful listener is Robinson Professorof Music Robert D. Levin '68, who worked as WHRBprogram director and chief producer as anundergraduate.

"The orgies show WHRB at its nonpareil best;they set a standard probably unsurpassed anywherein the world," Levin says.

Knowing Your Roots

While its cohort of dedicated fans is thestation's priority, WHRB does make efforts toserve the campus in which it resides.

In addition to broadcasting special events atHarvard--such as South African President Nelson R.Mandela's recent visit to the University--WHRBprovides comprehensive sports coverage, as well asairtime for Memorial Church's Sunday services,this Thursday's Ig Nobel ceremonies and severalother campus events.

And WHRB provides notable opportunities for itsmembers.

While students running the Emerson Collegeradio station, WERS-FM (88.9), recently faced astation coup as college administrators began toreplace their home-grown programming withprofessional deejays, WHRB is by-and-large studentcontrolled.

"Harvard radio is far more about undergraduatesthan many places," Vasan says. "Many collegesdon't have radio stations; many don't havestudents running their radio station's management;many don't have students doing the station's air;some are unashamedly commercial."

Part of the station's explicit mission is toeducate its staff in broadcasting. So while notevery Harvard student will like what WHRBplays--and will choose not to comp thestation--those who do get an education whilespinning the tunes they love.

Appel takes his job seriously--spending sixhours every week just selecting the music he willplay during his broadcast.

"Ever since I was 14, I have been interested inpunk music," Appel says. "And now I can share themusic with a lot of like-minded obsessives."

--Roberto Bailey, Robert L. Chan, AdamChristian, Vasugi Ganeshananthan, Peter D.Henninger, Jonelle M. Lonergan, Meredith B.Osborn, Suzanne Pomey, Tova A. Serkin, Jared B.Shirck, Robert K. Silverman and Adam C. Weisscontributed to the reporting of this story.

The same listener also criticized "the mindlessand superficial `Top 40' type of programming whichhas become more and more the norm and erodedprogramming standards to the point where FMclassical music has become a wasteland ofrepetition, predictability, excerpts, warhorses bya handful of overly familiar composers, andsystematic neglect of the vast treasures ofrecorded music."

Another faithful listener is Robinson Professorof Music Robert D. Levin '68, who worked as WHRBprogram director and chief producer as anundergraduate.

"The orgies show WHRB at its nonpareil best;they set a standard probably unsurpassed anywherein the world," Levin says.

Knowing Your Roots

While its cohort of dedicated fans is thestation's priority, WHRB does make efforts toserve the campus in which it resides.

In addition to broadcasting special events atHarvard--such as South African President Nelson R.Mandela's recent visit to the University--WHRBprovides comprehensive sports coverage, as well asairtime for Memorial Church's Sunday services,this Thursday's Ig Nobel ceremonies and severalother campus events.

And WHRB provides notable opportunities for itsmembers.

While students running the Emerson Collegeradio station, WERS-FM (88.9), recently faced astation coup as college administrators began toreplace their home-grown programming withprofessional deejays, WHRB is by-and-large studentcontrolled.

"Harvard radio is far more about undergraduatesthan many places," Vasan says. "Many collegesdon't have radio stations; many don't havestudents running their radio station's management;many don't have students doing the station's air;some are unashamedly commercial."

Part of the station's explicit mission is toeducate its staff in broadcasting. So while notevery Harvard student will like what WHRBplays--and will choose not to comp thestation--those who do get an education whilespinning the tunes they love.

Appel takes his job seriously--spending sixhours every week just selecting the music he willplay during his broadcast.

"Ever since I was 14, I have been interested inpunk music," Appel says. "And now I can share themusic with a lot of like-minded obsessives."

--Roberto Bailey, Robert L. Chan, AdamChristian, Vasugi Ganeshananthan, Peter D.Henninger, Jonelle M. Lonergan, Meredith B.Osborn, Suzanne Pomey, Tova A. Serkin, Jared B.Shirck, Robert K. Silverman and Adam C. Weisscontributed to the reporting of this story.