Fifteen Minutes Should Remember WHRB

To the editors:

When reading last week’s issue of Fifteen Minutes, I was immediately struck by the absence of a review of Harvard’s own WHRB radio station in Amelia Lester’s “Radio Rundown” piece (Oct. 2). WHRB is a great resource for listeners who are looking for an alternative to their typical rock, classical, jazz and hip-hop stations. With blues, country, sports and news programming, WHRB is an eclectic blend of a variety of interests. Furthermore, as it is run and produced by Harvard students themselves, I felt that it was unfortunate that Fifteen Minutes didn’t show support or interest for the station.

I realize that WHRB’s popularity counts greatly on non-Harvard listeners, but maybe publicity in a popular student weekly would at least get more readers to check it out. Yes, its programming is varied and can border on the strange, but at least give the readers a chance to make their own judgments. Those classical listeners who tire of WCRB’s predictable warhorses will enjoy the classical department’s policy of never repeating the same piece in a year; rock listeners who dislike today’s nondescript alternative sound can find a real alternative in the underground scene covered by WHRB programming. Harvard football games, news reports, black urban contemporary music, blues, jazz and opera also all abound on WHRB.

Cambridge S. Ridley ’06

Oct. 2, 2003