WWPV-FM is a campus radio

Campus radio

Campus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the radio station is based...

 station in Colchester, Vermont

Colchester, Vermont

Colchester is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. The population was 17,067 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth-largest municipality and second-largest town in Vermont by population.-Geography:...

, just outside of Burlington

Burlington, Vermont

Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....

 owned by Saint Michael's College

Saint Michael's College

Saint Michael's College is a private, residential liberal arts Catholic college. The campus is located in Colchester, Vermont. It was founded in 1904 by the Society of Saint Edmund, a French order of Catholic priests.-History:...

, broadcasting on the 88.7 FM frequency. The station is nicknamed The Mike. The station allows any student, faculty, or staff member of SMC to be a DJ, as well as members of the local community.

History

The station's roots lie in an AM station with the call letters WSSE-AM, created in the 1950's. This station was initially run by the Edmundite

Society of Saint Edmund

The Society of Saint Edmund is a religious congregation of the Catholic Church founded in 1843, in Pontigny, France by Rev. Jean Baptiste Muard. They adhere to vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. The order is named after Saint Edmund....

 priests that founded Saint Michael's, before becoming more of a student station in later years. In 1974, the station switched to the FM band and changed its call letters to WWPV. A new station was built in an old military barracks on the college's North Campus, located at Fort Ethan Allen

Fort Ethan Allen

Fort Ethan Allen was a U.S. army installation in Vermont, named for American Revolutionary War figure Ethan Allen. First serving as a cavalry post in 1894, today it is the center of a designated national historic district straddling the town line between Colchester and Essex...

. In 1988, the station moved to the St. Michael's main campus with a new studio space in the newly constructed St. Edmund's Hall, where it remains today.

Programming

Throughout its existence, WWPV has been freeform

Freeform (radio format)

Freeform, or freeform radio, is a radio station programming format in which the disc jockey is given total control over what music to play, regardless of music genre or commercial interests. Freeform radio stands in contrast to most commercial radio stations, in which DJs have little or no...

 in nature, playing music that can't be heard on any commercial or mainstream radio stations in the Burlington area, including indie

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

, jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, and folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

. Each show has its own specialty, so a jazz show might be followed by an indie show, which then might be followed by a punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 show.

Throughout the 70's, 80's, and most of the 90's, the station aired live shows throughout the day, but had dead air during overnight hours or during other times when no live DJs were in the studio. This changed in 1999, when WWPV entered a partnership with Vermont Public Radio

Vermont Public Radio

-WVPR:-WRVT:-VPR Classical:Since 2007, VPR has broadcast classical music on a separate network. The main station is WOXR , which is licensed to Schuyler Falls, New York and serves the Burlington/Plattsburgh area....

, in which VPR broadcasted its BBC World Service

BBC World Service

The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...

 feed at 88.7 FM when there were no live shows being aired. In May 2009, VPR and WWPV mutually agreed to terminate this relationship. WWPV now airs music programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with an automated mix of music from the station's music library when there are no DJs in the studio. VPR has shifted its BBC World Service programming to a dedicated HD Radio

HD Radio

HD Radio, which originally stood for "Hybrid Digital", is the trademark for iBiquity's in-band on-channel digital radio technology used by AM and FM radio stations to transmit audio and data via a digital signal in conjunction with their analog signals...

 channel.

Spring 2007 VPR Buyout Controversy

In March 2007, WWPV attracted local attention when Vermont Public Radio approached the college's president, Marc vanderHeyden, and the Board of Trustees with an interest in purchasing the frequency to turn it into a 24-hour classical station.http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/NEWS01/703090315/1009 After word of this potential sale became public in the Burlington Free Press

Burlington Free Press

The Burlington Free Press is a daily newspaper based in Burlington, Vermont, in the United States. With a circulation of about 48,042 daily and 56,295 Sundays, it is the most circulated paper in Vermont....

and the St. Michael's online magazine, The Echo, SMC students, faculty, and staff rallied against the sale in an effort to preserve the station as a student-run, freeform college station. Numerous letters were written to the Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070317/OPINION/703170316/1006, posters were put up around campus, and a large Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 group was created to mobilize students. Because of the outcry, vanderHeyden recommended to the board that the station not be sold, effectively ending the possibility of a deal.http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070322/BUSINESS/703220313/1003 Vermont Public Radio instead bought 90.9 FM, now known as WOXR

WOXR

WOXR is a radio station broadcasting a Classical music format. Licensed to Schuyler Falls, New York, USA. The station is currently owned by Vermont Public Radio and features programing from American Public Media, National Public Radio and Public Radio International...

, to run the classical format.

Concerts

WWPV puts on free concerts every spring at St. Michael's, a tradition that started in 2007 with a free Zox

ZOX

ZOX is a band from Providence, Rhode Island that is self-described as "violin-laced Reggae rock." The band consists of four members: namesake John Zox , Eli Miller , Spencer Swain , and Dan Edinberg ....

 show. In spring 2008, the station won a nationwide college/university contest through the independent digital music retailer Mytracks.com, winning $5,000 to put towards a concert. The station beat out radio stations and programming boards at prestigious large universities such as Ole Miss, Michigan State, and Kentucky

University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...

. With its winnings, WWPV brought State Radio

State Radio

State Radio is an alternative rock band from Sherborn, Massachusetts, consisting of Chad Urmston , Chuck Fay and Mike Najarian...

 to the college to perform a concert at the St. Michael's gymnasium that April.

The WWPV concert took a hiatus in 2009, although the station organized a smaller concert featuring Grimis right before Christmas. Station staff has announced that the concert will be back in 2010, and this time will take place outdoors.

External links