WXYC
Encyclopedia
WXYC is a radio station
broadcasting a college radio format. Licensed to Chapel Hill, North Carolina
, USA, the station is run by students of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
. The station is currently owned by Student Educational Broadcasting. The station has obtained a construction permit from the FCC for a power increase to 1,200 watts.
The station broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Its signal has been simulcast on the Internet by ibiblio
since November 1994 and is credited as having performed the first internet radio broadcast in the world . It can also be found on iTunes, where, based on listener feedback, it would appear to enjoy some popularity in the UK and the American Northeast among internet listeners.
The station is known for an eclectic variety of content, including (but not limited to): jazz
, blues
, rock, hip hop
, zydeco, metal, electronic music
, folk music
, bluegrass
, country
, traditional Asian music
, traditional African music, calypso
, samba
, tejano
, mariachi
, Latin American music, funk
, electroclash
, synthpop
, pop
, cajun
, doo wop, reggae
, dance hall
, classical, classic rock
, and almost any other type of music. There is a stated emphasis on music from the 20th century onwards (as opposed to classical), though classical music is played from time to time. Furthermore, there is a conscious attempt to give artists from North Carolina
(especially the greater Chapel Hill
area) more air time, but local artists do not dominate the content. There are also specialty talk shows that highlight sports, news, and student government at UNC. Specialty music shows exhibit material from UNC's Southern Folklife Collection, music usually considered too erratic, abrasive, or long for regular radio play (even by WXYC's permissive standards), local music, newly released music, and electronic/dance. Additionally, every Thursday night there is a three hour theme show. The theme of this show changes every week, but a few examples include: songs about chickens, music from Mexico
, Swing music from occupied Europe, the northern England electronic scene, batucada
, music performed by convicted criminals, and Carolina Soul of the 1960s through 1980s.
WXYC's offices and studios are in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union on the campus of the University of North Carolina. WXYC's transmitter is located at the base of the south campus water tower near Morrison Dormitory and its transmitting tower is atop the water tower. WXYC is known for putting on dances throughout the year with various themes, including the 80s, the early 90s, and the best music released in the past year.
station known as WCAR.
In the early 1970s, several UNC residence colleges had their own carrier current stations, such as WMO which broadcast to Morrison Dormitory. Eventually these stations consolidated into one station, WCAR. The WCAR studios were located in the basement of Ehringhaus Dormitory and broadcast to every other dorm via AM frequency 550 kHz. The management of WCAR planned to upgrade the service with the hope of eventually getting an FM license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). At that time, it was also hoped that the station would serve as a training ground for future broadcasters and not act solely an outlet for, what was called at the time, "progressive rock."
In order to achieve their ambitious plans, many WCAR staff members ran for Student Legislature (SL). In 1972, a running joke around campus was that the SL was made up of three parties, the liberals, the conservatives, and WCAR. Through the shrewd use of political power, WCAR was allocated the funds necessary to move its studios and offices to the Frank Porter Graham Student Union in 1973. UNC students Jim Srebro, Gary Rendsburg, Jim Bond, Bob Heymann, Randy Wolf, Monte Plott, and George Frye were all instrumental in the upgrading of facilities and doing the preliminary engineering work in order to be licensed as an FM station. A student referendum was held to allocate the necessary funds to formally apply for and build an FM station. Through the work of WCAR volunteers, the referendum passed.
Finally, in 1974, WCAR received its Construction Permit from the FCC to begin building its FM station. Unfortunately, when the UNC Administration realized that this "new" FM station would be licensed with over 10,000 watts of power and therefore could be clearly heard in Raleigh and by the North Carolina General Assembly, they pulled their support for the entire project. The FCC subsequently canceled the Construction Permit.
In response, WCAR's management formed a not for profit corporation, Student Educational Broadcasting, which would be the new licensee of WXYC. Jim Srebro served as the first Chairman of Student Educational Broadcasting, Inc. In the intervening months, however, other new FM stations were licensed by the FCC in North Carolina which forced WXYC to be licensed with its current 400 watts of power. WXYC finally went on the air in 1977.
In 1994 WXYC disc jockey Michael Shoffner set up the station's internet radio broadcast, which runs to this day and is widely considered to be the first such broadcast.
WXYC should not be confused with WUNC
, which is also affiliated with the university.
is perhaps the best known WCAR/WXYC alumnus. Other noted alums include Stuart Scott
, coanchor of ESPN
SportsCenter
; E.W. Scripps Co. President and CEO Ken Lowe, who was known in the early 1970s by his WKIX air name of Steve Roddy; Peyton Reed
(director of The Weird Al Show
and other films); Jim Bond, retired founder of the prestigious Washington D.C. broadcast consulting firm of Bond and Pecaro; Bob Heymann, former NBC and CBS radio announcer and current national radio and TV station broker at Media Services Group; CBS News producer Randy Wolf and John Altschuler (IMDB entry executive producer and writer for King of the Hill
). Deborah Potter, President and Executive Director of NewsLab, and a former correspondent for CBS and CNN, was station manager of WCAR in the early 1970s.
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
broadcasting a college radio format. Licensed to Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
, USA, the station is run by students of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
. The station is currently owned by Student Educational Broadcasting. The station has obtained a construction permit from the FCC for a power increase to 1,200 watts.
The station broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Its signal has been simulcast on the Internet by ibiblio
Ibiblio
ibiblio is a "collection of collections," and hosts a diverse range of publicly available information and open source software, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies. As an "Internet librarianship," ibiblio is a digital library and archive...
since November 1994 and is credited as having performed the first internet radio broadcast in the world . It can also be found on iTunes, where, based on listener feedback, it would appear to enjoy some popularity in the UK and the American Northeast among internet listeners.
The station is known for an eclectic variety of content, including (but not limited to): 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...
, rock, hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, zydeco, metal, electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, folk music
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....
, bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, traditional Asian music
Asian music
Asian music encompasses numerous different musical styles originating from a large number of Asian countries.Musical traditions in Asia* Music of Central Asia** Music of Afghanistan** Music of Kazakhstan** Music of Mongolia** Music of Uzbekistan...
, traditional African music, calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
, samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
, tejano
Tejano music
Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...
, mariachi
Mariachi
Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...
, Latin American music, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, electroclash
Electroclash
Electroclash is a style of music that fuses New Wave and electronic dance music. It emerged in New York and Detroit in the later 1990s, pioneered by acts including I-F and those associated with Gerald Donald, and is associated with acts including Peaches, Adult, and Fischerspooner...
, synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, cajun
Cajun music
Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based, Cajun-influenced zydeco form, both of Acadiana origin...
, doo wop, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, dance hall
Dance hall
Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub...
, classical, classic rock
Classic rock
Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...
, and almost any other type of music. There is a stated emphasis on music from the 20th century onwards (as opposed to classical), though classical music is played from time to time. Furthermore, there is a conscious attempt to give artists from North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
(especially the greater Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
area) more air time, but local artists do not dominate the content. There are also specialty talk shows that highlight sports, news, and student government at UNC. Specialty music shows exhibit material from UNC's Southern Folklife Collection, music usually considered too erratic, abrasive, or long for regular radio play (even by WXYC's permissive standards), local music, newly released music, and electronic/dance. Additionally, every Thursday night there is a three hour theme show. The theme of this show changes every week, but a few examples include: songs about chickens, music from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Swing music from occupied Europe, the northern England electronic scene, batucada
Batucada
Batucada is a substyle of samba and refers to an African influenced Brazilian percussive style, usually performed by an ensemble, known as a Bateria...
, music performed by convicted criminals, and Carolina Soul of the 1960s through 1980s.
WXYC's offices and studios are in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union on the campus of the University of North Carolina. WXYC's transmitter is located at the base of the south campus water tower near Morrison Dormitory and its transmitting tower is atop the water tower. WXYC is known for putting on dances throughout the year with various themes, including the 80s, the early 90s, and the best music released in the past year.
History
Prior to 1977, WXYC was a carrier currentCarrier current
Carrier current is a method of low power AM radio transmission that uses the AC electrical system of a building to propagate a medium frequency, AM signal to a relatively small area, such as a building or a group of buildings...
station known as WCAR.
In the early 1970s, several UNC residence colleges had their own carrier current stations, such as WMO which broadcast to Morrison Dormitory. Eventually these stations consolidated into one station, WCAR. The WCAR studios were located in the basement of Ehringhaus Dormitory and broadcast to every other dorm via AM frequency 550 kHz. The management of WCAR planned to upgrade the service with the hope of eventually getting an FM license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). At that time, it was also hoped that the station would serve as a training ground for future broadcasters and not act solely an outlet for, what was called at the time, "progressive rock."
In order to achieve their ambitious plans, many WCAR staff members ran for Student Legislature (SL). In 1972, a running joke around campus was that the SL was made up of three parties, the liberals, the conservatives, and WCAR. Through the shrewd use of political power, WCAR was allocated the funds necessary to move its studios and offices to the Frank Porter Graham Student Union in 1973. UNC students Jim Srebro, Gary Rendsburg, Jim Bond, Bob Heymann, Randy Wolf, Monte Plott, and George Frye were all instrumental in the upgrading of facilities and doing the preliminary engineering work in order to be licensed as an FM station. A student referendum was held to allocate the necessary funds to formally apply for and build an FM station. Through the work of WCAR volunteers, the referendum passed.
Finally, in 1974, WCAR received its Construction Permit from the FCC to begin building its FM station. Unfortunately, when the UNC Administration realized that this "new" FM station would be licensed with over 10,000 watts of power and therefore could be clearly heard in Raleigh and by the North Carolina General Assembly, they pulled their support for the entire project. The FCC subsequently canceled the Construction Permit.
In response, WCAR's management formed a not for profit corporation, Student Educational Broadcasting, which would be the new licensee of WXYC. Jim Srebro served as the first Chairman of Student Educational Broadcasting, Inc. In the intervening months, however, other new FM stations were licensed by the FCC in North Carolina which forced WXYC to be licensed with its current 400 watts of power. WXYC finally went on the air in 1977.
In 1994 WXYC disc jockey Michael Shoffner set up the station's internet radio broadcast, which runs to this day and is widely considered to be the first such broadcast.
WXYC should not be confused with WUNC
North Carolina Public Radio
North Carolina Public Radio is a public radio network based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and operated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It broadcasts NPR, American Public Media, Public Radio International, and BBC programming in an "all-news-and-information" format...
, which is also affiliated with the university.
Alumni
Rick DeesRick Dees
Rigdon Osmond "Rick" Dees III is an American comedic performer, entertainer, and radio personality, best known for his internationally syndicated radio show The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Countdown and for the novelty song "Disco Duck." He is a People's Choice Award recipient, a Grammy-nominated...
is perhaps the best known WCAR/WXYC alumnus. Other noted alums include Stuart Scott
Stuart Scott
Stuart Scott is a sportscaster and anchor on ESPN's SportsCenter.-Early life and career:Scott attended Richard J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and went to college at the University of North Carolina. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity...
, coanchor of ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
SportsCenter
SportsCenter
SportsCenter is a daily sports news television show, and the flagship program of American cable network ESPN since the network launched on September 7, 1979. Originally broadcast only daily, SportsCenter is now shown up to twelve times a day, replaying the day's scores and highlights from major...
; E.W. Scripps Co. President and CEO Ken Lowe, who was known in the early 1970s by his WKIX air name of Steve Roddy; Peyton Reed
Peyton Reed
Peyton Reed is an American television and film director.Reed was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Reed directed the motion pictures Bring It On, Down with Love, and The Break-Up; all comedy films...
(director of The Weird Al Show
The Weird Al Show
The Weird Al Show is a television show hosted by "Weird Al" Yankovic. Produced in association with Dick Clark Productions, it aired Saturday mornings on the CBS TV network from September to December 1997. The show was released on DVD on August 15, 2006...
and other films); Jim Bond, retired founder of the prestigious Washington D.C. broadcast consulting firm of Bond and Pecaro; Bob Heymann, former NBC and CBS radio announcer and current national radio and TV station broker at Media Services Group; CBS News producer Randy Wolf and John Altschuler (IMDB entry executive producer and writer for King of the Hill
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...
). Deborah Potter, President and Executive Director of NewsLab, and a former correspondent for CBS and CNN, was station manager of WCAR in the early 1970s.