The English countryside might offer scenery, but for a guy stuck there with a radio that received only the British Broadcasting Corporation, it wasn’t much for entertainment.
Then he found WNUR on the Web.
And after catching an earful of the jazz show, the man pulled out his checkbook.
“He sent us a hundred bucks,” says Kevan Harris, WNUR’s general manager. “He had to change it from pounds first, then he sent it over the pond to the station.”
Since WNUR went online in May 1998 (at www.wnur.org), e-mails praising Northwestern’s campus radio station have come from Australia, Singapore, Japan, New York and Los Angeles, Harris says.
“People are saying, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know this kind of thing existed’ way more often than anybody predicted when we put this on the Web,” says Harris, a Weinberg junior.
The Internet sparked rapid growth for the station, first with its home page and JazzWeb, its critically acclaimed jazz resource, and later with its Webcast.
These advances came at a low cost, which is critical for WNUR, a non-profit station funded by the School of Speech and donations.
Although WNUR doesn’t need to cater to advertisers, it does need to cater to listeners. Webcasters tend to play specific genres rather than pop hits, something a station can’t risk if it wants to snag the average listener turning a radio dial.
“The challenge once you’re on the Web is getting that kind of niche support,” Harris says.
WNUR will introduce multiple streaming in May to accommodate people with more specific tastes. Multiple streaming allows listeners to select the music they prefer and hear about eight hours of it on a loop.
Such advances in broadcast range and availability are remarkably fast and inexpensive compared with the way stations grew in the last century.
WNUR hit the airwaves in 1950 with a broadcast range of five to seven miles and fewer watts than a light bulb. In the early years, the station aired panel discussions of current issues and carried national radio shows like “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Amos and Andy.”
The 1960s brought a change in public consciousness, and WNUR was no different. The station moved to more diverse, controversial programming, including coverage of communist meetings, political conventions and labor union programs.
Public figures including Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Gov. Adlai Stevenson were interviewed. The music director stopped censoring the playlists and allowed rock ‘n’ roll in the afternoons.
Once a 10-watt station, WNUR became 10 times more powerful, reaching Chicago and its northern and western suburbs.
By the early ’70s, the station that began with five to 10 hours of programming a day was broadcasting every hour. More listeners and more time meant shows could specialize for certain audiences — soul, blues, country and a Sunday afternoon reggae show. A feminist show debuted in 1974.
WNUR began playing New Wave music by bands including the Sex Pistols, Clash and the Ramones before they hit the peak of stardom.
The music reached even farther when a new antennae on top of Leverone Hall and a power boost sent WNUR’s signal over a 50-mile radius. The station now draws listeners from the Chicago area and beyond, meaning a better chance at introducing music that doesn’t always make the charts.
Now in its 50th year on campus, WNUR still avoids playing songs that can be heard elsewhere. DJs choose from nearly 50,000 albums on everything from vinyl to minidisc.
But their playlists don’t seem to attract the audience just outside Annie May Swift.
“The general NU student says, ‘Why don’t you play music everyone likes, like Dave Matthews?'” Harris says. “Well, this Dave Matthews, this music of the masses that’s produced by large corporations and distributed worldwide — it doesn’t need our help. Bands that do need our help are bands that are struggling.”
