The dean of broadcast historians was the late Eric Barnouw. His seminal book on the rise of radio in the United States, "A Tower in Babel," has a section on the difficulties facing nonprofit organizations in the early days. He relates one story that has particularly poignant meaning for CU:
"In some cases stations simply gave up ... This was the case with KFAJ of the University of Colorado, which could not be heard -- even locally -- when General Electric's powerful KOA, Denver, was on the air ... The situation seemed to offer no prospect of a useful educational service, so the University allowed its license to lapse in 1925."
Institutions, like individuals, occasionally have important moments when they can rise to challenges and realize important gains out of ill-defined, uncertain opportunities, or they can feud internally, dither and squander the moment. Such was the situation in the 1920s for CU and radio. CU had at least two other such opportunities in radio, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it had an FCC license and the federal funding necessary to put a public radio station on the air. For various reasons those opportunities also were lost, and as a result students were unable to work in a radio laboratory akin to those available to them in print and video.
The hopes for the new station, KVCU-AM, are outlined in the story, and the initial planning stage is quickly coming to a close. The challenge now will be to put the station on the air and to begin to provide a series of services that will contribute to the education and needs of students across campus and to the community at large.
Not surprisingly a major issue in those efforts will be funding. The station will be operated on a nonprofit basis, and although it will seek commercial underwriting and sponsorship it will be trying to thrive in a highly competitive market, where even noncommercial niches are vigorously contested.
A major challenge for the University and the School therefore will be to help it find those revenues that will permit it to realize the decades-old radio dream of students, faculty, staff and administrators alike. We are actively seeking help from friends and alumni. Indeed, the initial donation of the license and transmitter has been followed by generous commitments of equipment and seed funding. But over the long haul we will need a wider base of support and a larger stream of revenue. It is our fond hope that additional friends of the project will help support the station, both directly with donations and indirectly by promoting its needs to others. There is a happy irony that the current owners of KOA, the Jacor Corporation, are helping us recover from that great loss suffered so long ago at the hands of the original owners. We hope that many others will join Jacor in that cause and help us realize the opportunity.
| Bylines is the alumni publication of the
School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Editor: Beth Gaeddert; (303) 492-0460 (gaeddert@spot.colorado.edu). Associate Editor and Desktop Publisher: Alan Kirkpatrick (‘96 MA). Writers: Alan Kirkpatrick; John Snyder (‘97); Cherie Strain, Jessica Gleich and Sheldon Noland, seniors in news-editorial; and Geof Koss, candidate for a master’s in newsgathering-print. Photography: Jad Davenport ('98 MA); Holly Schmidt, senior in news-editorial; and Lucas Gilman, junior in news-editorial. Editorial Assistants: David Hatcher ('94 MA) and Cathy Stypula ('95 MA). |