90.7 format shift causes controversy

Eric Van Nostrand, a junior majoring in nursing, has never worked at WVUA-FM 90.7 The Capstone. He has never held a paid position, never a volunteer DJ spot. But, he said, his concern in the direction the station has taken in the last few weeks comes from "the perspective of an avid listener." Now, he and several other "avid listeners" and music fans around the campus have formed a Facebook group to air their grievances with the station's new direction.

The group, "Fix WVUA 90.7 NOW!", is a response, the description reads, to the "revised" direction of the student-run radio station that the newly-named station manager, Joe Pritchard, has set into effect.

Listeners to 90.7 may have noticed the change in recent weeks, particularly after the radio station came back on-air after the first of June as new soundboards and hardware were installed. Now, Pritchard said, the station has been retooled to focus more on top 40 modern rock - a change that some students are none too happy with.

"Last year was more of a free format, what they like to call the college music, indie music side to things. But there's nothing that says we have to be the typical college format," Pritchard said. "So we adopted the general rock format. We're basically just general rock during the hours of 9 [a.m.] to 5 [p.m.]. Our specialty shows are still there, so people can have specialty shows and play whatever they want to still. All I've done is given organization and an actual name to the format that we have."

This is a change, Van Nostrand said, that is not in the best interests of students or the radio station.

"The actions of the people who are in charge of the station right now don't, we feel, reflect the interests of the students here," he said. "He says that there was no format to begin with; our format was independent music, with the emphasis on diverse music. It wasn't all independent music, but it was music you couldn't find anywhere else, and they've changed it to a top 40, Clear Channel-based radio."

This is an issue, Van Nostrand said, for several reasons, not the least of which is the inherent competition 90.7 would then face against other, for-profit radio stations offering the same service.

"More so than the interests of what we're listening to, more I feel that it's a detriment to the station because, I mean, with all these stations out here, we've got at least two or three stations in each top 40 genre," he said. "We're talking about two or three stations for country. You've got classic rock, 99.5 or 101.5 or whatever it was, but we've got several stations in each of the genres that get the music the second it comes out.

"Now with us, we don't have a direct contract with any of the companies that send out the new music, so it's already a little bit older anyway. And so when we're trying to cover all these genres and we're talking about top 40 music, there's no real incentive for the student to listen at all if you've got all these other outlets with brand new music who are solely dedicated to that genre," Van Nostrand said

But Pritchard downplayed the fear of competition.

"As far as close to our format, the rock music that we're playing, and like the alt-rock and the modern rock and indie rock, nobody's playing that except … the closest is 105.5 The Vulcan [a Birmingham-based station] that plays out as soon as you hit Tuscaloosa County," Pritchard said.

90.7 The Capstone differs from its sister publications in the Office of Student Media, such as The Crimson White, in that it is classified as a not-for-profit broadcaster. Under FCC rules, this means that advertisements cannot be broadcast on air. A significant portion of The Capstone's budget - approximately $12,000 out of a roughly $33,000 budget from the 2007-08 year - comes from student tuition. What does not come from tuition comes from underwriting, or the exchange of an announcement spot for funding.

Both of these financial considerations, Pritchard said, were motivations for the change.

"I think that if we can market ourselves as the station of the University, not just the station at the University, that'll be something that can stick," he said. "We're still playing local music, we're still playing music people have never heard before, but we're throwing in more mainstream music. You're going to reach a broader group of people. And if we reach that majority of the population on campus, there's no reason not to stick there. Because then we're going to open up new events, more interest in the station, more funding for the station."

Pritchard also downplayed concerns raised on the Facebook group that local music play would suffer.

"A lot of them are complaining about local music play. We've doubled that," he said. "That's something I really want to press, that we've doubled local music play. We're still playing the stuff that was in the system. We didn't get rid of any of it, we're just playing different amounts of it."

Pritchard said that, most of all, the interests of the University body at large were foremost in his mind when he made the switch.

"We're really trying to reach not only that core group of people but actually the majority of campus, because we're supposed to be the voice of the University of Alabama, not the voice of the core listeners of this station. To represent an entire university instead of just this small group is really what we're looking to do," he said. "It's sad that you can't make everybody happy all the time, and I was assuming that people would get mad at me and would get mad at the station because of the change, because I understand people are passionate about their music.

"But people are also passionate about mainstream music, people are passionate about rap music, people are passionate about jazz music, any kind of music, there's passion in it. So to feel like I'm alienating people because I changed the station, I personally don't think they're giving it a fair chance."

Van Nostrand said he remains unconvinced.

"If you look at the members of that group, 200 people that cover a very wide array of groups of people ... this isn't a core group that I'm aware of," he said. "There are people who, right now, avidly listen to the station. And that won't change. As far as the amount of people who showed up in the past at the [90.7 benefit concerts] and the amount of people who will show up in the future if you choose to alienate the 200 people … I don't feel that mainstream music is something that will necessarily target the rest of the University.

"My whole opinion of it is that it wasn't something that was made based on any survey, any poll, any sort of proof that that's what the interests of the student body are. Who's to say that's what the student body wants? When there's so many other options out there, I would say it might be logical that an intelligent college atmosphere of students would want other options of music to listen to."

Pritchard has extended an open invitation to those with concerns and questions to contact him, including members of the Facebook group. He and Van Nostrand have already corresponded via e-mail.

"My door's always open," he said. "I'm here every day. I gave my personal cell phone number to a lot of people. My e-mail is public information. I'll be glad to meet with anybody to talk about anything.

"I'm not trying to alienate anybody. I took the change because that's what I was hired to do. I made the change. I think it's a good change. We've already reaped some of the benefits of the change. If there's people who don't like it, I'd love to meet with them and talk to them and work with them in any way possible."

Ultimately, Van Nostrand said, his and his Facebook group's main concern lies with the future of the station.

"The bottom line is we all want the station to be better, we just don't think this is the right way to do it," he said.

Send your thoughts about the 90.7 The Capstone format shift to letters@cw.ua.edu.