A Radio Rebirth is Due

WVBC began in the 1960s as “The Voice of Boston College.” It was established so students could have a radio station to listen to on campus. Since then, however, it has fallen into oblivion. Although student disc jockeys and hosts still play music and talk sports, WVBC has few listeners.

In fact, the Webcast can only accommodate 20 listeners at a time. The original student radio station has become merely a training ground for its FM sister station, WZBC, established in 1973.

Unlike WVBC, WZBC is broadcast over the airwaves on 90.3 FM Newton and is regulated by the FCC.

To become an FM DJ, a student must train for a semester on WVBC, making BC’s former voice nothing more than a stepping stone to the big time broadcasting of WZBC.
This has been especially problematic for sports broadcasters. Sports jockeys only have two hours of scheduled time on WZBC-BC Sports Saturday from 1-3 p.m. They also broadcast the football games. When the football season ends, however, they are only allowed to broadcast twenty games – a combination of hockey, basketball, and soccer match-ups. WVBC’s sports department is growing, but its time allotment is not.
More people are becoming interested in sports broadcasting, but their space is limited to two hours on WZBC on Saturday and four hours every night on WVBC. So what does the sports department want?

More airtime and recognition would be nice. Students at BC are interested in sports and want to know how the Eagles are doing, but the only student sports media outlet of which they know is The Heights’ sports section. Everyone may read the sports section, but it is a bi-weekly release. The WVBC sports department hopes that it will be given the opportunity to report sports news all week long and reach a larger audience.
The increase in airtime and publicity that they seek is going to be difficult to find. WVBC, the practically defunct “Voice of Boston College,” only provides four one hour slots of sports talk each night. Even if given more airtime on WVBC, it is unlikely that the sports department would reach a larger audience.

Hosts complain that they do not get enough listeners, and the audience is not growing. To get more listeners and recognition, the sports department would have to be given more time on WZBC, but this is unlikely to happen. They must negotiate which twenty games they will be broadcasting before the season begins.

If they conjecture wrongly about which games are going to be important late in the season, they do not have the opportunity to amend their schedule. Another problem facing the sports department is that WZBC is not for students, no matter what they tell the campus their function is.

The majority of DJs who have shows are not students, but members of the community surrounding BC, and they are not willing to give up their shows so the BC campus can get what it needs – an expanded, recognized sports department that caters to the sports media needs of the student body.