WMUC
The free-form, multi-genre campus-based radio station WMUC will begin playing its music, as well as public service announcements, in campus dining halls beginning Nov. 1.
WMUC obtained approval from Dining Services on Tuesday, said Nathan Chai, the chairman of the Student Government Association’s health and wellness committee. This development followed the SGA’s Sept. 10 resolution of approval for the initiative.
Kevin Delmolino, WMUC’s general manager, said the radio station plans to start out playing music only in the North and South Campus Dining Halls, although the station hopes to expand its outreach over time.
“We’re just slowly rolling out, and when that works, having more nights and more days and more facilities, hopefully,” Delmolino said. “We’ll do as much as Dining Services allows us to.”
Chai noted that WMUC’s play time in the dining halls will be a staggered process to allow the radio station to fix hiccups, gather feedback and iron out any other problems that might arise.
“In the beginning, we’ll probably have a six-hour time block maybe once or twice per week,” Chai said. “And then once we figure out what people like, what people don’t like, what we can improve upon and we improve upon it, then we can start expanding the time that we’re actually being played in the diner.”
WMUC is waiting until November to air its content because it hopes to gradually increase the amount of PSAs in its repertoire, and therefore needs time to create new ones to be smoothly integrated into its music programs. At the moment, the radio station averages one PSA per hour, Chai said.
“People spend a lot of time waiting in line at the diner, especially during peak hours,” Chai said. “That’s a really valuable time to just educate people about some of the services that the university offers, especially for a lot of underclassmen who we think don’t know about, for example, services like the Help Center.”
Delmolino said finding out about the university’s services casually over the radio will be more comfortable for students than being bombarded by PSAs around the campus.
“With the PSAs, we feel that people don’t want to be stopped on the street, like, ‘Hey you, join this thing or do this thing,’” Delmolino said. “People want to know this information; they just don’t want to be hassled about it.”
Chai also said he thinks offering PSAs is a part of the station’s responsibility to the campus community.
“WMUC gets like $32,000 a year out of the Student Activities Fee, which is quite a bit of funding,” Chai said. “We should really be kind of trying to make the best out of it as we possibly can.”
Although the integration of PSAs is new, Chai said the idea to play WMUC in the dining halls is not. Last year, WMUC played during late-night dining hours a couple of times per week. However, it fizzled out due to programming conflicts, Dining Services spokesman Bart Hipple said.
“The concern was that during the hours that we were really wanting to play their music, they had talk shows on,” Hipple said. “So we weren’t able to coordinate when they had music shows on that were suitable music for a dining hall.”
However, with such concerns being more effectively handled this time, Hipple said Dining Services is eager to help support the campus radio station.
“It’s a good thing. We like being good members of the community; we like supporting the university,” Hipple said. “WMUC is an organization that is a part of the university, so whenever possible, if we can play them, we would like to.”
