UMass Boston students peel the WUMB onion and find it stinks!

Two UMass Boston students have written an historical perspective about how the radio station licensed to their university came to have a policy of excluding students from station operations and programming.

A side finding is WUMB's operating budget, when compared to sister UMass stations WMUA (Amherst), WUML (Lowell) and WUMD (Dartmouth), is astronomical.

Read the source article,

WUMB: UMass Boston's non-UMass Boston radio station

Posted on September 1, 2013

• 
  by Daniel Richardson
• 
  by Lea Alibert

And a related commentary,

UMass Vice Chancellor Justifies WUMB's Bloated Budget and Student Exclusion on the Grounds of Prestige and Marketing

October 24, 2013 at 4:30pm

Update
On 10/24 about 10pm the new MassMedia article had been taken down. Luckily the section containing the budgetary information had been captured, read here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/towards-independent-college-community-radio-wumb/umass-vice-chancellor-justifies-wumbs-bloated-budget-and-student-exclusion-on-th/748669558492407

This is the second time since September a MassMedia article on WUMB has been taken down.

If the numbers reported by MassMedia are correct it is disturbing that WUMB's budget is 20-50 times that of its sister UMass stations in Lowell, Dartmouth and Amherst.

It is also disturbing that an "independent" student newspaper takes down articles without a retraction statement.

Wonder who "got" to the staffers and/or editors? My advice to the reporters is the same Deep Throat gave to Woodward and Bernstein, to keep on the story and follow the money.

World College Radio Day, October 1, 2013

World College Radio Day was founded in 2012 as a response to the phenomenal international interest in College Radio Day, which began in the USA in 2011 (in the USA the event is still known as College Radio Day). Recognizing that student radio stations around the world wanted to unite for this annual event, Rob Quicke, Tiziana Cavallo and Guillermo Gaviria founded World College Radio Day to take the mission and unifying message of College Radio Day around the world. For more information on the story behind this unprecedented international coalition, please click here.

To view participating student radio stations click here.  To register your student radio station (for free) please click here.

“College Radio Day…was a call to unity in which stations showcased their best work”

“A nationwide movement…illuminating the cultural significance of student-run radio”

“College Radio Day: An SOS for student-run stations…a unifying college-radio event”

The original idea for College Radio Day was conceived by Dr. Rob Quicke (General Manager, WPSC FM, William Paterson University, NYC market), and was founded in December 2010 by Rob, who worked with Peter Kreten (General Manager, WXAV FM, Saint Xavier University, Chicago market) to help develop the idea. The aim of College Radio Day is to harness the combined listenership of hundreds of thousands of college radio listeners throughout the world and to celebrate the important contribution of college radio by uniting for this one day.

The aim of College Radio Day is to raise a greater, international awareness of the many college and high school radio stations that operate around the world by encouraging people who would not normally listen to college radio to do so on this day. It is hoped that those people who do tune in like what they hear and become regular listeners. The organizers of College Radio Day believe that college radio is one of the last remaining bastions of creative radio programming, free from the constrictions of having to be commercially viable, and a place where those involved in its programming believe passionately in its mission. College radio is the only free live medium brave enough to play unsigned, local, and independent artists on a regular basis.  Indeed, many famous and successful bands today, owe their initial break to being played on college radio. Put simply, college radio is an important part of the media landscape because of its unique and fearless programming.

The organizers also hope that College Radio Day can also be used a fundraising vehicle for those individual stations that choose to participate, benefiting from the extra attention their station will receive on that particular day.  Being a participant in this day is free for all college and high school radio stations (AM, FM or online) so that together, for one day, we can lift the profile of an important form of media: college radio. It’s a day of celebration. It’s a day of live music and special interviews. It’s the day college radio comes together.

Since 2012, the annual event is known internationally as World College Radio Day, as more than 30 countries around the world now celebrate this occasion.

For a list of New England independent college radio stations* click here.

---

* It's a pity that unlike fellow students at sister university University of Massachusetts stations (WMUA Amherst, WUML Lowell and WUMD Dartmouth) UMass Boston students do not have the chance to participate in a free-form independent college / community radio station, and thus be entitled to particpate in WORLD COLLEGE RADIO DAY. The reason for that is the powers that be at the state-funded university choose to run WUMB as a National Public Radio affiliate with a professional staff. That's right, a state university funded by federal and state tax dollars excludes its students and community members from participating as program producers, DJ's and news and sports announcers. WUMB claims through its station ID "bumpers" to be a "community service of UMass Boston". What and who that community is they do not say, but certainly it is not the UMass Boston students and residents of Columbia Point.

As this blog is Boston-based, WUMB leads the list of college stations that have been assimilated by the NPR borg. But there are many others whose students no longer have the ability to participate in free form independent college radio. Thanks to Jennifer Waits for the following:

KUSF-initially LMA'd, then sold to Classical Public Radio Network. KUSF had a faculty member GM (he actually started the station when he was a student), paid staff, student volunteers, and community volunteers
KTRU – sold
Others:
Bryant University leases WJMF airtime to WGBH beginning in 2011 and its student station moves online/HD/other technologies (this is communicated as a partnership) http://radiosurvivor.com/2011/07/28/delving-into-wjmfs-move-off-fm-as-college-radio-station-makes-way-for-wgbhs-99-5-all-classical/
Brown Student Radio (BSR) also lost its time share agreement with Wheeler Public Schools http://radiosurvivor.com/2011/08/22/the-wheeler-school-to-lease-fm-airwaves-to-rhode-island-public-radio/
WLIU-  Long Island University
KPSU - Portland State

Related articles:
http://radiosurvivor.com/2012/12/31/2012-a-mixed-bag-for-college-radio/
http://radiosurvivor.com/2011/12/31/2011-the-year-that-college-radio-fought-back/
http://radiosurvivor.com/2009/12/24/the-decades-most-important-radio-trends-11-cash-strapped-schools-turn-their-backs-on-college-radio/

For a much more extensive list, from the federal government itself, read "Public Radio Capital, "Broadening the reach of public media""

No Students Needed

Boston has a reputation of intolerance and insularity. "No Irish need apply", the busing violence of the 1970's, the nonsense Bill Russel had to endure, Tim Thomas' racist remarks about Joel Ward...

But a state university excluding students from participating in licensed operation? Ridiculous.

Last night from 10pm until midnight "Boston's NPR music station" WUMB ran on "autopilot", as if it were an ipod on shuffle mode, the music broken by pre-recorded station identifications and infomercials. No human presence was there. WUMB's schedule indicates a two hour period Mondays through Thursdays that had been personed by students who had completed the Albert O school of radio broadcasting training in October, 2011.

With those four students, then General Manager made a feeble attempt to break the no-students-on-air barrier by authorizing the four, allowing very limited air time and keeping them on a very tight leash, absolutely controlling the content they played and the words they spoke.

Having no "on-air personality" last night goes a long was to reinforce the public's impression that WUMB wishes to continue to be known as an insular institution run of, by and for highly paid management on the state dole who have no plan to give up their nest egg and turn over operations to UMass Boston students and the Columbia Point community.

With sister stations WMUA (UMass Amherst), WUML (UMass Lowell) and WUMD (UMass Dartmouth) chartered as recognized student organizations staffed with very limited paid advisors and run by student and community volunteers, why does the Commonwealth and UMass Boston continue to pour funds into WUMB management salaries and allow it to be run as a student-free zone?

What's the frequency, Pat and Patty?

UMass Boston's WUMB has always been something of an enigma (it has always been a radio station licensed to the university but unlike its counterparts WMUA UMass Amherst, WUML Lowell and WUMD Dartmouth, not run by students; four years ago it became "Boston's NPR Music Station", continuing to operate with a paid professional staff).

Moreso when long-time general manager Pat Monteith was moved aside - see

notloB Music: Montheith and Laurenti Out at WUMBMay 07, 2012
Going back a week and a half or so, talk on the street that Pat Monteith was out as general manager of "Boston's NPR Music Station'" reached the internet last Thursday, first in "A new era?" in Fans of Former Folk Radio ...

Today. things are no different.

The latest bit of strangeness comes from a note in "Towards Independent College / Community Radio WUMB which informs us that Pat Monteith is still the general manager and its Arbiton ratings either have fallen so low they are no longer being reported, or Monteith's replacement, Patty Domericoni, has not remembered to pay the bill.

WUMB's Arbitron's Ratings Fall and Disappearanceby Towards Independent College / Community Radio WUMB on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 6:29pm ·
July ratings just came out on radio-info.com
 http://www.radio-info.com/markets/boston

WUMB is not rated this month! Though their ratings were previously low, I don't think it's possible that they could have dropped from 0.4 in June all the way down to below 0.1 (unrated) in a month.



Two possible scenerios:

#1): U. Mass. Boston is reviewing station expenditures in the wake of "relieving" Pat Monteith of the General Manager position, and may have decided that paying fees to Arbitron to subscribe to their ratings system was not worth the money.

#2): Without Pat Monteith in control, maybe no one took care of everything technically and/or bureaucratically necessary to make sure that WUMB's ratings were submitted to, and/or published by, Arbitron for the July month.

Of course, it could be something completely different. We would welcome a reply from Director of Adminstration & Operations and Acting Program Director Patty Domeniconi. Or from Patricia Monteith, who at the time of this note (8/15/12, 6:20pm), is still listed at http://wumb.org/about/php  as "General Manager" (or is that another oversight?).

Format changes at WGBH still not helping them. They are now third from the bottom of stations with published ratings.

(The stations with no numbers displayed either stopped subscribing to Arbitron, or rated below 0.1, some of them are out-of-area stations that only reach small portions of the Boston market).

Below them is student-hosted but administration-run WERS Emerson, and WKOX-AM, the Spanish station that loses half the Boston market at sunset with a directional nighttime signal that mainly beams to the North Shore per FCC regulations for their frequency.

WBUR, Boston's original NPR News station, continues undaunted by WGBH so far, holding its place at the bottom of the top ten with the successful commercial stations, and is showing a slight increase over June.

So, what's the frequency, Kenneth, or in this case, what are the numbers (or reason for lack of them), Patti and Pat?

Inquiring minds want to know.