🚀 go-pugleaf

My name is Markus De Shon. I am the Program Director at WREK, which
means that I am responsible for the musical format of the station.

Let me first say that I think this discussion should be transferred
to git.club.wrek--it's not necessary that this discussion be posted to
so many newsgroups, most of which have nothing to do with WREK. I am
sure that many of the readers of those groups would agree.
Rahul cross-posted the first message widely (though, as one reader
pointed out, not really widely enough) in order to make people
aware of the TechTalk news program. TechTalk is one of WREK's
programs targeted directly at Georgia Tech students. As you
may be aware, WREK also broadcasts various Tech sports events, including
women's volleyball, softball and basketball. We also recently
broadcast Robert Dole's recent campaign speech on campus for those
who were not able to attend in person.

This discussion thread, about the musical format of WREK, pops up periodically 
on the git newsgroups, and, of course, elsewhere. Students are understandably
concerned about how their student activity fees are being spent at
WREK. As a student myself, I am concerned about how my student activity
fees are being spent at WREK, and elsewhere on campus.

Many of my views about music are in the article that was
mentioned earlier in the thread, "Why WREK is WREK". You can look
at it from our webpage at http://www.gatech.edu/wrek/

Those views were also summarized in the article in The Technique,
although the whole essay I wrote for that purpose was not used,
and the tone of some of my views were slightly misrepresented.

WREK is a student organization in the sense that it is completely
run by students. However, WREK's mission as a radio station extends
beyond the confines of this campus. WREK holds a noncommercial
broadcast license, which is granted by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) as a public trust. In other words, WREK is entrusted
with a public resource, a portion of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, in
order to serve the public interest. In fact, our license stipulates
that we must provide a "significant alternative" to commercial
programming.

At WREK, we also go a bit further and say that we should provide a 
significant alternative to other noncommercial broadcasters. To explain
the reason for this, allow me to engage in a logical exercise. Let's
start with the extreme example, that of simply rebroadcasting another
radio station's signal. Aside from the fact that this would be
illegal, it would also certainly be a waste of resources. Why broadcast
the same signal at two different frequencies? It's a waste of a limited
resource. Similarly, it would be a waste if one were simply broadcasting
the exact same list of songs, just at different times. People would be
getting the exact same thing from both stations, in essence. If we
take it a bit further, then one can say that broadcasting the same
kinds of music would be a waste. If there are other kinds of music
of equal or better quality, why not play them instead?

WREK's format is very complex by necessity. There is a tremendous
amount of music out there. Not all of it is soothing--but if
we allow music to communicate something besides pleasantries,
if we let music be the powerful force that it can be, then sometimes
the results will hurt. Are all books pleasant? Great literature
is sometimes defined by the fact that it can make you feel
like crap (John Steinbeck, for example). Music can be like literature. It
is a different medium, but it can send some of the same messages,
and some that are not possible to write down as well.

To the person who said that he didn't like WREK, but that he had not
listened to it since the last snow day, I ask: How exactly do
you know that? Hearsay evidence is notoriously unreliable.

We receive a large number of CD's sent to us from the various major
record labels, and from a large number of independent labels. It is
definitely not possible to play all of them. Therefore, we select
very carefully.

Every CD is listened to by one of our Music Directors. The MD evaluates
the CD based on two main criteria:

1) Does the CD fit into our format? Our format is diverse, but
   not free. That means that although we do not reject any type
   of music simply because it is of that type, we also do not
   play everything that we get. We look for music that is innovative
   for its type, or, for traditional musics, authentic for its type.

2) Is the recording or recordings of a similar nature being played
   elsewhere on the radio dial in Atlanta? This particular criterion
   is not usually necessary to apply, i.e. most recordings do not
   pass test 1. However, there are quite a few radio stations in
   Atlanta, including one other major college station, with a rock
   format (WRAS). WRAS covers a great deal of the spectrum in rock
   music, and we feel that it is not necessary for us to cover that
   same territory. Thus, we pass on many rock recordings, even if
   the particular recording is not being played on WRAS, because 
   music of the particular type is being covered there.

I encourage everyone who is actually seriously concerned about WREK's
format to actually listen to WREK as much as possible for a week
or two before deciding whether you think something needs changing.
Then, send me some email and we can meet and talk about it.

-Markus De Shon
-- 
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 >>> Markus De Shon <<<  Internet: ph297md@prism.gatech.edu 
 Snail mail: School of Physics, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0430
 WREK Atlanta 91.1FM 40,000 Watts 24 hrs./day http://www.gatech.edu/wrek