Through the years, WWUH Remembers 1982

    The following are excerpt from a "State of the Station" report written by General Manager Dale Maine in late 1982.

    "In the last two years, several things of note have occurred. In an overview, I would say that the station has become more friendly with its licensee, whole maintaining its independence. From the first, (University President) S.J. Trachtenberg was cordial.... His only real complaint is that past managers have failed to keep him informed about the station’s activities. I don’t think he realized just how important it really is in the eyes of the FCC that the licensee knows what goes on at the station. I have kept him informed, to a point. To the point that our problems are not taken out of proportion (or even noticed), so as to keep the station in our hands."

    "The ‘our’ of course is the student and community member staff. Both parts of the stain have become irreplaceable. The student involvement, as with many student activities, has gotten smaller and smaller; as yet, the students still control the management of the station."

    "In the last two years we have had the smallest management teams in the history of the station: General Manager and Chief Engineer (managing the station) alone for months at time. This isn’t to say others didn’t help, we just didn’t have people officially in office."

    "This, in part, led to one of the first problems of my first term; a former staff member, who returned to the station after a ten year absence, tried to tell the University that she could run the stain better than we could. Fortunately, the University came and asked me... and I made the problem go away."

    ".... as part of the growing bond with UH, we aired several special programs: an interview with President Trachtenberg about a speech he made on the future on education, a program with UH financial aid officers discussing Reganomic cuts, and a live broadcast of a rally about financial aid."

    "Publicity is the one thing the station lacks. We never seem to make the news when we do something good or even when we do something bad. There have been many special programs, etc. Which we could and should have promoted. We don’t look for listeners for money, we look for listeners for listeners so we are indeed serving the public."

    "The FCC may change the definition of why we are here; they have tampered with a lot of things in the last two years. Chief Operators need not hold an engineering license anymore. Non-commercial stations may promote any product or service they feel is in the public interest as long as they are not in any way receiving something in return. We can run commercials for pay for non-profit organizations. We can do underwriting announcements as often as we like... Recommendation: never charge a fellow non-profit organization for anything, leave the promotional announcements for concert listings..."

    "The University has had less money in recent years, so (the budget) from whence our money comes has been cut (to $15,000 from $17,000) and may be cut again."

    "The elimination of the (student run) News Department in January was a controversial move, which I myself opposed, but there was a reason. We cannot do news unless we have a news department willing to put the time into doing it right. Rewriting copy, calling people for stories and background, and pronouncing names correctly are bare-bones necessities. Students, at this point, just don’t seem to have the time to dedicate to the hours required."

Copyright©WWUH: November/December  Program Guide, 1999