Programming changes shake up UVa's radio station WTJU 91.1

Major programming changes coming to WTJU, the University of Virginia’s eclectic non-commercial radio station, are prompting outrage and several high profile resignations by longtime volunteer disc jockeys.

“WTJU as we know it is being killed,” said Emmett Boaz, who says he plans to quit the “Leftover Biscuits” folk show he has hosted for the past dozen years.
Details of the coming changes will be outlined Thursday at an informational meeting between UVa officials and members of the WTJU community.
WTJU, 91.1 FM, has long been known as Charlottesville’s freewheeling and unpredictable radio option, featuring rock, classical, jazz, blues, world music and public affairs programming. It first went on the air in 1957.
The changes, Boaz and other DJs say, threaten to undo much of the station’s personality and make it less unique.
“What they’re trying to do is turn us into all the other stations across the country,” Boaz said. “There are maybe three or four stations across the country that are anything like WTJU.”

UVa officials, however, says the changes are needed to grow listenership, increase student involvement, boost fundraising and ensure that the station remains
financially viable.
“We are talking here about the very survival of WTJU,” Marian Anderfuren and Carol Wood of UVa’s Office of Public Affairs wrote in an e-mail sent out Monday. “Its financial condition, to be frank, is not good. The recent fundraisers fell short of their goals, and funds had to be transferred to cover staff members’ salaries. Before and during the general manager search, we had approval from the highest levels of university leadership to close the station down if we didn’t see a reasonable path toward improvement.”

According to internal e-mails circulating among staff members and volunteer DJs, the changes are expected to include a reorganized schedule and the introduction of songs that DJs will be required to play in rotation.
The programming schedule changes aim to place certain genres of music — such as rock or jazz — into regularly scheduled blocks of shows each day, which some DJs worry will lead to the elimination of existing shows.
UVa officials say they are trying to give listeners a better idea of what to expect when they tune in.
“We must make it easy for listeners to find the music they want to listen to, because building listenership is one of the keys to success,” Anderfuren and Wood wrote in the e-mail.

Some DJs, however, argue that WTJU’s unpredictability is what makes the station special.
“We’ve always been a freeform station,” said Tyler Magill, a DJ at WTJU for nearly two decades. “Being a freeform station is what makes us unique. The basic philosophy of the station will be changed and lost.”
Magill, who launched a blog about the coming changes at savewtju.
blogspot.com, said the upcoming schedule changes will likely mean he’ll have to resign from the rock show he hosts. Rock programming, he said, appears to be moving into the nighttime hours.
Magill is the father of a 2-year-old and holds three jobs. Hosting his show at night, he said, is just not viable.
Magill also objects to the concept of requiring DJs to play certain songs. WTJU’s DJs, he said, take pride in picking out the music they play during their shows. If DJs are told what to play, he said, they lose the “personal investment” in their shows.
“I cannot, in good faith, play songs from a playlist,” he said. “Everything that I play is a song that I love.”

A ‘crippling’ loss?

Dozens of DJs, Boaz said, are opting to leave rather than continue volunteering after the changes go into effect early next month.
“WTJU is about to lose a crippling number of volunteers,” Boaz said. “You can bet the mortgage on that.”
Pete Marshall, a DJ of more than 20 years who hosted WTJU’s show “Sunset Road” announced via e-mail Thursday that he was resigning. Another DJ, morning jazz host Nick Page, announced Monday that he too was resigning, citing the programming changes and health problems.
The changes to WTJU come two months after the university hired a new general manager for the station, Burr Beard. Beard was hired, Anderfuren and Wood wrote, to “freshen the WTJU format, give it a stronger identification with the university, build listenership, engage more students and, as a result, improve its financial condition.”

Beard — whose Web site says he is “one of the most experienced broadcasters and hammer dulcimer players anywhere to be found” — declined to comment on the changes coming to WTJU. Details, he said, will be available at the meeting Thursday.
“Best to wait for the comprehensive package of info if you want facts,” he said Monday.
Many of Beard’s e-mails and other documents outlining the changes, however, have been posted online at Magill’s blog.
In one, Beard cites WTJU’s declining listenership and fundraising as part of the reasons for the changes he says will result in an “all new consistent and reliable WTJU.”
“Arbitron show a downward trend in listening to WTJU,” Beard wrote. “Currently on average only 7,500 people listen each week. That’s the smallest audience of any non-comm station serving Charlottes-ville.
Fundraising has been on a downward swing at the same rate as the listener drop. The station gets very few calls about what they hear on the air, or calls for giveaways. We’ll give CDs or tickets to anybody who bothers to call.”

New opportunities

Beard goes on to explain the rationale behind the changes, which he says will lead to great things for the station and the Charlottesville community.
“There is already an audience in Charlottesville for alternative music artists, and WTJU deserves and will reap the credit for building the local music scene to its next new level,” Beard writes. “I want to do a live concert broadcast every week of different music. Artists will come to town to do concerts for us because of the spins we give them. Charlottesville can become the Austin of the East.
“It’s not enough to expose people to new music when it’s just a smattering of all kinds of music,” he continues. “We reduce the genres to only those with the same appeal, and then provide enough repetition, balance and diversity so we create cool new solid identity.”
Magill, however, disagrees.
“WTJU is not about being cool. WTJU is about being WTJU,” he said. “We don’t need to be the Austin of the East. We’re Charlottesville. That’s good enough.”