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Wednesday, December 15, 1999

College Radio Stations' Web Sites Serve Both Students and Listeners By KELLY McCOLLUM College radio stations' Web sites, besides being useful for promotion and for communicating with listeners, are also broadening the stations' reach and giving students the chance to learn more than just the basics of broadcasting, according to an assistant professor at Georgia Southern University. "Colleges and universities have to understand that it's not just college radio anymore," says the professor, Steven McClung, who teaches broadcasting. He says college stations, like their commercial counterparts, are beginning to see the Web as a crucial component of broadcast operations. Mr. McClung analyzes the audiences of college-radio Web sites in an article in the fall issue of Feedback, a journal published by the Broadcast Education Association. Mr. McClung looked at the Web sites of college radio stations and surveyed about 600 users of 26 of them. Most interesting, says Mr. McClung was the demographic information he collected about the sites' users. In many respects users who click in to college-radio Web sites tend to resemble the listeners who tune in to the stations -- typically white males. But the survey found that Web-site users tend to be older and more educated and to have higher incomes than expected, says Mr. McClung. "It wasn't just poor college students -- there were some pretty high numbers in terms of income." For college radio stations, says Mr. McClung, a wider on-line listener base could mean more lucrative advertising revenue and more respect for the medium. He says it shows that "it's not just being used by kids -- college radio gets knocked a lot for being a sandbox, a place where kids play." Mr. McClung found that most of the Web sites are providing some form of content through the Web. For some, it's recorded clips of on-air news stories, while others offer live audio feeds of their broadcast signals. Many of the listeners, he says, may be out-of-town alumni or parents of students. "People will tune in to hear their kids, to check out what's going on in the community." WMBR at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology maintains a list of college radio stations, offers links to their Web sites, and notes which ones provide live audio on line. The sites also give stations new ways to market themselves, says Mr. McClung. Some stations use their sites to promote events and sell merchandise, like T-shirts and CD's. According to Mr. McClung, government regulations limit ways in which radio stations can make money over the air, but Web sites offer more freedom. "On a college-radio-station Web site, you can do anything you want," he says, "and that really opens up the door for revenue." And the Web offers new teaching opportunities, says Mr. McClung. "I think it's a marvelous tool," he says. The sites can be used to teach students about promotion and advertising sales, which commercial radio stations are now doing on line. Providing news and information on the Web also broadens the scope of on-line journalism programs. "Educators have the opportunity to not just produce news reporters, but to create content providers -- people who can send a story over the air and put the story on the World-Wide Web." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Education Dept. releases new draft of guide to use of tests in admissions Trustees appoint ally of Governor as chancellor of SUNY M.L.A. reports another rise in the number of tenure-track openings in English In valedictory, N.I.H. director urges cooperation on agency's budget, health education Professor disputes scientific validity of report on sex bias at M.I.T. Director named to lead Gates minority-scholarship program U. of Arkansas at Little Rock receives probation for basketball violations College radio stations' Web sites serve both students and listeners Some students pay a premium to use a 'portal' site for on-line courses