WDCR Reports
Dartmouth College Radio marks the tenth anniversary of its status as a regular commercial station with call letters WDCR
Assistant General Manager
FOR the past ten years, "Dartmouth's most active activity" is the description most deservedly given to WDCR. It is Johnny-on-the-spot, all day long, for Dartmouth news, sports, and entertainment. Before WDCR, from 1941 to 1958, there was WDBS, the pioneer in Dartmouth College radio; and even before that, radio had been a part of the College since 1921.
The activity hasn't slackened. As busy as ever, the station's 100-plus staff members still cover Dartmouth football, hockey and basketball - never missing a game. Weekly programs with student leaders still get to the heart of the most important campus issues. At 1000 watts, WDCR is all Dartmouth College Radio.
But today it is also something more. With the newest equipment available, WDCR reaches out to its potential audience of 50-60,000 people with the most diversified programming that we know of. Statistically, our station is the first choice of 78% of Hanover's non-student audience. Add the 88% of Dartmouth students who regularly listen, and you have what we think is a popular, influential, all-community force — a radio station that has the importance in the Hanover-Lebanon-White River "tri-town" area that the most effective stations in larger communities enjoy.
But in this success WDCR has its most basic problem. To whose special interests should this station cater? In our latest promotional campaign, we simplified the problem by suggesting that the station was "Everyone's WDCR." "Be a polyglot listener, and listen to a little bit of everything on Everyone's WDCR."
But the truth is that most people who like concert music still don't like poprock ... and all the promotion in the world doesn't seem to help.
The problem is multiplied when we try to present something that will appeal to the people who don't usually have contact with Dartmouth College. In many ways, these people are skeptical about the College, and WDCR tries to offer the right contact. We find that in promoting ourselves, we also promote Dartmouth. Students as responsible citizens are a new idea to people who aside from Dartmouth College Radio normally hear only the worst "news" from campus.
Because WDCR's broadcasting day is programmed by the students, it best reflects the college community's interests. However, much of it also appeals to the larger community; Bernstein, Baez, Basie, Beach Boys, and Bazaar (Harper's) all help make up our 19-hour day.
In the morning, the town wakes up to "Daybreak." Originated by Owen Leach '67, now production director at KDKA in Pittsburgh, "Daybreak" is a wake-up almanac of sports, news, and modern music. Two newsmen canvass the local news, adding audio and wire reports for world stories. WDCR's sports director reports in twice, and our morning man adds records (a few) and commercials (a few more).
Light concert music and "The Best of Broadway" complete WDCR's morning. In the afternoon, the pace picks up when "Sounds for the Tri-Town" talks to teenagers, playing the top 40.
In the early evening, "WDCR Reports" presents a complete coverage of the news, This "compendium" of all the day's events is organized and staffed by five newsmen, an engineer, and even a weather girl - Miss Gail Dingwall. "WDCR Reports" is bracketed by the Suppertime Show, Parts I and II. The music is Getz, Streisand, Munroe and friends.
Later in the evening, the station features concert and production programming. "Music 'til Midnight" rocks until "Nightwatch" puts the town to sleep from 12 to 1 am. Actually, in the past few years, programming hasn't changed radically - maybe it's just a bit better.
Certainly our richest resource at WDCR is our staff. The announcers are mellow, informative, raucous - all depending upon their program material. The news staff puts together three major news productions each day. Each hour they examine world news, each half-hour local news. The engineers keep the equipment in functional order, the programming running smoothly. Our sales staff keeps WDCR completely self-supporting, with $32,000 on contract so far this fiscal year. Because the station is solely a student operation with minute but delicate relations with the College administration, our administrative staff must deftly handle the budget, the College proper, and lawsuits.
The variety of WDCR's programming makes it unusual, yet the special programming on the station makes it unique. Probing behind the news on "Perspective," making fun of it on "Fiasco," creating it on the phone-in "Nightline" program - this is the in- formative WDCR. This special programming can examine one event in. many ways. For example, this past month Dartmouth had a "Black Power Focus." For a look at the Focus the station used "Perspective." The events, the opinions, and the personalities were presented in this program produced by our news department. Leßoi Jones and Floyd McKissick both spoke out. Following the Focus, "Fiasco" added some humor to the occasion ... albeit off-color: a Negro skeptic's attitude when Everett Dirksen moves into the neigborhood.
Early in February, everyone had a chance to talk about the Focus when the station opened up its telephones on "Nightline." The guests that evening were organizers of the Focus.
The special events are part of our everyday programming. Coverage of New Hampshire/Vermont news puts a reporter on the road each week. All-night specials highlight every election and primary event. As news occurs in the tri-town area, WDCR has its men on the scene and the people in the story immediately on the air.
With 60 men involved in the March 12 Primary, we have the largest broadcast news organization in Northern New England, perhaps in all of New England. We take our work seriously: our listeners take us seriously.
A series of seven special programs on project ABC, specials on electronic music, broadcasts live and recorded from the Congregation of the Arts, profiles of the candidates: this is the nature of our special programming.
Today, we find WDCR unlike other radio stations in even newer ways. This fall WDCR organized a project called "WDCR's Let's Help." In cooperation with the Save the Children Federation, Dartmouth Radio suggested to the community that they support another community in Vietnam. All day, every day, for two months, WDCR promoted the "Let's Help" program. The response was striking: letters and contributions from people in every town we service. Everyone made suggestions and many organized coordinated programs: church bazaars, penny fairs, bake sales. Spontaneous charity from everywhere - that was "WDCR's Let's Help."
Letters in the two local newspapers and to WDCR showed the enthusiasm people had for the project. We collected just over $3OOO. Result: a medical clinic in a refugee camp called Ngoc Thanh, Vietnam. We were the first station to attempt an all-out program such as "Let's Help." It is not our last special project. It's only one. This month, our tenth anniversary on the open air, the old WDCR celebrates with a few new ideas.
WDCR has proven to be more than a college radio station: it's a vital community service. WDCR is entertainment and communications for the student body. It is a business that works. For the people who work in it, WDCR is a school within the College, giving Dartmouth students better preparation for whatever they may be doing next. Because of its independence in programming and in establishing station policy on other than editorial matters, WDCR has approached the matter of radio with an experimental outlook. In the past few years, we have tried to lead the community; we have dared to present the news that no other medium in our area has dared to touch ... such as the school bond problem that divided the community. WDCR tried to find and present the facts dispassionately.
What's next for Dartmouth College Radio? As soon as we can find the means, WDCR-FM. Certainly in our next ten years, WDCR-TV. For the FM station the community has already expressed a need. Our production director has charted a plan of attack, a cost estimate, a tentative program schedule. Everything but...
For Dartmouth College TV, WDCR already has two men exploring the necessities of a television production center, the possibilities of TV instructional aid to professors, and the demands upon students were they to operate the facilities.
This month, as the 1969 Directorate takes over, WDCR is changing and growing with new ideas. We have too many perhaps - certainly not too few. Having renovated our facilities this past summer, we have three studios continually in use — two on production, one on the air.
Each term WDCR trains new men in radio. Where Dartmouth College Radio is going next will depend upon where the men of the station lead it. They will soon be helping to lead all communications in the outside world.
Station WDCR is on the air twelve months a year, and in that respect out-does the College itself. When people visit our facilities, as they are always welcome to do, they sense an enthusiasm that vibrates at exactly WDCR's frequency - 1340. And when they tune in at 1340, we hope that as listeners they likewise sense the enthusiasm that we staff members have for our community responsibilities and for being a part of "Dartmouth's most active activity."
"Wild" Bill Moyes '70 climaxed WDCR's "Let's Help" campaign this fall with anafternoon show from the rotunda of the Hop. Most of the $3000 raised is being usedfor self help by natives of Ngoc Thanh, Vietnam, but some has gone for technicallabor and basic equipment to build a refugee clinic in that area.
News Director Mark Willin '69, shown preparing a 5 p.m. reportdesigned for the Upper Valley commuters, already hashis news staff organized to cover the New Hampshire primarythis month. It will be a 50-man, all night job for WDCR.
With the expansion of its programming and facilities, WDCRhas taken on greater problems of technical maintenance.Henry Allen '69, shown at work, and Fred Ochs '69 did acomplete rewiring job for the station during the summer.
John R. Hopke Jr. '68 of Teaneck, N.J.,general manager of WDCR for the pastyear, looks over some new acquisitions inthe station's large record library.
WDCR's live broadcasts of sports events draw large Upper Valley audiences.
Neighbor station WNHV gave its annual Community Service Award to WDCR forits successful "Let's Help" fund drive to aid a Vietnamese village. Receiving the awardfrom Owner Rex Marshall (I) are Bill Moyes, Jack Hopke, and Larry Barnet.
