About 200 volunteers and supporters gathered last night for a much-anticipated town hall meeting to discuss the future of WTJU, UVA’s community radio station. The meeting seemed to bring to a close a contentious period between some members of the 53-year-old station’s volunteer staff and university administrators, who shelved plans that DJs feared would put an end to the station’s “free from” format.
“My plan is off the table,” said Burr Beard, the station’s general manager, who said that had been hired in April to implement changes at the station. “I’ve operated very much in private,” he said. “Please let me join you.” Plans to make the station "consistent and reliable" were at first postponed, and by Monday seemed to be on indefinite hold.
A former volunteer named Aaron Margosis said that a group of about 70 alumni had raised $20,000 in a weekend. The donation is “contingent upon the soul of WTJU being preserved.”
Some volunteers asked that administrators reach out to DJs who had quit when changes were originally announced.
At 7,500 weekly listeners, rarely more than 500 at any time, WTJU has the lowest of any noncommercial station in Charlottesville. While Beard emphasized that the station is “not in danger of going belly up,” he said that its future success depends upon increasing underwriter contributions and listener donations. UVA also hopes to increase student involvement at the station.
“We’ve taken a lot of criticism, and you know what? We deserved it,” said Carol Wood, of UVA’s Department of Public Affairs. “And if we don’t learn from it, shame on us.” Wood also noted that the ongoing controversy has gone a long way to make WTJU the household name that, perhaps for the lack of advertising, it hasn’t been in a long time.
One highlight from the public comment section: John Parker, an associate professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at the university, said that in his profession, “I know a little something about feeble revenue streams," and that "Nobody has ever asked me to change what I teach.”
But nothing compared to this T. Boone Pickens-style harebrained scheme: a man named Adam Silverman stood at the podium to read a legalese statement he claimed on the behalf of an anonymous donor, who was prepared to purchase station to preserve its integrity. “The individual I represent is bona fide serious, and ready to purchase a local frequency,” he read. “Consider this a guarantee of intent.”
It was perhaps the wrong message for a roiled group that included Tim Snider, host of the Sunday Opera Matinee. "It concerned us that WTJU’s programming could be considered a commodity," he said of Beard’s original plans for the station.
“WTJU is not for sale,” Wood responded to cheers. “It will never be for sale…Seeing all of these people in the room, we’re going for it.”
Read past C-VILLE coverage here.