Word: whrb
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Salerno's attitude is typical--the people down at WHRB's studo in the basement of Mem Hall refuse to prostitute their taste and pander to the people at large. WHRB has a fixed image, and they are proud and defensive about it. No rock 'n' roll ever comes over their air, and the word they use most often to describe themselves, and their listeners, is "esoteric". "We have an eclectic, esoteric, kind of programming," says Joe Erlanger '67, this year's Station Manager. Another member modestly asserts that WHRB'S programming standards classical jazz, and folk music "the finest...
This esoteric image doesn't simply mean that WHRB plays no "top 40" records. It means that there is no "Muzak"--sound track and other light music--and that there is nothing "slicked over, or glossed over, to sell." You won't hear Baez, Seeger>, or Peter, Paul and Mary very often, if at all, on WHRB, says Randy Webb '67, head of News, Sports, and Public Affairs at the station. The station doesn't want to give time to what he calls "little white boys playing Negro music." Following the image also means that commercials "with the Kingston Trio...
...demographic studies are available now to show exactly who these discerning listeners might be and just how many of them there are but President Jim Hill '67 is at no loss to predict his listenership. WHRB, he says, he reaches the "academic underground of Boston," Largely on its FM frequency. It goes to college students, professors, and "other academic professional people with well-educated backgrounds." The station doesn't even try, or want to try, to infringe on the listenership of WBZ, or WMEX. Its FM advertising, for example, is almost entirely for publications such as The National Observer...
...WHRB's followers relate almost entirely to the music, Hill feels, and not to the personality of the announcers. They feel it an intrusion to have the announcer interrupting with anything but the most formal statement of what it is, who wrote it, and when. This policy doesn't give the announcer much chance to express his own feelings, but most of them don't seem to want the chance. Even Salerno, whose daily "Jazz Entree" makes him the most consistently-heard of any WHRB announcer, says he has no desire to build up a fan club or become...
...these is money. "All radio stations run on a shoe string," says Webb and WHRB is no exception, even though it has no salaries to pay. Expensive equipment has to be bought fairly often, as WHRB expands and tries to keep up with the "state of the art." The station just moved in January to its new Mem Hall studio, and although Harvard provides the space, they paid for all the renovation and new equipment, Webb explained. The station is also in the process of converting to FM stereo broadcasting, installing a larger transmitter, and improving its closed circuit broadcasting...