WCUW, 91.3 FM, is a non-commercial, community access radio station owned and operated by WCUW, Inc., an independent, educational corporation dedicated to the exploration and improvement of the communications media in the Central New England area. WCUW seeks to inform, entertain and enlighten. We seek to make a positive difference in the lives of the people of Central New England: – striving to involve those communities typically under-represented by the media in programming and operations; – providing responsible community members access to the facilities and training, regardless of race, creed, sex, life style, or age; – educating the community about local issues; – supporting local artists, activities and culture; – promoting awareness of global culture and issues; – fostering creative freedom and experimentation in the use of the communications media; – operating the station through participatory democracy; – and participating in the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.

WCUW’s broadcast studios are located at: 910 Main St., Worcester, MA 01610.
Our email is: [email protected].
Our business phone is: 508-753-1012. Our on-air studio request line is: 508-753-2284.
You can download our bylaws here.

What is Community Radio? Community radio is a type of radio service that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial and public service. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popular to a local/specific audience but which may often be overlooked by commercial or mass-media broadcasters. Community Radio Stations are operated, owned, and driven by the communities they serve. Community radio is not-for profit and provides a mechanism for facilitating individuals, groups, and communities to tell their own diverse stories, to share experiences, and in a media rich world to become active creators and contributors of media. In many parts of the world, community radio acts as a vehicle for the community and voluntary sector, civil society, agencies, NGOs & citizens to work in partnership to further community development as well as broadcasting aims.

 

From the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, dated October 13, 2013:

WORCESTER (October 13, 2013) — They found they were on the same wavelength. Not just on 91.3 FM, but in sharing the pioneering spirit of community radio.

Radio station WCUW 91.3 FM will have been on the air 40 years Dec. 4, and coming up is an alumni reunion weekend with tours of the station at 910 Main St. on Oct. 19, a party, radio interviews with alums Oct. 19 and 20, and lots of re-connections as people from across the country return to Worcester.

“It’s not just a bunch of people getting together 40 years later,” said John Levin, who applied to the FCC for a FM license for a community radio station in 1971 while a student at Clark University. “It’s honoring what this station has meant for us and what it’s done for the community.”

Levin will be coming back to Worcester from Los Angeles, where he is vice president and creative director at Barrington Media, a business-to-business digital marketing agency.

Others, such as Walter Henritze, will be making a shorter trip. Henritze, a former publisher of Worcester Magazine, came to Worcester from Atlanta in 1970 to be a student at Clark University. He got involved with WCUW at the ground level, designing and constructing the original station facilities at Sanford Hall on the Clark campus. He stayed involved with WCUW, and has stayed in Worcester.

“We had a lot of fun. We were young. We were enthusiastic. We definitely felt like we were subversive in a mild-mannered way. We definitely felt that there was a message that wasn’t being heard,” Henritze said of the early days of WCUW in the 1970s.

“Community radio was being born across the country in dozens and dozens of towns and cities. It was a concept that involved bringing the community into the radio station and letting them have a voice,” he said. “I think it’s still an important voice.”

Levin said, “You have to think back on that period. People my age were having a huge impact … I saw radio as something that could facilitate change. As a student at Clark, I thought it would be a really great idea to apply to the FCC for a license for a radio station that would be for Central Massachusetts.”

There was local radio here, but Levin and Henritze were apparently unimpressed.

“It was either Top 40 commercial music or public radio playing classical music and jazz,” Henritze said.

WCUW would seek to change that. “I have to say that John Levin had the vision for the station,” Henritze said. “John had the vision to put this on the air as a community radio station.”

“In the beginning we did a lot of things that weren’t being done,” Levin said. These included “Spanish programming, all kind of music programming.” WCUW broadcast Worcester City Council meetings. There was a big debate at the time about whether Worcester should have a civic center (which would become the DCU Center), and WCUW ran a poll (more than 60 percent were in favor).

“Today, people are so media soaked with the Internet it’s hard for people to imagine the important role radio could play,” Levin said.

WCUW’s origins connect back in time to 1920 when space pioneer Robert H. Goddard, a professor at Clark University, started a carrier-current AM station on the Clark campus (the call letters stand for Clark University, Worcester). The station actually broadcast the returns of the presidential election of Warren G. Harding in November 1920. But nearly 40 years of silence subsequently set in, until Clark students revived the station in 1964. The university-based — but not university-run — AM station only broadcast to Clark’s resident halls and fraternities. However, the students involved were clearly enthused, with news coverage including live programming in 1966 from Washington, D.C., during an anti-Vietnam war demonstration.

Levin incorporated the station as a nonprofit educational foundation with no ties to Clark. The FCC license was granted in late 1972, and WCUW 91.3 FM (with a new antenna put on top of Sanford Hall), went on the air Dec. 4, 1973.

Levin recalled driving along Main Street from Chandler Street to Webster Square and hearing the sound of Hispanic music from open windows along the way. The music was being broadcast by WCUW.

Levin was from Wilton, Conn., but stayed on in Worcester after graduating from Clark University in 1972 and was WCUW’s first program director (as well as principal negotiator, fundraiser, etc.). Funding included grants from the United Way and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and WCUW had about 80 volunteers, Levin said. He left for California for personal reasons in 1978.

Henritze, now an executive consultant based in Worcester, served for a while as president of WCUW’s board of directors. He noted that a number of early WCUW alums went on to great success in radio around the country, including Ross Reynolds (program and news director, KUOW, Seattle), Randy Wynne (program director, WMNF, Tampa), Amy Salit (producer, WHYY, Philadelphia), Alan West (WGBH, Boston) and Wanda Fischer (WAMC, Albany).

“I think it’s a pretty impressive group to have graduated from our start-up community station in Worcester, ” Henritze said.

Station managers in the late 1970s and 1980s included Alan M. West, Kristi Webb and Valerie J. Sampson (at that time Valerie Koop).

For a good deal of WCUW’s existence, station managers have been the radio station’s only paid staff.

“It was exciting; it was tough,” said Webb, who was at WCUW in the mid-1980s and is now a psychologist in private practice in Chapel Hill, N.C.

“One of the things I had to explain was I’m the only full-time staffer and I manage 250 volunteers. But no one manages 250 volunteers. It’s just not possible.”

Webb recalled the diversity of the programing, which to this day can have two hours devoted to Albanian culture, a show with traditional music from Scotland and Ireland, three hours of blues, and a show called “Rock & Roll Party,” all on the same day.

“Looking back I have to laugh. There is something about community radio stations that is so counter-intuitive,” Webb said. “Who would think that this would work?”

One key move that has helped keep WCUC working as a community radio station, people interviewed agreed, was the purchase in 1986 of its facility at 910 Main St. WCUW had moved into the former Vernon pharmacy (next to the former Notis Pizza) in 1980 and rented the space. After a big fundraising push, WCUW owned its own home. “We could say ‘This is ours. We’re never going to have to move,’ ” Webb said.

“It made a huge difference over the years because community radio relies on a large number of very small contributions,” said Henritze. “Having ownership of the building allowed WCUW to see through lean times.”

Sampson, station manager from 1987-89, said that a lot of the grant funding that helped WCUW get on the air and grow gradually declined. But creativity and passion remained. Sampson had come to Worcester from New York in 1978 and started listening to WCUW and enjoyed its alternative music broadcasts. By 1980, she was involved with the station and hosted the “Alternative Alarm Clock” show.

“It was very much a community radio station. The main thing for me was the community spirit,” Sampson said. She has stayed in touch with WCUW and is one of the organizers of the alumni reunion.

“I don’t know how many people still listen to the radio…It’s different — a different time. But I think (WCUW) is still important,” Sampson said.

Troy Tyree has been executive director of WCUW since 2008. He said he’s the only paid staff member and works with about 110 volunteers.

“I’d say we’re doing well,” Tyree said, but added that “we’re a nonprofit and rely on member support.”

WCUW broadcasts 70 shows a week and has programs in 12 languages, he said. Most of the shows are home-grown, although there is some syndicated broadcasting. WCUW’s broadcast signal covers Worcester County, and broadcasts stream live on the Internet (Levin said he often listens in from Los Angeles).

Tyree said it is difficult to tell exactly how many listeners there are at a given time, but as a “guesstimate” he figures there are 2,000 to 3,000 people tuned in at any 15-minute interval.

In addition to the alumni reunion, WCUW will have a 40th birthday celebration in December, 2013, Tyree said.

Tyree can also look back on WCUW’s earlier days, since he started out as a volunteer in 1985. Compared to people such as Levin, though, “I’m the new kid of the block.”

Levin made a return journey to Worcester in advance of the reunion a few months ago, and visited the 910 Main St. facility for the first time and met Tyree.

“It was really powerful. I was a little overcome by it, frankly,” Levin said.

“I think what we did then has relevance now. I think there’s value for something that provides a voice for the community, even a conscience.”

Levin candidly acknowledged a lot of people reading this article may have never listened to WCUW.

However, “It’s there,” Levin said. “And it’s had an occasional impact, and it’s been important enough for some that they dig into their pockets and give it some money every year.”

The open house at WCUW, 910 Main St., Worcester, Oct. 19, 2013, (with tours of the station and an opportunity to meet the founders) runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. or “whenever,” Sampson said. “Alums on the Air” will be broadcast from 4 to 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight Oct 19, 2013, and 2 to 6 p.m. Oct. 20, 2013. For more information, visit www.wcuw.org.

Contact Richard Duckett at [email protected]