The first college radio station is closed

[Stormwaltz]

I spent high school listening to WBRU, Brown University's student-run radio station. It molded the base of my musical taste. The station was founded by two freshmen in 1936, making it "the first student-owned-and-operated college radio station in the United States."

It shuts down at 5PM EST, apparently with no warning before today.

A brief official history.

My high school friend eulogises the station. (Disclosure: I'm the mentioned Chris.)

Update courtesy of a friend in Providence:

Just an update... I was at Brown this afternoon so I stopped by WBRU and talked to a few people there... at first I thought they just weren't telling me what had happened, but it turns out that they had no idea, and they had just found out yesterday that they were all out of a job. Just an hour before it ended did they hear the name of what was taking over the channel... "Buddy FM". BRU's last two songs were REM's "The End of the World As We Know It" and Green Day's "Time of Your Life". It was cut off at the end, static, then silence, then standard announcer voice saying "Welcome to the All New Buddy FM!" followed by their first song, Ace of Base's "I Saw the Sign"...

A close-to-home example of something real and passionate being replaced with something corporatized, pre-planned, pre-packaged...

[Telemediocrity]

Wow.  Just wow.  Both my parents went to brown, they're going to be devastated when I tell them...

...Then again, Ace of Base is probably more up their alley than anything else the station would be playing.  Oh well.

As someone who works for a college radio station right now though, one that's had to move onto the internet - times are tough.  Kids at other stations I run across are all having similar difficulties, and if they think they aren't it's probably because someone high up isn't telling 'em about it.

I wonder if they're considering moving onto the net.

[Stormwaltz]

I've been had.

The whole thing was a rather elaborate, one-day-early April Fool's prank.

I am, actually, pretty damned relieved. My wife will vouch for my gloominess all yesterday.