Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Issue date: 2/1/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Adam Fried

WMUC General Manager Scott Maxwell had only been on the job a few weeks when a rumor hit the Internet: The last vestige of student-run radio in the region was as good as dead.

The rumor was prompted by a filing with the Federal Communications Commission that indicated Baltimore's WYPR-FM was poised to overtake the 88.1 signal emanating from College Park and was ready to blast the Washington area with Charm City-flavored public radio programming.

That never happened, but WMUC DJs and alumni veterans of the station have worried it would ever since WYPR announced it was seeking to increase its signal strength.

Maxwell spoke to The Diamondback yesterday about survival, extinction and the threats bland modern radio pose to us all.


DIAMONDBACK: How did you get started at WMUC, and how did you end up taking over as general manager this semester?

Scott Maxwell: I started at WMUC two years ago. I started in the spring of '06. I had just come back to school full-time. I had been to the station before. I attended live shows here in the past. Friends of mine who had attended Maryland in the past had been DJs here. I came to the open house and said I wanted to do a heavy metal show. They gave me a shot. They ended up putting me on Thursday 2 to 4 in the morning - that's what new DJs at WMUC tend to get - and I loved it. After that, when fall came around, I ran for general manager. I ended up being named operations manager ... After that, this past year, I ran for general manager again, and this time I ended up being elected.


DBK: What makes WMUC different from the other college radio stations in the Baltimore-Washington area, and from other radio stations in general, for that matter?

Maxwell: One of the things that makes us different, especially in, you know, the D.C.-Baltimore-Virginia area is that we're one of the last true college radio stations left. And by true college radio station, I mean we're broadcast over FM, we're totally student-run, and we're free-format. We don't tell our DJs what to play. We give them a block of time and say "Hey, this is your time; do what you want, and show us what you got." And there's very few of those left in the country, period.


DBK: College radio has been around for a very long time in the United States, but a lot of stations have sort of been dying off. What it's like being one of the last ones?

Continued...

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