WRHU-FM
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| WRHU | |
 |
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| City of license | Hempstead |
|---|---|
| First air date | 1959 |
| Frequency | 88.7 MHz |
| Format | Public broadcasting and college radio |
| ERP | 470 watts circular polarization |
| Class | A |
| Callsign meaning | We're Radio Hofstra University |
| Owner | Hofstra University |
| Website | wrhu.org |
WRHU-FM is a venerable non-commercial radio station located in Hempstead, Long Island, New York (USA), at 88.7 on the FM dial. It's Long Island's oldest public radio station.
While other public stations emphasize network programming, WRHU is known for its award-winning, locally produced entertainment and public-affairs shows. The variety in the weekday music schedule takes listeners from classical music to jazz, from new music to metal. Weekend music shows include Italian, Irish, reggae, soul, hip-hop, middle age, country and polka music programming.
The outlet, which is owned by Hofstra University, was founded in 1950 as WHCH, a campus-limited station, and received its broadcast license in 1959, using the call letters WVHC. It became WRHU (for Radio Hofstra University) in 1983.
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[edit] Programming
WRHU was among the first outlets (public or commercial) in the United States to promote what became the New Wave movement. The daily Airwave show and Saturday-night hip-hop P5 (Post Punk Progressive Pop Party) are among the New York metropolitan area's oldest new-music-oriented radio programs. The Post Punk Progressive Pop Party was created by Bob Goldsmith and Sal LoCurto and first aired in 1978. The show was inspired by the fall of the legendary rock format at WPIX-FM (now WQCD) in New York.
WRHU's daily talk, information and public-affairs programming include the Morning Wake-Up Call and Newsline shows. Since 1966, it has provided regional Election Night coverage, for which it has received several prestigious awards for excellence in recent years. Most recently, the election special has won repeated top honors from the Long Island Coalition for Fair Broadcasting, beating both commercial and public stations.
The station has also received a number of FOLIO awards from the Fair Media Council for its public affairs show, Long Island Community Spotlight, as well as the annual Election Night coverage.
WRHU's 40-plus program formats include a number of weekend programs that have helped the station raise money to fund its educational mission over the years. Basia's Polka and Oberek Time, Irish Country with Tony Jackson, The Long Ireland Show and Ciao Italy help the station maintain strong ties to various ethnic communities through Long Island's Nassau County. Programs like Out Behind the Barn and Rhythm and Blues Serenade also assist the station in fundraising efforts. The latter has also come to play a crucial role in preserving doo-wop music in the NY metro area since WCBS-FM dropped its oldies format.
Throughout its history, WRHU-FM has long provided coverage of Long Island sports -- Hofstra athletics as well as local and major league sports events, including PGA golf tournaments and Brooklyn Cyclones baseball.
Over the years, WVHC/WRHU has also had a significant foothold in the area of radio theatre, an area nurtured for decades by longtime General Manager Jeff Kraus and later station producer/executive Sue Zizza (both devotees of Norman Corwin) through special productions of original and adapted works throughout its history.
The rich history of the WRHU program has continued under the direction of current General Manager Bruce Avery. Since 1997, WRHU-FM has also had the expertise of Professional-in-Residence Ed Ingles, who served for a quarter century as sports director of WCBS in New York City.
On October 10, 2003, WRHU made a commitment to maintaining a 24-hour program schedule, and has since done so without the use of voice-tracking or automation. Prior to the round-the-clock schedule, the station would power down at 3 AM and resume programming at 5AM. The two hours of additional programming were filled in by a program dubbed Out of Phase by then-Operations Manager Joel Meyer. The program highlights other formats at the station that air 5 days per week. The 24/7/365 schedule is unusual for a college-owned radio station, but supports more than 40 different formats of music, news and sports.
[edit] They worked at 88.7 FM
Among the many national and regional air personalities who trace their careers through WRHU-FM and its predecessors are WABC-AM and WCBS-FM New York's legendary DJ Dan Ingram, longtime WHDH Boston TV newscaster Garry Armstrong; Philadelphia radio icon John DeBella of WMGK, WOR-AM and WQHT air personality Lisa G. (Lisa Glassberg), veteran New York newscaster Howard Liberman of WBBR; longtime New York City radio sports anchor Marc Ernay of 1010 WINS; WNYW-TV sportscaster John Discepolo; Sue Zizza, director of the Midwest Radio Theatre workshop; and Butch D'Ambrosio, writer for Mad Magazine and a notable figure in the art of radio theatre. Also, former music director and night show personality LJ Lovely at WBLI started as station manager at WRHU. Hofstra's Morning Wake-Up Call (AM-Drive Time) producer and Music Director Andy Gladding joined Fox News Radio as an engineering manager soon after graduation and now works as a manager for Westwood One Radio Networks. Mike Kluger started his broadcast engineering career as a studio and remote engineer at WVHC/WRHU before moving on to positions as an audio engineer for WNYC radio, production manager for the Casper Citron Radio Program, and his current position as Director of Broadcast Operations for WNYE TV & FM.
In addition to its broadcast product, the station, as part of Hofstra University, also continues to turn out student talent to the broadcast industry to the present day; for example, 2004 grad Matt Barry is now on-air talent at Pixy 103 WPXC in Cape Cod, MA. More recent graduates include Heather Cohen, former assistant program director at New York's WOR 710, Shawn Novatt, producer of the WOR morning show; Adam Zuckerberg, morning show host at WMJC; and Kara Reifert, mid-day personality at WBZO/B103 on Long Island; Darrell King, Traffic Director at [[WFAN]; Vinny Micucci, Host of Baseball Today which he hosts with former New York Yankee Jim Leyritz on MLB Radio on MLB.com; Ray Alexander, Play-By-Play Broadcaster for NCAA Division I Football/Men's Basketball and Minor League Baseball.
[edit] History
After more than eight years as a carrier-current-only campus station, WHCH became WVHC on June 9, 1959. One of WVHC's founders, Jeff Kraus, served as station and then general manager for more than 30 years, until his death in 1993. Since then, the Hofstra Radio Alumni Association has administered the Jeffrey C. Kraus Radio Scholarship awards program in memory of the station's longtime guiding spirit.
WVHC was among the first college-owned radio stations to broadcast in a professional-style format. During its first 40 years on the FM dial, the station grew from a six-hour-a-day weekday schedule to 20 hours on weekdays, 19 hours on weekends; and from air facilities in the basement of Mason Hall (the Little Theatre) on the Hofstra campus to studios and production facilities in the Memorial Hall Learning Technology Center. The station began broadcasting from its current facilities at Dempster Hall in October 1994.
In 1962, WVHC was granted an increase of power from the original 10 watts to 250 watts. The station's power output was boosted to 320 watts by the 1970s. In 1978, with a new antenna on the roof of the Constitution Hall (Tower C) residential building, the station boosted its power output to the current 470 watts.
During the 1960s and 70s, WVHC maintained two dial positions -- the broadcast frequency at 88.7 FM and carrier-current location at 630 AM.
For all its growth over the years, it's ironic that WVHC/WRHU nearly didn't make it out of its first decade as an FM broadcaster. In summer 1967, the administration of the financially-struggling university voted to eliminate WVHC -- sparking both protest rallies and fundraising efforts to save the station. By August 22, Hofstra announced that $17,200 had been budgeted to guarantee the station an additional year of life -- $13,000 of that coming via a grant from the Hempstead Public Schools. For the next year, WVHC aired daytime programming revolving around the Hempstead school community's activities.
During the 1990s, WRHU's election coverage was also aired by commercial broadcasters such as WGBB and WLIR and public station WBAU as part of the Island Radio News (later Hofstra Radio News) network -- designed partly as a revival of the Long Island Network election coverage of the 1960s aired by WGBB, WVHC and other local stations.
WRHU is based at the Hofstra School of Communication and provides vital on-air broadcast training to Hofstra students, both on the air and in the areas of production and management. Its current general manager is veteran broadcaster Bruce Avery, who came to WRHU from the University of New Haven's WNHU.
[edit] External links
See also: The New York and Riverhead-Hamptons Radio markets, which are Arbitron #1 and #260 as many stations will overlap with those two markets.
In Market Stations: (FM) 88.7 | 88.9 | 90.1 | 90.3 | 91.9 | 94.3 | 95.1 | 97.5 | 98.3 | 99.9 | 102.3 | 103.1 | 106.1 | (AM) 540 | 740 | 1100 | 1240 | 1520
Stamford: 95.9 | 96.7 New Haven: 99.1 Bridgeport: 107.9
New York City: (FM) 89.1 | 89.9 | 90.7 | 91.5 | 92.3 | 92.7 | 93.1 | 93.9 | 94.7 | 95.5 | 96.3 | 97.1 | 97.9 | 98.7 | 99.5
100.3 | 101.1 | 101.9 | 102.7 | 103.5 | 104.3 | 105.1 | 106.7 | 107.5 | (AM) 570 | 620 | 660 | 710 | 770 | 820 | 880 | 930 | 1010 | 1050 | 1130 | 1190 | 1280 | 1600 | 1560
