I completely agree with you, Jason and Isaac.  Isaac, the windows are the only reason many people even know of the station.  And Jason, it’s the mgmt. is uber discombobulated.  My dilemma is that because this place meant so much to me I am torn.  If they were to get the money….THEY WOULD ABSOLUTELY need to restructure the management at Illini Media. If not = bankruptcy.  However, that is where I learned the most.  Not about local music (which I lurve), and not about how to edit audio….  I learned how to deal with shitty management and work my ass off.  Something I will never forget.  I have a feeling that is where Ebert is coming from.  He is attributing the life lessons learned about being a person in society, rather than how to use the word myriad.

nah mean?  Miss you Champaign.

A new pulisher/general manager actually took over in October.

Amanda, this is true; however, it is more than the GM/PUB that needs to be changed.  The board is a nightmare, etc.

The PGU bashers don’t really know what they are talking about. First, there have been management changes. Second, the programming change needed to happen years ago. The format shift of 2004 was a disaster. Realize this and adapt.

Some of the complainers here are likely a big part of why IMC is failing. Your ideas did not work. Stop blaming management and own your mistakes.

@Spoon River, I have not tuned into WPGU ever since the format change; I’ve been driven to 88.7 and Spotify.

I want to support IMC, but when this 41-yr old weathers music from my college days 20+ yrs ago (some of which was played on top 40 radio), yeah, sorry, that’s not current college radio to me.

I don’t know what anyone else will say, but I’d say the format change in 2004 was a bad thing because it sucked.

We covered why it sucked in a previous thread, but we can go there again. The reasons include:

* Minuscule ratings.

* Little attractiveness to advertisers.

* A tiny playlist, at least during a couple of semesters.

* General arrogance.

* Being a giant money-loser for IMC.

* Awful staff commercials.

* Awful DJs.

* No consistency.

* Dumb call letters.

* Minuscule ratings.

When I started reading the comments, I was thinking “They are going to do it again. They are going to cite ratings determined by a polling entity that doesn’t poll COLLEGE STUDENTS.  You know, the station’s, PRIMARY TARGET AUDIENCE.”  And there it is, at the top of your list.  Look, I understand that Arbitron is the industry standard, but it’s never going to be an accurate representation of the amount of people listening to WPGU.  Some formats might get better ratings than others, but it’s never, ever going to be accurate and it will always, always be to WPGU’s disadvantage.  Why keep shooting yourself in the foot by using it?

* Little attractiveness to advertisers.

Only because no one at WPGU is bothering to inform them that Arbitron ratings don’t reflect actual listener numbers.  With all the money that Illini Media throws away it would have been a drop in the bucket to conduct their own polling of a thousand people or so.  This is a continuing failure of the IMC marketing department, not a reflection of the content of the station.

* A tiny playlist, at least during a couple of semesters.

I listened at the very beginning and never noticed this.  I do however remember that they were changing from a format where the program direction intentionally limited the playlist to about 20 songs.  I wish that was an exaggeration, but it isn’t.

* General arrogance.

And what exactly is being displayed here?  You guys have enough arrogance to fuel a gaggle of hipsters. 

* Being a giant money-loser for IMC.

See marketing fail above.

* Awful staff commercials.

As long as WPGU is a student station there will be awful staff commercials. You think yours are better?  That’s cute.

* Awful DJs.

As long as WPGU is a student station there will be awful DJs. You think yours are better?  That’s cute.

* No consistency.

I’m not even sure what this means.  I guess it probably means that WPGU didn’t have a traditional format.  Which of course was the point.  Those Jack and Fred stations are still popular.  Having an inconsistent playlist obviously doesn’t bother people too much.

* Dumb call letters.

This doesn’t even deserve response.

Cassie:

First, you apparently include me with the hipster crowd here. That is erroneous and offensive.

When you refer to “they,” you should know that we had a lengthy thread here where people disagreed about a lot of points. So nothing is unanimous. I still think the people who had worked at PGU 10-12 years earlier made intelligent points, while the recent people just ranted and made asses of themselves. But I digress.

Back to the radio stuff—I think a poll would be a decent idea, but it will ultimately fail. Everyone is going to cite a different wish for the playlist, and little will be accomplished.

The Jack stations are still popular, but many of them have gotten away from playing “anything.” They are mostly classic-rock-oriented now.

Finally, the dumb call letters comment was a joke. No one got it, so I guess it failed. But just say the letters WPGU. Those hardly roll off the tongue. I think if you say it three times in front of the bathroom mirror, the failed former DI publishers appear in your house. And you don’t want that.