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Public Radio from
Indiana University: A History of Service
by Tom Hargis and Emily Williams |
At the dawn of the twentieth century, as Indiana
University entered its 80 th year, the world was changing
at a breakneck pace. Cars were replacing horses and buggies.
Creole and African-American rhythms were fusing in the back
rooms of New Orleans to give birth to jazz. Factories and
smoke stacks were beginning to inch above city skylines.
Classical music was expanding in new directions with the
Impressionism of Ravel, the Expressionism of Strauss and
the atonality of Schoenberg’s 2nd Viennese School.
The realm of communication, too, was about to enter a period
of revolutionary transformation. At the opening of the century,
communication over long distances took place by transmitting
Morse code over ground based wires. The human voice could
travel no farther than strong lungs or sharp ears allowed,
and ships at sea bore only flares and religion in case of
emergency. In 1906, however, an international conference
in Berlin convened to discuss and appoint an official name
to a miraculous new technology. Describing the way this
modern marvel radiated electromagnetic waves from a central
point, the committee coined a new word derived from the
Latin term "radius," a ray or beam of light. "Radio"
was born.
Invented in 1895 by Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi,
when it first appeared, the technology was described not
by the physics of its transmission, but rather by its most
salient trait in the eyes of a spellbound public: "wireless."
Drawing largely upon the physics of James Maxwell and Heinrich
Hertz, Marconi constructed a device that transmitted electrical
signals through the air from one end of his house to the
other, and then from his house to the garden. In the span
of just a few years, this miracle technology vaulted from
one man’s attic laboratory to the farthest corners
of the globe.
Immediately grasping the potential impact and marketability
of his invention, in 1897 Marconi patented his wireless
communication device; and in 1900, he received another patent
for a mechanism enabling precise tuning of broadcast and
reception of radio waves. These developments introduced
practical radio equipment and set the stage for the members
of the South-Central Indiana community to adjust their dials
to WFIU for the first time exactly 50 years later.
Other inventors contested Marconi’s patent, foremost
among them American Nikola Tesla, who the U.S. Supreme Court
declared to be the true inventor of radio in 1943. Despite
the conflict, Marconi gained the wealth, fame and credit
for the invention of radio. In addition, he found ample
time for his personal life. In a series of high profile
affairs and marriages, Marconi briefly courted the daughter
of a prominent Indianapolis family, Josephine Hulman. The
trans-Atlantic romance quickly fizzled, but it seems, at
least metaphorically, that Indiana’s love affair with
radio began early in the medium’s development.
By modern standards, the development of wireless technology
was somewhat gradual. Invented in 1895, radio was not officially
named until the 1906 conference in Berlin, and not until
the April 15, 1912, disaster aboard the RMS Titanic was
it catapulted to the forefront of international debate.
As the bowels of the doomed liner slowly filled with icy
North Atlantic water, the ship’s radio operators sent
panicked SOS calls on their wireless radios. "Come
at once," they begged. "We have struck an iceberg."
A ship just twenty miles from the Titanic did not receive
its pleas for help because no radio operator was on duty.
The next closest ship was the Carpathia, fifty-eight miles
away. The Carpathia acknowledged the Titanic’s SOS
but arrived in time to rescue only the few passengers who
made it into life boats. In the wake of this disaster, the
potential power of radio resonated across the globe.
Recognizing this potential, the US Congress took steps
to moderate radio’s development in the States, guiding
it along a path that lead to the regulated status it now
retains. The crucial beginning to a long progression of
legislation was a 1918 decision not to place radio under
the authority of the Navy. At first heralded for safeguarding
the independence of American radio stations, the move in
fact plunged the young radio industry into a largely unregulated
chaos threatening to choke its great potential. Structure
eventually was brought to the burgeoning medium by the Dill-White
Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934, the
latter of which established the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC).
Prior to the series of acts by congress, in the early 1920s,
Professor Rolla Roy Ramsey of the Indiana University Physics
Department was busy introducing Hoosiers to the wonders
of radio. In his early experiments, Ramsey successfully
received signals from as far away as Denver, Wichita, Pittsburgh,
and Oklahoma City. On January 5, 1922, he held a public
demonstration for a group of 75 students and faculty, amazing
his audience by capturing fragments of music and voices
from distant states. The Indiana Daily Student reported,
"a Pittsburgh quartet was heard in a number of popular
song medleys, and were realistic enough to put the interested
group in a frame of mild amusement." To people accustomed
to communication over long distances taking place through
the clattering of Morse code over a tangible wire, the live
sound of a human voice and the strings of a quartet materializing
from thin air was utterly astounding.
Professor Ramsey’s experiments sparked the first concerted
calls for a radio station on the IU campus. Early in 1922,
the President and Board of Trustees appointed Ramsey to
study the feasibility of a university radio broadcasting
station. Ramsey reported that a state-of-the-art broadcast
center would cost nearly $3,300—a figure, he explained,
greatly inflated by equipment shortages. On May 5, 1922,
a committee on radio recommended that the "Trustees
of Indiana University appropriate sufficient monies to establish
a radio broadcasting station at the university, to be ready
for operation in the fall of 1923." Two weeks later,
President William Lowe Bryan sent a reply regretting that
lack of funds prevented the construction of a radio station.
By the time of Ramsey’s early experiments, amateur
radio stations already dotted the United States, and the
medium’s power as an educational tool was beginning
to be appreciated as well. Operating under an experimental
license, the first educational station went on the air in
1917 at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and the
first educational institution granted an official license
was the Latter Day Saints’ University of Salt Lake
City, Utah, in 1921.
As other universities across the country added radio stations,
letters continued to flow into President Bryan requesting
that IU offer the same service to the surrounding community.
The President’s courteous replies always reflected
the same sentiment: he, too, was intrigued with the educational
potential of a radio station on campus, but the University
was in urgent need of too many other essentials to embark
upon such an ambitious project. In 1925, the university
actually received a temporary frequency assignment from
the FCC, but once again funds were diverted into higher-priority
projects, including a new power plant, establishment of
competitive faculty salaries and construction of Memorial
Stadium (renamed 10 th Street Stadium in 1971 and demolished
to create the Arboretum in 1982).
Throughout the 1920s and ’30s plans for an IU radio
station continually stalled, and a resourceful alternative
was developed. Eager to stake a claim in the thriving field
of radio broadcasting, the university Department of Extension
began offering recordings of faculty lectures to Indianapolis
stations on such timely topics as "Diphtheria Prevention,"
"How Radio Waves are Transmitted Through the Ether,"
"Why More Boys and Girls Are Going to College"
and "Everyday Etiquette." These faculty radio
lecturers were advised to avoid technical terms, and speak
in a "slow monotone."
In 1937, the University entered its first year under the
visionary leadership of then Acting President Herman B Wells,
who, during his tenure, propelled the University into its
current standing as an internationally recognized institution
of research and scholarship. Among his many visionary stances
was an unwavering support for radio at IU. "The conception
and development of WFIU was entirely due to Dr. Wells’
foresight into what broadcasting could do to benefit the
institution and the state of Indiana," praises former
general manager of IU Radio and Television Services William
Kroll.
Under President Wells, the university significantly expanded
its radio lecture schedule. In 1937, Professor Lee Norvelle
of the Department of Speech and Theater made arrangements
with WIRE, a station in Indianapolis, to broadcast a regular
series of 15 minute programs produced by IU. These programs,
highlighting IU events, groups and people, were produced
on the Bloomington campus, and then transmitted by long
distance phone line to WIRE.
Over the next decade a growing number of IU radio programs
were broadcast by stations in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.
The most popular and highly acclaimed of these programs
was the Indiana School of the Sky, a fifteen minute program
airing every weekday as an educational supplement for elementary
and high school classrooms throughout the state. The program
was relayed from IU to participating stations by what was
known as a "bicycle network." Before landlines,
satellites and fiber optics enabled quality audio transmission,
educational radio stations shared physical tapes of programs
by transporting, or "bicycling," them back and
forth.
Originally carried by 12 stations, School of the Sky debuted
on October 6, 1947. In the following year an estimated 23.5%
of Indiana’s high schools tuned in to local stations
carrying the program. Each day of the week had a different
theme: music on Mondays, social studies on Tuesdays, art
on Wednesdays, science on Thursdays, and a story book session
on Fridays. School of the Sky earned the “outstanding
public service radio program” award from the professional
journalists’ association Sigma Delta Chi in 1949, a
commendation by the International Broadcasting Union in
1953, and numerous honors from the Ohio State Radio Institute,
which granted awards every year for exemplary radio programming
and production.
Producing radio programs on the IU campus succeeded in
achieving many of the University’s broadcasting goals.
Students profited by gaining experience in broadcast production,
while the University benefitted by extending its educational
resources to other parts of the state and country. However,
the ability to expose students to genuine hands-on experience
in radio, and to afford the University the greatest potential
for offering its invaluable academic resources to a larger
public, could not be realized without a radio station broadcasting
from the IU campus. Reflecting, in 1991, upon the underlying
reasons for advancing the call for what would eventually
become WFIU, President Wells noted,“We had several
purposes in mind when we made arrangements for our broadcasting
studios. First, we wanted to provide a laboratory facility
for the student body in radio announcing, writing, program
assembling and other practical problems; then we desired
to use it as an educational agency throughout the state;
and finally we believed it would increase the University’s
facilities in the state.”
The drive for the radio station began in earnest when Professor
H.J. Skornia came to the University in 1942 to serve as
Director of Radio Programs. With the enthusiastic support
of President Wells, plans for WFIU slowly materialized.
A major breakthrough came in 1944 when the IU Board of Trustees
issued a proclamation that “it would be desirable and
practicable for Indiana University to own and operate a
frequency modulation [FM] noncommercial educational broadcast
station.”
After the Board of Trustees’ nod of support, it was
only a matter of time for the proper permits and equipment
to be acquired. By 1950, the FCC approved the application
for the construction of an FM broadcast station operating
at 90.9 megacycles licensed to the trustees of Indiana University.
In the application, the University provided a list of preferred
call letters. Favored names requested in the application
were: WIU (Indiana University), WVIU (Voice of Indiana University)—“
if and when no longer used by the present incumbent, a boat”—WIFM
(Indiana’s FM station) and WIUB (Indiana University,
Bloomington). It was the fifth choice that ultimately was
assigned, WFIU, the FM station of Indiana University.
IU obtained most of the original equipment for WFIU from
the abandoned WKMO in Kokomo, Indiana, as well as stations
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Tuscola, Illinois. With all
parts, pieces and permits in place, construction of the
100 foot tower and 10,000 watt transmitter commenced on
May 14, 1950. A strike in June stopped the delivery of anchor
bolts for the tower, wich delayed construction and forced
the University to request additional time from the FCC to
construct the station. The tower finally was completed on
September 26, and WFIU moved into its first home—an
old army barracks that had served as the library at Bunker
Hill Air Force Base. Situated between Sigma Alpha Epsilon
fraternity and Smithwood Halls, the grey shingled building
often was referred to as a Quonset hut, or simply “the
Hut.”
Consisting of one main hall running the full length of
the building, with offices on the left and studios on the
right, the structure was by no means a lap of luxury. Former
WFIU General Manager William Kroll remembers that the extent
of the Hut’s aesthetic charm was that the main corridor
looked like “a bowling alley.” The paper-thin
walls were less than ideal for the soundproofing needs of
a radio station. “You could hear the toilets flush
on WFIU,” recalls former news director Dick Yoakam.
“That was during a time when the university was growing
by leaps and bounds,” Kroll notes, “and this was
an economical way to accommodate the expansion.” To
those who had fought so hard for it, however, the building’s
myriad quirks were inconsequential. It was the fruition
of years of hard work by Ramsey, Skornia, Wells and so many
others committed to the vision of WFIU. Fifty years after
Marconi’s tuner brought radio to the masses in 1900,
as the country enjoyed a period of unprecedented post-war
prosperity, the dream of WFIU became a reality and it took
to the air for the first time on September 30, 1950.
Concurrent with this inaugural broadcast, Indiana University
created the first Department of Radio—renamed the Department
of Radio and Television in 1953. Once again, the perspicacious
foresight of Herman B Wells provided the seminal push for
this new department. “When Dr. Wells stated that there
would be a Radio and TV Department at IU, he raised a lot
of eyebrows. Of course, he always did raise eyebrows. He
was at the forefront of everything that went on at this
institution,” praises William Kroll.
Notes of appreciation and congratulation soon trickled
into WFIU from all over the state and as far away as New
York. During its first nine months of operation, Bloomington’s
first FM station averaged 37.5 hours of programming a week.
Original hopes to broadcast more than this were dashed by
a problem that quickly escalated from a perplexing technical
annoyance to a near public relations disaster.
Almost as soon as WFIU went on the air, local television
viewers began complaining that WFIU’s signal interfered
with their reception of WFBM-TV in Indianapolis (now WRTV-6).
WFBM’s signal barely reached Bloomington, as a result
of what the Indiana Daily Student called “a freak of
the land.” Television sets were a luxury in 1950, and,
taking advantage of the reach of the Indianapolis signal,
Bloomington residents purchased TVs with the assurance that
they would receive WFBM. Instead, as the IDS put it, they
were “watching Hopalong Cassidy hopping along to the
music of Ludwig van Beethoven.”
Although WFIU was on its assigned frequency and completely
within its rights to broadcast there, it immediately restricted
its time of service to hours when the television station
was not on the air. WFIU then worked with RCA and Sarkes
Tarzian—a local businessman and founder of Bloomington’s
WTTS and WTTV—to create and install local TV sets with
“wave traps” designed to filter out the far stronger
WFIU signal, but to no avail. After months of conflict and
confusion, WFIU went off the air altogether in June of 1951
awaiting a frequency change from the FCC. By fall, WFIU
once again was up and running, on 103.7 FM, its home ever
since.
By 1953, the station had settled down to routine operation,
with a broadcast day extending from 12:55 p.m. to 10:15
p.m. Due to the location of WFIU’s 100 foot transmission
tower in the center of campus and its impressive 75,000
watt signal strength, small “interferences” persisted.
Keith Klein, who worked on the WFIU staff as a student,
remembers, “In the days when WFIU’s antenna was
adjacent to Read Center, it was legendary that people who
lived in the surrounding dormitories could pick up WFIU
on their dental fillings, eyeglasses, electric shavers,
and such. Some people found that they could hear WFIU on
their stereo speakers, even when their stereo wasn’t
turned on!” John Harrell, WFIU’s Chief Announcer
in the late ‘50s and now a lecturer in the Department
of Telecommunications, recalls, “I was living in what
is now Ashton Center, and I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder
in my room. Well, I listened to WFIU on my tape recorder.
I had no need to buy a radio.”
William Kroll notes that the strong presence of WFIU’s
signal on campus occasionally caused problems at special
events, too. “It was anticipated that our signal would
interfere with the dedication ceremonies at the Lilly Library.
The university wanted to take the station off the air completely
during the ceremonies, but our director, Elmer Sulzer, managed
to strike a compromise, and we played an afternoon of very
soft music instead. Then there was the time when the rock
and roll group The Turtles came to campus to perform. They
rehearsed in the morning, and they returned that evening
for their concert. When they turned on their public address
system, they heard WFIU, loud and clear.” This type
of problem was resolved when the WFIU transmitting facility
moved to its current location on Sare Road (then the very
southeast edge of Bloomington) in 1968. Apparently the only
people not satisfied with this solution were the boys of
SAE fraternity, who frequently scampered up WFIU’s
tower late at night to hang bed sheets scrawled with creative
messages.
As the ’50s progressed, the station proceeded to mature
and blossom by providing new services and programs, many
of which tapped into the growing wealth of resources at
the University. Since its inception, classical music had
played an integral role in the station’s mission to
provide the university and the community with an educational
and enlightening broadcast service. Indeed, in the first
nine months of WFIU’s existence, over 50% of the station’s
music programming, and over 30% of its total programming,
could be placed under the rubric of “classical.”
In 1953, with the introduction of Your Sunday Opera with
IU School of Music professor and then stage director of
the IU Opera Theater Ross Allen, WFIU expanded this service
by drawing upon some of the vast resources of talent and
educational excellence thriving at the internationally recognized
IU School of Music. One of the station’s most enduring
and beloved programs, Your Sunday Opera heralded one of
the first major steps toward establishing a dynamic tradition
of enriching WFIU’s broadcast service by providing
listeners a link to the tremendous resources of the IU School
of Music.
Remembering the creation of Your Sunday Opera during an
interview for the program’s 40 th anniversary in 1993,
Allen noted that the decision to begin an opera program
on WFIU, however, was as much a practical, as it was a cultural,
decision. “They were inventing a lot of new programs
to fill the broadcast hours of this fledgling little radio
station, and they thought opera would be very efficient
at filling a great deal of time on Sunday afternoons...
I think we had about 14 opera record sets at the station
then, and they told me I could use these and any others
I could get my hands on. Well, my hands have been on quite
a few since that time. I met a former member of the station
some time ago, and he said, ‘I hear you’re still
doing Sunday Opera. How many times have you played those
14 opera sets?’ Fortunately, I have managed to find
new recordings here and there over the years. Wouldn’t
it be dreadful to have to play Faust every 15 th Sunday?”
In time, Your Sunday Opera did more than fill WFIU’s
Sunday afternoon air time, it became one of the young station’s
best liked programs. For over 40 years, Allen never missed
a Sunday broadcast. Even surgery in 1980 didn’t stop
him— he recorded a program from Bloomington Hospital.
When he retired from the show in early 1997, Ross donated
his extensive record and CD collection to the WFIU music
library—a collection that remains separate from the
rest of the catalogued recordings, baring the official status
of “The Ross Allen Collection.” Allen’s passion
for music and desire to educate others was crucial to the
development of the innovative spirit that propelled WFIU
from a struggling student-run station to a community cornerstone.
Another chapter in WFIU’s history opened in the fall
of 1958 with the words,“We pause for 60 seconds. This
is the Indiana University Sports Network.” That phrase,
now the stuff of legend, was heard for the first time when
WFIU launched the Indiana University Sports Network in September
of 1958—just in time for the IU football opener, an
18-0 loss to Notre Dame in South Bend. The IU Sports Network
was the brain child and dream come true of then WFIU News
Director Dick Yoakam. WFIU had broadcast IU sports events
for years, but the IUSN marked the creation of an entirely
new era of sports broadcasting at the University. WFIU relayed
its call of both home and away games to nearby participating
stations, which then relayed the signal to further links
in a network that covered the entire state.
One important goal of the IU Sports Network was to provide
aspiring young announcers with an opportunity for real broadcasting
experience. After a thorough review, a HPER graduate student
looking toward a career in academics was chosen as the network’s
first principal announcer. For the next three years, Dick
Enberg— now known for his career as a sports announcers
for NBC—was the voice of IU sports across Indiana.
As an undergraduate at Central Michigan, Enberg was involved
in athletics and broadcasting sports events for local commercial
stations, so he was a natural for the position with the
IU Sports Network. As Yoakam recalls, “the man and
the job just got together.”
On the heels of the successful debut of the IU Sports Network,
in 1959 WFIU extended its broadcast day by one hour (signing
off at 11:15pm) and continued to expand the breadth of its
cultural services by offering broadcasts from the Metropolitan
Opera. “Bicycled” each week from Louisville, these
recordings put listeners in touch with one of the foremost
arenas for operatic performance, presenting some of the
world’s greatest music performed by some of the world’s
greatest singers.
The much-anticipated first broadcast of the Met, however,
was not the grand event station personnel had hoped for.
Longtime Director of Programming Herb Seltz recalls, “We
were the first station in the state to carry the Texaco-sponsored
broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. We’d receive
the tapes from station WHAS in Louisville by bus. They’d
broadcast the tapes over the weekend, and then we’d
receive them for broadcast Monday evenings. On our very
first Met broadcast, we got three quarters of the way through
the performance, and we discovered the final reel of tape
was missing. It turned up later that evening in the Paoli
bus station.” Despite this rocky beginning, for the
Met’s 1960-61 season, WFIU received permission to carry
live broadcasts from the Met, making it the only station
in Indiana to provide such a service, and one of only two
university stations in the country to do so.
Only a decade into its service, WFIU already was displaying
an amazing ability to realize, and reach beyond, the educational
potential that prompted the initial calls for it its creation.
In addition to the invaluable broadcast training made available
to students, the station was offering the state and nation
with links to IU, as well as bringing the cultural riches
of the nation to local listeners. As a result of WFIU’s
efforts, people around the state and country could tune
in to a live broadcasts of an IU Mens’ Basketball game
as it progressed from basket to basket. These efforts also
provided the local audience with the opportunity to listen
to the stunning performances from the world-renowned cultural
institution of the Met as the love, hate, murder and mayhem
unfolded on stage. The dual role of providing a conduit
for offering cultural delights from across the world to
its local audience, and of showcasing the resources of the
University and community to the rest of the country, only
grew as the station moved from decade to decade.
Indeed, in the years to come, WFIU continued to make strides
in broadening cultural services to the community. In 1959
two IU students, Phillip Jones and Richard (Dick) Bishop,
introduced Jazz Review, a scripted 15 minute program. Drawing
on the vitality of the dazzling local jazz scene, kindled
by one Hoagy Carmichael in the first half of the century,
the program spoke to the growing appreciation for jazz music
in mainstream culture. The appearance of Jazz Review marked
the beginning of the station’s continuing commitment
to jazz programming. Today, it still occupies an integral
role in the station’s broadcast service. On Friday
evenings, listeners can even tune in to hear that same student
from 1959, Dick Bishop, serving up his special mix of “mainstream
jazz and American Popular Song.”
Seeking to strengthen its role as a provider of educational
and cultural resources from IU to the community, WFIU aired
its first live broadcast from the IU School of Music’s
Recital Hall in October of 1962. Believed to be a piano
recital by School of Music faculty member Menahem Pressler,
this broadcast inaugurated a tradition of enriching the
airwaves with the artistic wealth of the School of Music,
capturing their sounds as they emanated from the concert
stage. It also paved the way for a time in the not too distant
future when WFIU would offer these spellbinding performances
not only to listeners in the area—who may still hear
them today—but, through national syndication, to public
radio listeners across the country.
In 1963, WFIU moved into the recently constructed Indiana
University Radio-TV Center, the first building at a public
institution in the US devoted solely to educational broadcasting.
The building was designed by Professor Elmer G. Sulzer,
then Chairman of the Department of Radio and Television,
who proclaimed it, “the finest college radio and television
building in the world.” Reportedly, Sulzer would drop
whatever he was doing any time of day to lead visitors on
a tour of his creation, trailing drifts of cigar ashes through
his otherwise pristine building. Sulzer believed in the
importance of hands-on production experience for students.
As a result, the new Radio-TV Center housed eight state
of the art studios—four designed especially for radio
work and one television studio that Sulzer claimed to be
the largest in cubic feet between New York and Los Angeles.
Every precaution was taken during construction to ensure
that sound would not travel from one studio to the next,
including special floors and sound baffles built into the
building’s duct work. Not every sound however could
be dampened. One of the most vividly remembered aspects
of the new building was Sulzer’s infamous pipe organ
in Studio 5, a 1953 gift from Robert Harris acquired from
Bloomington’s Princess Theater. William Kroll recalls,
“When the new Radio and Television building was in
the design process, Mr. Sulzer was adamant that there would
be a place in the building where the organ would be prominently
displayed.” Every Friday afternoon, without fail, Sulzer
capped off his week and kicked off the weekend by banging
out a few tunes on his beloved organ, its sounds resonating
throughout the building. One Friday afternoon faculty member
George Willeford decided he couldn’t take anymore.
Willeford stormed into the studio where Sulzer was playing
and fired a starter’s pistol at his department chair.
The organ fell silent as a shocked Sulzer only slowly realized
that the gun was not real.
With the Department of Radio and Television nestled into
its distinguished new home, the future of public broadcasting
at IU looked bright. Helping to illuminate that future,
in 1967, Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act. The
bill actually began as The Public Television Act and was
changed to the Public Broadcasting Act, just before it passed
Congress, in order to include radio. The PBA created the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a body intended to
protect the quality, diversity and independence of public
broadcasting by providing federal operating aid. It also
set the stage for a national radio network that would unite
public radio stations across the country while maintaining
the primacy and creative independence of local stations
such as WFIU.
Following this legislation, WFIU embarked upon a phase
of unprecedented growth in strengthening its service to
listeners, especially in the area of news and information.
From its beginnings, WFIU prided itself on providing up-to-date
news, often drawn from resources in the community and University.
In the early ’70s, the station elevated that commitment
to even greater heights. The first move in this direction
was the introduction of the station’s first call-in
show, Rapline, produced and hosted by IU student David Shank.
Each week the program focused on a timely subject and featured
community or campus leaders who answered questions and commented
on topics raised by listeners. Rapline’s call-in format
created a forum for community members to benefit from the
wealth of knowledge and experience held by IU’s world-class
faculty, who often served as guests.
Initially, there was concern about soliciting sufficient
caller participation to make Rapline a success, and WFIU’s
monthly program guide frankly informed listeners that “without
your participation the program will be a flop.” The
opportunity to call and pose questions to such early guests
such as IU president John W. Ryan, though, ensured that
the program did not flop, but instead thrived. In the thirty
years since, WFIU’s continuous strain of live call-in
shows have proved to be a vital link in the ongoing dialogue
between its listeners, the university and the community.
As a culmination of the goals set forth by the Public Broadcasting
Act, National Public Radio was created in 1971, and WFIU,
along with public radio stations across the country, entered
a ground-breaking new era. Like nothing that heretofore
had been offered to public radio stations, NPR produced
and distributed a wide variety of news and entertainment
programs for broadcast by member stations across the country,
thus increasing the value of public radio’s local service.
Ninety original charter stations joined NPR for its groundbreaking
exploration of this unknown territory of large-scale national
networking—among them was WFIU. The inaugural edition
of NPR’s flagship newsmagazine All Things Considered
aired on May 3, 1971, and featured host Susan Stamberg as
the first woman to anchor a daily national broadcast.
WFIU’s May, 1971, program guide noted that NPR would
“greatly increase the medium’s ability to provide
in-depth coverage of public affairs at the moment news is
made.” WFIU’s association with the new national
network brought to its listeners not only the most recent
news from around the world, but probing insights into each
story, including interviews with international authorities
on the subject at hand. With Vietnam raging and Watergate
just on the horizon, NPR had ample opportunity to prove
the value of its distinctive and compelling brand of news
reporting—and it did. By the late ’70s, the number
of NPR member stations had more than doubled. In addition
to providing listeners with excellent journalism, the partnership
with NPR also introduced a fresh platform from which WFIU
could exhibit IU’s many outstanding resources to the
nation and the world. Indeed, over the years, WFIU has produced
hundreds of interviews at the request of NPR, providing
IU with national radio exposure.
Later in 1971, the station introduced what is still one
of its more distinctive programs, Ether Game. Created by
then Programming Director Don Glass, the driving principle
behind WFIU’s weekly musical guessing game is that
classical music can be more than just engaging, broadening
or edifying... it can be fun. Ether Game first “aired”
on March 16, 1971, borrowing its name from an archaic definition
of the word “ether” as a medium through which
radio waves are transmitted. In the early days of the show,
WFIU encouraged listeners to tune in at certain times to
try their hand at guessing the composer and name of certain
pieces; the answers were printed upside down in the program
guide. Eventually, WFIU invited listeners to participate
by calling in with their guesses and having their names
read over the air. In 1986, Program Director Christina Kuzmych
(now Station Manager) expanded Ether Game to its current
production level, complete with a script that provides hints,
anecdotes, and musicological trivia about each selection.
Since its inception, Ether Game has succeeded both in providing
a dynamic way for WFIU listeners actively to participate
in the station’s broadcast and in supplying a fun and
informative way for listeners of all ages to discover the
vibrant world of classical, as well as many other forms
of, music—the occasional Jimi Hendrix and Madonna song,
for example, have been known to throw the audience for a
loop.
In March of 1973, WFIU expanded the broadcast day to eighteen
hours, from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. The following year, in an unexampled
display of patronage to the station’s quest to improve
its broadcast service, Elizabeth Burnham of Burnham Unlimited
became the station’s first commercial underwriter by
offering support for the Library of Congress Chamber Music
Series. On the heels of this philanthropic display of support,
seeking to enhance the quality of sound filling its increasing
hours of service, WFIU first approached listeners with the
question of financial support. Made with a low-key reference
in the April,1976, issue of the station’s program guide,
Directions in Sound, the appeal explained that the money
raised would be earmarked for new equipment for stereo broadcasts.
Stereo technology was no longer cutting edge, already in
use by most commercial stations. However, on WFIU’s
modest budget, bringing listeners the dynamic, high fidelity
broadcasts made possible by stereo had been an unattainable
dream. Eighty loyal listeners immediately responded with
contributions totaling $1,472.50.
A year and a half later, WFIU held its first on-air “fund
drive.” The specific goal of this fundraising campaign
again was to provide a stereo broadcast service, as well
as keep Indiana University’s radio broadcasting center
as up to date as the rest of its facilities. Five hundred
nineteen listeners across South-Central Indiana contributed
to WFIU’s “stereo drive.” Along with the
proceeds from the previous campaigns, the station financed
its conversion to stereo almost exclusively through listener
contributions.
Funded by listeners, on July 4, 1978, WFIU broadcast its
first piece in stereo: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Don Glass introduced the piece with these words: “This
is indeed a momentous day in our history, made even more
sweet by the fact that it has been so long in coming. It
is perhaps a bit anachronistic for us to be so excited about
something which has been around so long, even though we
have not had it. I suppose our situation is somewhat analogous
to moving in 1978 to a house with indoor plumbing. We are,
indeed, excited about finally joining the mid-20th century
technology.”
The station had long relied on the resources, feedback,
and support of the University and community to bolster the
quality of its service and further its mission to provide
a source for enlightening and informational entertainment.
In these unprecedented displays of thanks— from the
first business in 1973 to the first individuals in 1976—members
of the community stepped forward in a time of need to let
the station know that its past accomplishments and future
goals were valued by the community. Since that time, financial
support from listeners has increased from year to year,
providing opportunities for many more triumphs.
One of those triumphs took place in 1979 when WFIU provided
live coverage of IU Swimming Coach Doc Counsilman’s
historic swim across the English Channel. As eager to support
this IU legend as his many ardent fans, WFIU brought anxious
listeners frequent updates of Counsilman’s progress.
Don Glass remembers, “The whole town was on edge hour
after hour. We’d get reports relayed to us from England
periodically, and they would occasionally be pretty sketchy
or have a serious tone as though something had gone wrong.
There were some real cliffhangers during that coverage.”
Counsilman’s swim was successful, and, at 58, he was
the oldest person to date to accomplish the feat.
Seeking to propel the quality of the station’s service
to the highest caliber possible, WFIU went “online”
with the new NPR satellite system in 1980, and shortly thereafter
began receiving high fidelity, stereo feeds from NPR’s
home in Washington, DC. The satellite system quickly replaced
the previous method of distributing programs by long distance
phone line. The March, 1980, Directions in Sound reported,
“the first day we took All Things Considered from the
satellite feed we heard things in the theme music we had
never heard before; some of the high, bell-like sounds were
simply above the response range of the limited-frequency
landline system.” This service also increased the early
morning clarity of the voice of Morning Edition host Bob
Edwards. WFIU expanded its national and international news
offerings with the introduction of NPR’s Morning Edition
a year previous, which quickly became one of the station’s
most popular programs.
While the financial support of the University and of listeners
helped provide the funding source for WFIU to enter new
realms of technological advancement, in 1983, WFIU listeners
stepped forward with an unparalled endorsement of NPR and
all that it had done to increase the value of WFIU’s
local service. As a result of budget cuts and other factors,
NPR faced a multi-million dollar debt and possible bankruptcy.
The threat of losing a resource as esteemed as NPR triggered
an impromptu fund drive at public radio stations across
the country. Characteristically displaying their trademark
Hoosier hospitality, approximately 600 WFIU listeners donated
nearly $15,000 as part of this effort. With these contributions
and assistance from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
NPR recovered from its debt. Demonstrating a newfound vitality,
in 1985 NPR introduced Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott
Simon, with NPR favorites Weekend Edition Sunday, Performance
Today, Fresh Air and Car Talk following in 1987.
Prior to this series of events, in 1981, WFIU seized upon
the opportunity created by the newly developed satellite
network and produced its first live satellite broadcast.
Thirteen NPR member stations from coast to coast joined
host and producer Don Glass for a performance by the IU
Philharmonic, led by conductor and IU School of Music professor
Thomas Baldner, at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City.
This production was a part of sequence of concerted efforts
by WFIU to showcase the immense talent of IU’s School
of Music with the nation. Less than a year before the broadcast
from Avery Fischer Hall, the station inaugurated the production
of its first series for national syndication: Music from
Indiana, a series of concerts and recitals from the Indiana
University School of Music. Having shared live broadcasts
and recordings of performances at the School of Music with
listeners in its service area for nearly two decades, these
dazzling performances from IU’s world-renowned musical
community were obvious choices for concerted efforts to
develop a series with national appeal. Many of the programs
in the series featured individual artists, while others
displayed the talents of student ensembles or IU composers.
Each program was hand-picked from a selection of more than
50,000 recordings on file at the IU music library. The final
product was a polished version of what listeners would hear
at a live concert, and this unrestrained energy was part
of the program’s appeal. WFIU’s music coordinator
for Music from Indiana, Cameron Warner, explained, “We
don’t try to edit out the applause or audience coughs
or that sort of thing. They are the things that make it
seem real and alive.”
Music from Indiana initially was distributed to five stations
in Indiana and Kentucky. Other stations soon joined from
Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. Its early success in the
Midwest quickly earned it national exposure, and in 1981,
programs from Music from Indiana were chosen to air on National
Public Radio’s NPR Recital Hall. In 1982, American
Public Radio (now Public Radio International) selected Music
from Indiana for national distribution. Established only
a year earlier in Saint Paul, Minnesota, APR’s goal
was to provide a national distribution platform for distinctive
programs from local public radio stations across the country.
At the time, APR was responsible for the distribution of
such popular programs as A Prairie Home Companion and the
Los Angeles Philharmonic. By 1983, Music from Indiana was
distributed to 60 public radio stations throughout the nation.
Since the distribution of School of the Sky in the early
50s, and the creation of NPR in 1971, WFIU had served as
one of the primary conduits for sharing the wealth of resources
available at the University with a national audience. Music
from Indiana was the first in a series of nationally syndicated
programs the station would produce through partnerships
with other university departments. In 1988, WFIU began production
and distribution of its second nationally syndicated series.
Directed at the wide-eyed child in all of us, A Moment of
Science set out to answer some of modern society’s
most vexing questions: What are dreams? Why do a cat’s
eyes glow at night? Is cracking one’s knuckles really
harmful, or just annoying? With resources provided by several
of IU’s outstanding departments, WFIU created a two-minute
science module designed from the start for national distribution.
The program sought to utilize the vast reservoir of scientific
knowledge on the IU campus and make science accessible to
everyone.
A Moment of Science’s original announcer/producer,
Stephen Fentress explained, “We want to write every
program so it is an enjoyable diversion. But more than that,
we want the listener to think, ‘Wow, that’s neat,’
and go tell somebody about it. We believe science can be
that inviting, entertaining and captivating.” Production
of A Moment of Science soon turned over to Special Projects
Director Don Glass, the voice listeners recognize today.
In 1988, an A Moment of Science book, Why You Can Never
Get to the End of the Rainbow, was published by IU Press,
and a second book, How Can You Tell if a Spider is Dead?,
followed in 1996. Edited by Glass, these volumes of scientific
treats brimmed with contributions from students and professors
of IU’s acclaimed departments of physics and chemistry,
providing yet another means of showcasing the institution’s
noted reservoir of resources.
Entering the ‘90s, WFIU continued to increase the
breadth, and depth, of its service to the community. From
its humble beginnings in “the Hut,” averaging
of 37.5 hours of service a day, the station had grown into
a public radio station of unsurpassed excellence boasting
a collection of thousands of CDs and several state-of-the-art
studios. Through its decades of modification and improvement,
however, one goal remained paramount: bringing listeners
the highest quality public radio possible.
On April 30, 1990, the station accomplished one of its
loftiest goals when it began broadcasting twenty-four hours
a day. The April, 1990, Directions in Sound noted that this
move was made in order “to better serve night owls
listeners pulling the unfortunate all-nighter), as well
as early birds.” For such late night and early morning
companionship, the Beethoven Satellite Network with Peter
Van DeGraff has aired from midnight until 6am each day since.
The accomplishment of 24-hour service helped make the celebration,
in October of 1990, of forty years of WFIU’s service
to listeners, the community, and Indiana University quite
a special one. With a tradition of marking important milestone’s
in its history with special occassions, five years previously
WFIU welcomed Robert Conrad for its 35 th Anniversary celebration.
Host of “that curiously strange potpourri of classical
music, crossover wit and convivial companionship” Weekend
Radio from WCLV in Cleveland, Conrad traveled to Bloomington
to join staff and listeners for an open house and reception.
Later that evening, Conrad offered a live broadcast of Weekend
Radio in Bloomington—a broadcast that was taped for
national distribution.
Since that time, at the behest of the station, several
other national radio personalities have visited Bloomington
to meet listeners and present live broadcasts, including
Fiona Ritchie, producer and host of NPR’s syndicated
Celtic music program The Thistle and Shamrock, and Garrison
Keillor. Kiellor, one of the most well-known voices and
prominent figures in radio, offered a live presentation
of his American Radio Company (reverted to A Prairie Home
Companion a year later) at the IU Auditorium in February
of 1992. People flocked from miles around to join Garrison
and the rest of the cast and drew of the popular program
for a special show featuring, amongst others, virtuoso guitar
picker Chet Atkins. “The response was incredible. We
sold out all our seats (3,700) in hours,” stated then
Director of Public Information Chris Rund. Drawn by the
numerous talents of the School of Music, in the ’80s
and ’90s, two other prominent figures in public radio,
Karl Haas, host of Adventures in Good Music, and George
Jellinek, host of The Vocal Scene, have dropped by the station
several times to record special programs.
Many other special guests whose fame extends far beyond
the realm of radio have graced the studios and airwaves
of WFIU over the years: writer, actor, and radio host Studs
Terkel, “First Lady of Jazz” and host of NPR’s
Piano Jazz Marian McPartland, American composer Aaron Copland,
conductor and violinist Eugene Ormandy, bandleader, percussionist,
and composer Tito Puente, leading lady of Broadway Carol
Lawrence, wind and band music specialist Frederick Fennell,“minimalist”
composer Phillip Glass, jazz legend James Moody, composer
Joan Tower, cellist Mistislav Rostropovich, and the list
goes on and on. The formidable stature and diverse mix of
this collection of guests is testament to several factors:
the diversity of WFIU’s broadcast service—which
includes jazz, folk, big band, new age, Broadway, classical,
and world music; WFIU’s position in the community as
one of the major voices and proponents of the arts; and,
most importantly, Indiana University’s role as an internationally
recognized center of research and scholarship with a firm
commitment to excellence in the arts and education.
Indeed, the number and distinction of “guests”
attracted to IU—to perform or lecture—actually
pales in comparison to the plenitude of internationally
recognized scholars, artists, writers, musicians and activists
who call the University and local area home. Over the years
WFIU has taken advantage of the notability and knowledge
of such individuals by inviting them into the studios for
lively interviews and passionate discussions, serving them
up for the local audience or feeding them to NPR for use
nationwide. Recognizing the public’s desire to get
to know these well-known figures of political, musical and
professorial dress when their vocational hats are off, WFIU
created a program dedicated to precisely that area of interest.
“Profiles offers a fun and engaging way for people
in the area to get to know, on a more informal and personal
level, the copious mix of amazing people they see on the
streets, in the lecture halls, and on the concert stage,”
says Station Manager Christina Kuzmych. Guests on Profiles
have reflected the diversity of a community enlivened by
the presence of Indiana University: Distinguished Professor
of Music and internationally recognized cellist Janos Starker,
community activist and artist Charlotte Zietlow, author
and Distinguished Professor of English Scott Russell Sanders,
former WFIU announcer and world-renowned soprano Sylvia
McNair, Chilean composer and Director of IU’s Latin
American Music Center Juan Orrego-Salas, award-winning sportswriter
Bob Hammell, jazz vocalist Janiece Jaffe, and on and on.
From its inception in 1950, outreach to the community has
been one of WFIU’s chief concerns, and the late ’80s
and ’90s witnessed the manifestation of this mission
in new and exciting ways. WFIU developed a Community Advisory
Board in 1989 as a means for station management to gauge
public sentiment in programming and public service, and
in the spring of 1991, the station inaugurated an annual
“off-air” activity specifically aimed at serving
a demographic largely made up of citizens not reached by
the station’s on-air broadcast... kids. WFIU sought
to encourage and enliven the creative impulse within the
youngsters throughout the listening area with an art contest—an
ideal type of contest, given radio’s long-held distinction
as “The Theater of the Mind.” With the help of
art teachers throughout the listening area, the response
to the first call-for-entries was tremendous. Deluging the
station with over 300 entries were elementary school students,
ages 5-13, in Franklin, North Vernon, Bloomington, Columbus,
Shoals, and surrounding communities. Since that time, through
the support of local businesses, the “Kids’ Art
Contest” has grown, now offering winners the chance
to include their entries in an art show that travels across
the state. Expressing her excitement about the contest in
a recent letter to the station, Greenwood, Indiana, elementary
school art teacher Bette DeFreese stated,” Thanks so
much for this wonderful contest! The kids and I look forward
to participating in it every year.”
WFIU’s unique position as a not-for-profit with a
voice offers another valuable means to reach out to the
community in the area of community service; through regular
public service announcements, from the beginning, WFIU long
has shared its “wattage” in order to increase
awareness of the variety of other events, causes, and benefits
offered by other not-for-profits in the listening area.
The ’80s and ’90s saw the station more actively
pursuing this role by developing partnerships with other
non-profit cultural and service organizations through sponsorship
of special events and with the creation of joint activities,
such as the “Red Cross Book Drive.” For this annual
outreach activity, the staff and personalities of WFIU set
up shop outside Borders Books & Music to collect used
books and then pass them along to the Monroe County Chapter
of the American Red Cross for resale at their annual book
fair fund raiser. Following the 1999 drive, local Red Cross
chapter manager Carol Bentley stated in a letter to the
station: “The Fair is one of the major fund raising
events for the chapter, and your assistance in helping make
this event the success it is can not be overlooked. To say
that we were overwhelmed with books last Saturday would
be a gross understatement. If numbers of books are an indication
of success, and in this case, it is the measure, you achieved
your goal.”
While off-the-air outreach activities continued to flourish,
on-air concerns remained the primary focus of WFIU’s
commitment to serve the University and community. Current
General Manager Don Agostino notes, “WFIU, as one of
the public voices of Indiana University, reflects the University’s
character and values. The fundamental purpose of both the
University and public radio is to serve, to strengthen and
to shape the community. WFIU achieves this by respectfully
appealing to listeners’ information and artistic interests.”
Indeed, as issues of globalization and environmental concern
entered the forefront of national debate, WFIU responded
with a variety of new additions to its broadcast schedule,
including world news from the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC), business news from APR’s (now PRI’s) Marketplace,
and environmental news from NPR’s Living on Earth.
WFIU complemented the international scope of these programs
with increased coverage of business news in Indiana and
through the introduction of a new program produced in conjunction
with yet another one of the University’s blossoming
departments. Seeking to address the community’s growing
concern for environmental issues, in October of 1991, WFIU
and the School for Public and Environmental Affairs joined
forces to produce the weekly two-minute segment Earthnote.
Like A Moment of Science, the program showcases the knowledge
and resources of the students and faculty of one of IU’s
departments, while additionally offering fascinating insights
into questions concerning the environment.
Also in October, WFIU created Harmonia, a weekly program
devoted to the early music of the middle ages and early
17 th century. Largely drawing upon the unmatched resources
at Indiana University’s Early Music Institute, Harmonia
began as a program heard only on WFIU, but quickly grew
into the station’s most successful nationally distributed,
cultural program. Station Manager Christina Kuzmych remembers
the seminal push that sent the program into national syndication:
“Harmonia was the result of an Indiana University task
force recommendation that urged the station to showcase
the best of IU’s educational initiatives to a national
audience. The trick was to create a product that could rival
other national programs in production values, offer unique
content, and have strong marketability potential. Judged
by these criteria, Harmonia was a viable product for national
syndication. Its content was attractive and marketable,
as witnessed by the success Early Music CD sales and concert
attendance. WFIU had a distinct edge over the competition
through our association with the IU School of Music’s
Early Music Institute—one of the foremost institutes
of its kind in the world. WFIU had the recording technology
to pull it off, and we had the perfect voice in host Angela
Mariani who also is a scholar of Early Music. The ingredients
for success were there; we needed the endurance to launch
and nurture a program through several years of syndication
growth.”
Today, over 150 stations across the county carry Harmonia,
and praise for the show floods into WFIU. A listener on
KHPR in Hawaii wrote, “Every time I have tuned into
your program, I have been filled with joy.” On a more
personal note, a listener on WFSQ in Georgia claimed, “If
I go to Hell, it’s all your fault. I listened to Harmonia
on my way to our Lenten Program at church. I got to church,
but blew it off immediately to listen to the end of your
broadcast.” Along with A Moment of Science, which is
carried by over 70 stations in the U.S. and on several international
networks, Harmonia is now WFIU’s flagship national
public radio program.
The latter half of the ’90s saw the station taking
a series of unprecedented steps to expand the reach of its
service to residents in communities where reception of the
WFIU signal was fuzzy, at best, or could only be picked
up on the outskirts of town. In cooperation with Indiana
State University and with support from the Oakley Foundation,
in 1996, WFIU installed its first “translator,”
a remote station that receives and rebroadcast the 103.7
FM signal, atop the ISU School of Education Building in
Terre Haute. The following year, WFIU installed another
translator in Columbus. Listeners whose reception traditionally
began to fade as they traveled into one of these cities
now could turn their dials over to 95.1 FM in Terre Haute,
or 100.7 FM in Columbus, to hear the conclusion, for example,
of a riveting interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry
Gross. Recalling the decision to approve the translator
installation at Indiana State University, then President
John W. Moore, stated, “Of all the decisions I made
while at ISU, no decision garnered more support and enthusiasm
from people from all walks of life than the one to fire
up 95.1. For Terre Haute, it was a breath of fresh air.”
Similar sentiments of appreciation were expressed throughout
Terre Haute and Columbus.
The following year saw the installation of yet another
translator. However, the impetus for this occasion was not
to extend or improve reception in a community already familiar
with WFIU’s service, but rather to introduce IU’s
public radio station to a community unserved by public radio.
Funded by a grant from the Public Telecommunications Facilities
Program Fund, WFIU installed a translator broadcasting at
106.1 FM from the main building on the Indiana University-Kokomo
campus, reaching Kokomo via a fiber optic audio data circuit.
At one point in the deliberation process over introducing
WFIU’s service to Kokomo, WFIU Community Advisory Board
member Pam Service wisely asked why the station would care
to deliver a service all the way up to Kokomo. The immediate
answers, as Christina Kuzmych recalls, were simple: “IU-Kokomo
invited us, and Kokomo could potentially provide a rich
source of new listeners. Yet there was another more compelling
reason—we public radio types simply can’t pass
up the opportunity to spread our public radio programming
gospel to those deprived of this advantage.” Then IUK
Chancellor Emita Hill and Kokomo Mayor James Trobaugh flipped
the switch for the translator on April 9 at Havens Auditorium,
and IU Assistant Vice President for External Affairs, Perry
Metz, delivered remarks addressing the significance of linking
the two Indiana University campuses. On hand also was resident
Darrell Sharrod, who claimed that he had been waiting 25
years for a clear public radio station in Kokomo; “This
will give Kokomo exposure to a wide range of culture and
ideas that they can’t get from local top 40 radio stations,”
he stated.
In the December, 1999, issue of Directions in Sound, reflecting
upon the role of public radio before the turn of the century,
Professor Emeritus of Telecommunications, R. LeRoy Bannerman
noted: “With the diversity of radio’s Golden Age
usurped by television, the medium became a simplified service
medium, local in concept, and dominated by a disc jockey
doctrine of music and news. The grandeur and variety of
radio’s past was now passé. Yet, fortunately,
its significance has survived in the multifaceted originality
of public radio. That is why this station, and others like
it, is of such vital importance to the nation, to the community.”
Bannerman, like Sharrod, recognized public radio’s
role in providing the primary source of educational and
cultural substance on any radio dial. Ironically, WFIU’s
stake in claiming this cultural territory over the local
airwaves actually commenced on the heels of the Golden Age
of Radio, as television came to the fore. One of the forces
nearly quashing the establishment of a radio station on
the IU campus, in fact, was the growing appeal of TV, and
the perceived demise of FM. Despite the various forces potentially
working to silence the voice of public radio, it continues
to thrive. Locally, tens of thousands tune in each week
to WFIU for the resonant voice of Bob Edwards or the pleasing
sounds of a Bach cantata, demonstrating that the device
developed in the late 19th Century by Marconi remains a
powerful communicative force.
Toward the end of the 20th Century, WFIU ventured into
a new frontier of service to the public; in 1995, the station
published a Web sited devoted entirely to complementing
its terrestrial broadcast service with information on programs,
station history, and station activities. On October 14,
1999, taking advantage of yet another revolutionary means
of spreading the reach of its service. WFIU began “streaming”
its live broadcast over the internet. With the appropriate
computer applications, WFIU’s broadcast service now
can be accessed anywhere in the world. As the first words
of George Walker beamed into cyberspace, current engineer
John Shelton recognized the irony of it all: “Well,
we’ve come full circle. We’re back to broadcasting
over the phone lines.”
The station very quickly became aware that its new web
“streaming” capabilities were being utilized around
the country and even further afield. Today, IU grads and
former Bloomington residents find they are just a click
away from the sounds of home. Just this summer, announcer
Joe Bourne received an email from fan and IU grad Marit
Elvsås, who had returned home to Norway, but couldn’t
give up WFIU: “Hi Joe...just wanted to say that I am
enjoying listening to you—and that WFIU is often playing
on my computer in my office here at school in Norway! I
miss Bloomington, and my friends there, but I am glad that
I am back in Norway— but especially pleased that I
can keep in touch with at least parts of Bloomington through
listening to WFIU! Best wishes to you, and the WFIU family!”
WFIU’s web broadcast allows old listeners to tune
back in from out of town, but also attracts new listeners
unreached by a traditional terrestrial radio broadcast.
Chief Announcer George Walker emerged from the studio one
morning this summer to show off entries for a CD giveaway
from listeners in India and Estonia. His excitement, though,
was tempered by an unexpected concern with the new web service:
“No one ever considered it,” he shook his head.
“How much does postage to Estonia cost anyway?”
From its days in “the Hut,” when the strength
of its tower rattled the eyeglass and fillings of students
in dormitories nearby, WFIU’s service has grown to
include other Indiana communities and homes across the world,
garnering awards in the areas of news, promotion and public
service. In 1991, reflecting upon the wondrous advancements
in the station’s ability to serve the University and
community, Chancellor Herman B Wells noted, “We little
dreamed in 1950 that four decades later we would be listening
over this station to some of the finest performances from
the concert halls of the world, and beyond belief, to music
from our own Indiana University school of Music, grown to
enviable heights. WFIU’s growth in maturing from clumsy
ill-equipped beginnings to its present sophistication of
performance and presentation is almost miraculous.”
As WFIU moves past its first half-century, it looks forward
to yet another 50 years of service to the University and
community.
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