CBI Station Profile: WHRB at Harvard University

This is a continuing series of station profiles conducted by Student Representative Caila Brown of the Savannah College of Art and Design. If you would like to be featured in a station profile, please email Caila at cbrown40@student.scad.edu.

In this installment, Caila interviews Joseph Poirier, member of WHRB-FM at Harvard University.

Station Name: WHRB

Station City and State: Cambridge, MA

Institution: Harvard University

Describe the programming on your station.

Classical in the afternoons, Jazz in the mornings, with underground rock and hip-hop at nights. Sunday mornings feature a blues show, as well as news, talk and sports talk programming. Harvard sporting events are broadcast live. Various Harvard-related special programs also broadcast live.

What makes your station unique?

WHRB is unique for a number of reasons. For one, we are a fully commercial, yet non-profit, college radio station. This means our DJs double as our sales, business, studio engineering, technical, IT, promo, and maintenance staff. Secondly, WHRB sponsors on-air creativity during our Orgy Season. Orgies are massive blocks of themed programming, ranging from the complete works of Beethoven, to the complete catalog of Stones Throw Records. During WHRB’s Orgy Season, anything goes. WHRB also maintains a firm commitment to bringing the finest and rarest musical recordings to our audience. Broadcasting primarily from vinyl and CDs, not a day goes by without WHRB’s turntables spinning. Our massive music libraries contain some of the finest and most complete vinyl libraries in the country.

How does your station prepare students for post-graduate opportunities?

WHRB prepares students for post-graduate opportunities by placing them into constant dialogue with the music they broadcast, and the industry they broadcast as a part of. By discovering creative programming ideas for themselves, DJs at WHRB push the limits of conventional radio programming. WHRB’s DJs are also well-trained technically, engineering in one of three control studios, selling complete ad packages to clients, and repairing station equipment.

How does your station keep students motivated and involved?

WHRB’s staff is largely self-motivated, primarily by the music they love to broadcast. Beyond that, however, the nearly 200-person student staff of WHRB is a powerful social network, constantly reinforcing itself through station-wide events, after-hours parties, legendary WHRB softball, and Orgy Season collaborations.

Why do you think collegiate broadcasting is important?

Collegiate broadcasting is the most important kind of broadcasting. The risk-taking and creativity that characterizes youth, especially those college years, makes for the finest radio programming of all. The ability to break from convention (or be completely unaware of it) is the essence of progress in an industry flooded with banality and heartless repetition. To be able to capture the mind of a college youth and inject that into radio programming is a very special opportunity – and one that should certainly be made the most of. The music, the comment, and the heart that goes into the radio is pure, honest, and uninhibited.

How has your station benefited from being a member of CBI?

CBI helps keep WHRB up-to-date on all that happens in the college radio world, ensuring we are in constant dialogue with major issues affecting our station, and college radio in general.