Lawrence Today magazine, Fall 2005
At the beginning of the 2005-06 academic year, WLFM will undergo a conversion
from a low-power, limited-range FM radio signal to an expanded Internet broadcast
format. Starboard Media Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit company located in Green
Bay, has acquired the station’s license and 91.1 MHz broadcast frequency.
With the steady deterioration of the station’s aging equipment, the erosion
over the years of WLFM’s broadcast range, and plans by Wisconsin Public
Radio to go digital, the college was confronted with a need to invest several
hundred thousand dollars over the next few years to maintain current operations.
Currently, WLFM broadcasts at 500 watts, and much of the station’s equipment
has long since passed its life expectancy. WLFM’s transmitter and antenna
were originally acquired in 1959, and replacement parts for the transmitter,
which uses vacuum tubes, are increasingly becoming scarce.
The station, which began operation in 1956, had, in its heyday, a wide range
of campus-generated programming, including live broadcasts of Conservatory
of Music concerts such as the holiday production of Handel’s Messiah, recitals and lectures presented on campus, and the university’s Commencement
exercises. In the 1970s, WLFM recorded and produced “Music from Lawrence,” a
series of programs featuring student and faculty musicians that was distributed
to radio stations throughout the country. The station also produced several
daily newscasts.
Today, student programming on WLFM is broadcast 60 hours a week or during 35
percent of the station’s airtime, mostly at night and on weekends. Student
DJs create their own shows, many of which focus on alternative music such as
indie rock. The remainder of WLFM’s airtime is devoted to a rebroadcast
of Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network. In recent years, however,
Green Bay’s WHID FM 88.1, which broadcasts at 17,000 watts, has served
as the principal source for WPR’s transmission of Ideas Network programming
for northeast Wisconsin.
The change in broadcast formats is intended to preserve the opportunity for
students to be involved in broadcast production and ensure the continuance
of the immensely popular Midwest
Trivia Contest. An increasing number of trivia
teams already use the WLFM webcast to participate in the contest.
WLFM began webcasting in April 2001. The webcast is transmitted via the Lawrence
web server (www.lawrence.edu/sorg/wlfm) and can be accessed from both on and
off campus. The set number of available streams for the broadcast has, on rare
occasions in the past, limited access during high user-demand periods such
as the play-by-play broadcast of the men’s basketball team’s participation
in the NCAA Division III tournament “Elite Eight” in 2004.
Funds from the acquisition of the license by the Starboard Foundation will
be made available to enhance WLFM’s webcasting capabilities and substantially
increase the number of streams available for listeners. Production facilities
in the Music-Drama Center will also be refurbished. Interested students are
already exploring how the added airtime available to them under the new broadcast
format will be used to best advantage.
