WCEB-FM and a picture of me from the history of Corning Community College

Posted By wbilancio on March 23rd, 2008 @ 9:16 am. | Posted in Personal, Radio | No Comments »

So I was checking out my restaurants on Chefmoz.org and decided to do a search on the open directory project for an old radio station I use to work at and found a picture of myself on the Corning Community Collage site on there time line of great moments in CCC history. I was pictured in front of the new control board that we purchased for the student run radio station for the year 1987.

That was a good year for me in radio. I was working at a commercial radio station in Corning and running WCEB with a great group of other students. I think that the years of 1986 through 1987 were probably the best years of WCEB.

When I walked into WCEB it was very unorganized and weren’t getting any support from the record companies. After working for the station as there engineer for a while I was able to get the record companies to start sending us release albums as well as starting to report to the College Music Journal . I then got Brian Burquwist to run as general manager with me as the Program Director and of course we won. When we took over we had a control board that was limping along and a schedule that was all Heavy Metal music. We moved most of the heavy metal DJ’s to the afternoon and Brian and I took over mornings and put more non metal Dj’s on from 9 till 1. We also got a Tim Vogal a local voice over/radio announcer at the time to do a new set of legal and liner IDs. The new tag line was “WCEB-FM the new 92″. In 1987 we got the college to let us spend our whole yearly budget on a new control board. After I got the new system up and running I left CCC to pursue a new job back at WVIN-FM. The format and scheduling we set up lasted another semester before the rest of the crew we hand picked to run the station with us left or graduated from CCC. The last I heard WCEB it was running the same IDs and were all over the map with music but very heavy on the heavy rock and the announcers were very unprofessional sounding and you could tell no one was helping them become better announcers and radio personalities.

If I could run a radio station again I would love to run WCEB again. I could make it a driving force in the Corning/Elmira area with the backing of CCC as a public supported station. I would fashion the programming around the freeform radio format. So if you are a member of the board or the dean of Corning Community College I am open to an offer and willing to move back to the Corning area and get you on the map of the college radio with a good sounding and well run radio station and to help mold your communication students into better radio personnel.

What is your “thing”?

Posted By wbilancio on November 6th, 2007 @ 7:20 pm. | Posted in Opinion, Personal, Radio | Comments Off

I came home last night and my daughter was going on about how she didn’t have a “thing”.  I asked her what my “thing” was and she said my “thing” was computers…. Well I let that go, but it made me start thinking about my “thing”….was it really computers or something else?  Is your “thing” define by what you do or what makes you happy?  I sat up a little bit last night trying to figure out the answer to those questions…..I think it’s what makes me happy. 

So on the way to work and dropping Avery off at school I figured out that I have had many “things” so far in my life.  Computers might be my thing now but it will always be radio right to the sunset of my life that will be my true “thing”.  If I could get a radio job that pays the same amount I am making now…..but also lets me program my own music and not follow some format mandated by some person working for the man, but that’s another post. 

I explained to my daughter that it took me a long time to get my “thing” in life.  I don’t remember many people who had a “thing” when they were freshmen in high school and that eventually she will find her “thing” and that it will change as she gets older and the first “thing” might not be her “thing” later on.

Damn The Man!!!! The days of local radio breaking new records, taking chances on unknown acts and responding to it’s audience’s interests have all but disappeared.

Posted By wbilancio on August 25th, 2006 @ 8:39 am. | Posted in Opinion, Radio | Comments Off

Local radio is it a thing of the past and just holding on by the skin of it’s teeth?

I say yes and the main reason is that the Telecommunications act of 1996 has allowed the huge
conglomerates to come in and buy up most of the stations in the large to medium markets
and playing the fewest songs that appeal to the most people. Though more then 30,000
CDs are released in a year, the national play lists are getting tighter then ever and are
being influenced by big money from the big labels being brought into the stations through
independent radio promoters.

As the former manager of the Police, Miles Colpeland said in the article “What’s Wrong
With Radio?” by Greg Kot of Rolling Stone Magazine, “the Telecommunications Act of
1996, which deregulated radio and set off an unprecedented wave of media mergers. That
action “made radio more corporate, more homogeneous, and rounded out the rough edges
that make music interesting.” I can’t agree more. Back in the day the independent radio
stations use to break new bands and had all the control of their play lists as well as being
a little rough and fun to listen to.

In today’ radio markets the play lists are set by corporate management and focus groups.
The Disc Jockey we know of old who use to bring in interesting and new music is gone
and now we have a person who is told what he can play and when.

I am one of those old time radio announcers from the 80’s. I use to go into the studio with
a pile of records and cd’s and try to give the listeners a vast selection of music to listen to as
well as the hits of the time. I felt my job was to open the minds of the listeners to new types
of music and new bands. Nowadays if a band doesn’t have a contract with the big record
labels they probably won’t be getting there air time on the radio.

Another big problem with these big media mergers is that the local areas have lost their
local stations. Sure in the morning you get some local news and traffic but you don’t
have a station that is giving back to the community in one way or another. The owner is
located in another state or town so the bulk of the money spent on advertising is leaving
the community the station is in. Or worse as Gabriel Harrison said in Brian Liberatore of
the Press & Sun-Bulletin’s article BU disc jockey contends radio giants inadequate in
serving some markets. “You get these stations that advertise themselves as top 20
stations and some of them are run by machines,” Harrison said. “Some have gotten rid of
the DJs. Now they just have sales positions. Used to be when you called a radio station
they’d say, ‘Hey, what song do you want to hear?’ Now you get a secretary who says,
‘What business office can I connect you to?’ “

The listenership of radio has been dropping for a few years now..due to poor music
selection, internet radio, and satellite radio. Internet radio is giving the listener what they
want to hear variety in the music and not the same 40 songs that the local radio station is
playing.

So what can you the listener do about all this…let your voices be heard?
Every radio station in the United States gets its broadcast license from the Federal
Communications Commission for free — on the condition that the station serves “the
public interest.”

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