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Founded | 1967 |
Genre | Variety Music & Talk |
Founder | Byrne Blumenstein |
First Broadcast | February 25, 1969 |
General Manager | Patrick Murphy |
Channel | 87.9FM |
URL | wbmbbiz.com |
Nickname | "The Biz" |
WBMB Baruch College Radio, or simply WBMB, is Baruch College's only broadcasting station on campus. Located in Room 3-280 in the Newman Vertical Campus of Baruch College, WBMB allows students to create their own programming for other students to listen to on campus. In its 45 year history "The Biz" has been the host of a variety of music, talk shows, featuring special celebrity guests such as the famous rapper Eminem and the late comedian George Carlin. Currently, WBMB is undergoing equipment renovations and plans to relaunch this summer. WBMB will be heard on its website, as well as other streaming mediums such as Tune-In Radio and UStream. Aside from its radio operations, WBMB provides sound and DJ services to other organizations on campus, covering roughly 70% of the school's sound needs for events. Every Spring Fling WBMB books a well known artist to perform at the 25 St plaza. The most recent performers included soca artist Mr. Vegas and pop singer JoJo. The current General Manager of WBMB is Stephan Accilien, who has been in the position since July 1, 2013.
History
Pre-WBMB
The idea of the City College School of Business and Civic Administration (before it was renamed Baruch in 1958)having a radio station dates back to the 1930's, when the school newspaper, The Ticker started hosting limited broadcasts. They worked with local radio station WNYC to run a program for students to go on air [1]. This experiment led to the creation of a Radio Club in the 1940's, where its members did not run a full radio station. Rather students operated Ham Radios, which was a form of New Media in its own time where students acquired ham radio licenses and operated primitive signals for communication and entertainment in a small scale.
Initial Launch and its Defects
WBMB,(which stands for W-Bernard M. Baruch) made its initial launch in February 1969 after Mat Kurczyncki, Jay Pachman, Irwin Seltzer, and Byrne Blumnenstein spent 2 years lobbying for the funding to get equipment and approval to be based in the basement of 360 Park Avenue South. Broadcasting from 590AM with speakers located in the Student Center, WBMB featured weekly programming from 10AM - 3PM each day, with news segments provided by the Ticker. It seemed that WBMB was a working success, but soon into the semester after WBMB's founders graduated, equipment started to break and WBMB went off air in December of that year.
WBMB would go on and off air several times in the next year as equipment would be treated poorly. Securing funding for new equipment posed a major challenge for General Manager Nigel Redman in the 1970's. WBMB at one point had their equipment stolen. Nonetheless by the end of the decade, the radio seemed to settle on a period of stability.
Creating an Identity
In the beginning of the 1980's, WBMB experienced more technical difficulties. Associate Dean Ron Aaron threatened to cut the funding to the station if they did not present a clear plan to fix their problems Substantiated claim from web site.[2]
In this period, Frank Lopez became the General Manager of WBMB and spent the next 6 years working to maintain the station as a steady product. It was noted that Lopez would take part time courses, just to be in Baruch to run the station. After an incident in which he was caught working in the radio station during hours in which Baruch was supposed to be closed, he had to resign and WBMB lost privileges in being able to operate beyond certain hours.
By the 1990s, WBMB finally began to permanently stay on air and started to get more involved in student life with off radio programming. WBMB wanted to expand its demographics and hosted a Music Fest in 1991, that involved student artists, DJ's and rappers [3]. It was at this point that WBMB started to adjust to the growing rap music market. A show hosted on WBMB during the mid 90's, known as Solo Vibes featured a then unsigned rapper Eminem as a guest, who provided freestyle raps across certain college radios to get signed [4].
Vertical Campus Era
In 2001, Baruch College moved out of 360 Park Avenue South and into the new Newman Vertical Campus building on 55 Lexington Avenue. WBMB had to leave behind their old base in the 360PAS basement and settle for a slightly smaller suite in Room 3-280. Installation of the new equipment was an issue and going back on air seemed impossible [5].
WBMB started getting more involved with Spring Fling, providing the music entertainment, but this did not make up for the lack of radio. Jesse Berger, who was General Manager of WBMB from 2000-2004, was deposed by Jenny Fernandez, who then worked closely with the Baruch Board of Directors to go back on air and fir time, stream online. 590AM was retired for good and WBMB started using its current 87.9 FM channel. The station registered wbmbradio.com and started featuring links to their stream online for anyone outside of school to listen to.
In 2007, WBMB's Comical Radio hosted George Carlin months before his passing and in 2008, WBMB brought in Soca superstar Mr. Vegas to perform at Spring Fling.
By 2011, WBMB was considered to be well run, but not well known on campus. At this point, WBMB expanded its visibility to students by providing DJing services for most events and added more recreational activities to the year, such as the dodge ball tournament Balls 2 The Wall and the annual party A Night To Remember.
Coming Back
In 2012, WBMB had to shut down its On-Air operations due to a dispute with the umbrella music royalties company Sound Exchange. While that was resolved, BCTC came in and mistakenly formatted the On-Air computers that contained the automation software to allow the station to run 24/7. Throughout much of 2012-13 and 2013-14 Academic years, WBMB had to work with the Board of Directors to secure funding and permission to install new automation software to go back on air. That was finally accomplished in May 2014. WBMB plans to do a soft launch in the summer with a major launch to web streaming and mobile devices in Fall 2014.
References
- ↑ The Ticker, 1935.
- ↑ The Ticker Archives, The Ticker
- ↑ WBMB Music Fest, The Ticker.
- ↑ Eminem Freestyle Session, Solo Vibes.
- ↑ WBMB Geocities site, Oocities.