“Welcome to a new year and a new era in the history of the University of California at Riverside.”
These were the words that began the first broadcast ever transmitted by KUCR, UCR’s very own radio station. The year was 1966.
In the nearly 50 years KUCR has been on the air, it has had a storied history. Its broadcasts provide music, entertainment and news to the campus and the city. Its DJs host Heat, and KUCR itself helps organize events like Comedy Apocalypse and the shows at the Barn. Through its half a century of existence, it has become a part of the very fabric of the UCR’s blue and gold tartan soul.
So why is the radio station that is so important to this university’s identity relegated to only an inconspicuous family housing unit isolated from the rest of campus?
The area that KUCR calls home is the corner of Avocado Avenue and Linden Street, beyond the MSE building and past A&I. The station is far from any campus activity center, unless you count the dilapidated family housing units as the heartbeat of the university. It is nowhere near any high-trafficked area, and unless a student gets lost on their way to MSE, nobody is going to happen upon it in the course of his or her normal day. Even if someone purposely set out to find KUCR, the nondescript tan building it is housed in differs only from the crowds of surrounding homes through its radio antenna and tacked-on sign.
This is devastating because the lifeblood of any campus media organization is participation by the campus itself. Without significant involvement by its intended audience, any media group atrophies and dies. And while KUCR broadcasts beyond UCR to the Riverside community as a whole, just as the Highlander does, its heart beats in sync with that of UCR.
Louis Vandenberg, KUCR manager and general director of the station, acknowledges the quandry. He likes where KUCR is currently situated because of things like the parking accessibility and proximity to the dorms. And it is true that the location as it currently exists has a number of benefits. Furthermore, the cost of uprooting all of the station’s expensive equipment and transporting it elsewhere could cost more money than KUCR and the student body could stomach.
But Vandenberg also admits the building the radio station is housed in is old. “The building we’ve been in, that’s the original building on the campus—from 1965—and when the campus had about 1,000 students.”
The result is a conundrum. Relocating entirely would only engender an entirely new set of problems. But maintaining the status quo would be just as problematic. With only these two options, it’s a lose-lose situation for KUCR.
So why not take a third option and institute a KUCR extension in a place like the Exchange in the HUB? In so doing, KUCR would be able to maintain all the benefits of its current location and simultaneously gain the advantages of a more central location on campus.
The Exchange by itself is not large enough to house all of KUCR’s operations. But between it and KUCR’s current location, the radio station would have the expansion in space it so desperately needs. A KUCR extension would provide room for additional recording studios, additional music storage and additional outreach to the UCR campus. In doing so, it would be better able to serve the campus community.
Having an extension in the HUB would also give KUCR greater access to the significant foot traffic present in the HUB. Currently, not many students stumble upon KUCR’s recording studio because it is so far from campus. But an annex near the center of campus would loudly declare KUCR’s existence before a vast swath of UCR’s student population. The result would be a spike in awareness and listenership. A student who sees the KUCR banner on the way to the University Lecture Hall could even decide to pursue a career in broadcasting and even become the next hit DJ.
A KUCR annex in the Exchange would also allow the station to hold more events for the campus. Right now, if KUCR wants to put on an event near the bell tower, it has to carefully transport its heavy and expensive equipment from the outskirts of campus, through crowds of students to its final destination. But a secondary outlet in the HUB would simplify and shorten this transportation process, giving KUCR a greater presence not only through its new building, but by putting on more interesting and engaging events for students.
KUCR would benefit from increased listenership, but students would benefit as well. The student who doesn’t know what his future holds could awaken a skill and a passion for radio broadcasting. Events occurring on and near campus would be made more prominent, spurring attendance at the variety of engagements UCR has to offer. And increased knowledge of the station’s heritage could help spread its unique charm for students, allowing them to learn more about the history of the campus.
This is only the beginning of the long list of things KUCR could do with increased space and a greater campus footprint. In a time when UCLA, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco have all shut down their traditional radio broadcasts in favor of an Internet-based approach, the increased standing of KUCR could result in a radio renaissance, with more students clamoring to tune in to radio broadcasts not just from Riverside, but elsewhere.
ASUCR has recognized KUCR’s unique value to the campus and overwhelmingly passed a resolution to put a referendum on the spring ballot that would increase student funding for the station. This is a great step forward to ensure that KUCR will reclaim its storied place in UCR history, but what KUCR really needs is an expansion.
Moving KUCR entirely would be expensive and would gloss over the history of the station. But keeping it only in family housing does just as much of a disservice to the radio station that has been with UCR for nearly a half century. KUCR’s future lies in expanding beyond this myopic dichotomy and taking advantage of the benefits of both options. Let’s make KUCR more accessible and give it a foothold on campus.