Portland colleges and universities agree to share programming
By Anna Walters
KDUP hosted three other college radio stations from the Portland area in St. Mary's Student Center for a first-ever radio summit on Nov. 17. The schools decided to collaborate with one another in the future and even swap pre-recorded programs.
Andy Taylor, a sophomore political science major and the programming director for KDUP, orchestrated the event that the student staff of UP, Portland State University, Reed College and Lewis and Clark College radio stations attended.
"I'm just a firm believer that things work out better if you work cooperatively," he said.
Taylor said that the college radio summit was more than a "hey here we are; who are you? Let's eat lunch; goodbye." The four schools talked about solutions to problems common to all the stations.
"We were able to gauge where we stood in the college radio market," he said. "All of our radio stations learned that we ran into similar problems."
Four major developments arose from the summit. First, the schools plan to meet regularly from now on. Their next meeting is in February.
All four schools agreed to post links to their summit peers' Web sites on their own sites.
The summit attendees also agreed to share programming, meaning that KDUP plans to airs shows produced by the other schools and vice versa.
"Our listeners and students can shop around the college radio mall and be exposed to other stations," Taylor said.
The college stations also would like to put together a "best of" show with each station contributing different material.
Taylor described the summit as a highly productive experience. Junior Matthew Tongue, KDUP's Web technician, agreed and found that the summit shed light on how the other stations operated.
"The goal was to see where other college stations were and to compare notes on college radio," Tongue said. "College radio (stations are) a source that we can draw on."
Taylor views the summit as a precursor to greater changes to come, like the wiring of The Cove to play KDUP material in the spring.
"The fact that we are teaming up with others schools and will be heard in The Cove next semester is going to require some changes in the way that we operate as a station," Taylor said.
"We might hit some bumps in the road next semester, but as long as we maintain the positive attitude we've had already, I think it's going to benefit our students, our DJs and overall better the college radio market as a whole," he said.
