WRGW Radio - History

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Howard Cole, Samuel Hall, and Albert Webster founded the organization known as “the Radio Club” on February 16, 1929. By the mid 1940s, a radio station, CRBE, had formed from the Radio Club. By 1948, the station had been named WRGW, the name it holds to this day.

In 1964, with the purchase of new transmitters, WRGW became subject to a new, large administrative/advisory structure. Although done with the best of intentions, this large structure appears to have inhibited the station’s operations and the station began to fail. In 1968, to solve the administrative and financial problems, the station was formally placed under the jurisdiction of the Speech and Drama Department Comptroller William Johnson, where it maintained a status quo until 1983.

By 1983, the department and the students began having disagreements over the allocation of funds. Specifically, the department felt that the funds for the station were theirs to reclaim after their decision not to purchase new equipment and shut the station down. The students felt the funds were theirs to purchase new equipment and keep the station operating. In a memo to the department, copied to Claudia Derricotte (Director of SAO), Dr. Joan Theil verified her finding that the funds belonged to the University, and therefore to the department. In spring 1984, the station ceased to operate.

In 1985, a small group of students led by Frank Farricker and James Snyder of the Program Board began an effort to re-instate the station as a student operated organization. The department objected, citing that new facilities were being built to accommodate a departmental radio operation. However, WRGW was given limited permission to broadcast in the Marvin Center on April 1, 1986. Negotiations ensued with now Provost William Johnson acting as mediator to establish a more permanent solution.

During discussions the students voiced their desire for independence from any one department in order to serve the larger constituency of the greater GW community. The department stated its primary goal of formally educating students in the technical operation of a radio facility.

After nearly two years of negotiations, it was decided that the campus should have two stations, one operated by the department, WRTV, and one by the students. On December 10, 1986 WRGW signed an agreement with the University whereby the station would exist and operate in Marvin Center room 428.

In the late 1990’s, students, anxious to move from the small and obscure location on the fourth floor of the Marvin Center, began discussions with administrators to move to the abandoned newsstand on the ground floor of the Marvin Center. In 1996-1997 Debbie Rothberg and several other students began serious discussions with the university to move the station. At the same time the department was becoming increasingly disenchanted with their station, WRTV. WRTV operated from the back of Building YY, located next to Building XX. By November, the department had decided to end the operation of WRTV. WRTV, seeking to keep its very active and professional staff involved with campus radio, negotiated a merger with WRGW. This merger resulted in one student run radio station.

In 1998 WRTV Station Manager Eva Price and WRGW General Manager Lou Miller worked together to advance student radio, bringing together an executive board of over twenty members. Through the negotiations of Price and Miller, the new WRGW was granted over $30,000 for new equipment and a new facility was planned for the ground floor of the Marvin Center as had been requested by Rothberg.

Faced with the challenge of building an entire studio from scratch, Price and Miller received help from then Production Director Jason Cohen. Cohen researched equipment and developed the studio design. In a proposal given in November 1998 to Vice President Chernak and Assistant Vice President Michael Gargano, Cohen proposed over $30,000 worth of new equipment, much of which would bring WRGW into the digital age.

Through August of 2000 the new WRGW studios were built and assembled under the leadership of Cohen. Miller, a graduating senior in the Spring of 1999, was instrumental in keeping the students active as WRGW prepared to move in the fall. On August 28th, 1999 WRGW began broadcasting from their new facility, not only on 540 AM and Campus Cable Channel 22, but also on a new medium, the Internet.

Using Apple Quicktime 4.0 technologies, GWRADIO.com ushered in its first major broadcasting upgrade in over a decade. The station’s website debuted receiving about 5,000 hits per month. WRGW celebrated the grand opening of its new facilities with “Octoberfest” a month-long celebration of new and local music; the event would become a WRGW tradition. The inaugural Octoberfest was a series of in-studio performances, which featured bands such as Ebo, The Lunachicks, Coloring Lesson, The Sheila Divine, Ky-Mani Marley, The Shyness Clinic, The Pilfers, Bif Naked, and GW band Waterstreet.

As WRGW moved into its new facilities it began to meet other programming related goals, such as the station expanded its broadcast day from a few evening hours to a full day of programming from 10AM to 12 Midnight. Furthermore, to benefit the GW community the station began providing a news broadcast that was thirty minutes in length Monday through Friday, as well as coverage of all Colonials Basketball.

With the development of the new facility in 2000, the WRGW executive board was re-structured to marry both the needs of the station and the talents of its devoted staff. A new graduate advising position was established essentially giving WRGW one paid staff member, the General Manager. Jason Cohen, General Manager through the 1999-2000 school year, continued his involvement after graduating by assuming this new role.

The 2000-2001 year was another year of growth and further integration with the GW Community for WRGW. Exciting projects included an expanded Octoberfest, which for the first time brought a WRGW event onto the University Yard where WRGW hosted six hours of live music and featured 9 bands from virtually every genre of music. Later in the year WRGW introduced another new tradition known as February Sweeps; during this month long series of events WRGW, under Station Manager Sara Prohaska’s direction, had an event or was part of a campus event virtually every day of the month. The position of Operations Manager was created to help curb the rising costs of professional engineering. The first Operations Manager, Ian Spring, was able to perform light maintenance on station equipment to ensure proper working order without costing the station as much money for professional engineering.

The 2001-2002 year brought massive developments in WRGW’s online presence. Working together over the summer of 2001, Cohen and Spring developed and implemented an audio streaming conversion from Quicktime to Real Audio. This conversion greatly increased the reliability and quality of WRGW’s online sound. A new computer chain was created throughout the station as well, giving the news department, production department, and DJ’s greater digital connectivity and greatly improving all programming.

On December 15th, 2001, WRGW threw its first ever winter concert in the Hippodrome, located on the 5th floor of the Marvin Center. WRGW’s “Holiday Buzz” was the first time WRGW had ever made a serious attempt to purchase a nationally recognized band. Jimmie’s Chicken Shack headlined the evening, which proved to be an overwhelming success and outstanding fundraiser for September 11th charities.

Throughout all the years of its existence, WRGW has always been constantly improving all of its products, from the look of its studios to the quality of its broadcasts. WRGW was, and will continue to be, completely devoted to the public interests of the GW student body, and will remain an entertaining, professional presence representing GW across the globe.

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Author or Source: Written by Marc Leepson using collections from University Archives (2002); see also GW Magazine, Fall 2002
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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