Thanks, Thanks, Thanks

Below is a letter written to the Program Director of WMBR voicing his concern over the recent 3am time slot that "Droppin Knowledge" has been given for the fall programing season..............

i cannot thank him enough for his help and support...i ask you all to the same!



Dear WMBR Programming Board and Management,

I am writing to criticize several aspects of how WMBR has handled scheduling in this most recent season, and to advocate for those shows which have been slighted. I graduated this past term, but I spent many enjoyable hours DJ'ing and assisting at WMBR. Although I no longer have the ability to dedicate to the full responsibilities of my own show, I continue to be of supportive of WMBR and of my fellows who have been inspired to submit proposals of their own. I spoke in depth with these people after glancing at this season's schedule and gaping in surprise at the choices made. I am honestly offended by some key incidents which I have outlined below.


*Droppin' Knowledge* -

I have been fortunate to have seen much of the interchanges between WMBR management and DJ Joeg on matters related to his bizarre shift on the schedule. Again, Joe works normal business hours; a 3 to 4AM slot simply is not an option.
Many arguments could be made for moving Joe's show. In this case, I don't find any of the logic to be valid.
Was your decision to move DK to a late night slot because...

Low volunteer rating? Well, as I'm sure you are aware, Joe has spent many hours working on a recent concert production which WMBR is directly involved in. If these are not worthy of counting towards volunteer hours, then what is? Jack, you have specifically mentioned that you were well aware of Joe's involvement in the festival, yet seemed to have entirely ignored it because a form has not yet been submitted. Should hours be submitted when the festival is complete, when all hours can be properly tallied and accounted for? Whatever is the "proper procedure" for submitting hours on such a project, it is nevertheless derelict in one's duty to ignore such an obvious contribution merely because all the paperwork isn't yet filed and sorted on an ongoing project.

Joe is a new member and doesn't have the accumulated station cred necessary to hold the spot? Joe is *not* the only individual involved in that show - if you want to give priority to students, you should consider the countless different student guests Joe brings on the show to make it more interesting. Perhaps more importantly, Vinayak and I were and have been listed as producers on the show, and it is not just for kicks, it is because we were and still are *actually* involved in the show. I might not be a student anymore (although only in the past few months), but Vinayak most certainly *is* still a student. Where are the priorities here, and where are you going to draw the line?

The musical selection is generic? The purpose of Dropping Knowledge, as taken from its precursor show, Auditory Stimuli, was to create a show with as much diversity as possible in its musical selection while maintaining a unifying theme across a single show's playlist. Whenever we have written up show proposals, we have chosen songs which are representative of an artist or sometimes a genre. These tend to be some of their better known works, and could possibly be construed as being generic. However, there is a *clear* logic in offering this variety of playlist, since you, the programming board, have to go through piles of applications, and rather than make you puzzle over what some bizarre song by some bizarre artist is all about, we prefer to present you with songs which are clear. Are show proposals about showing off how "hip and cool" you are, or are they about clearly describing the sound and feel of a show so that you, the board, can do your job as quickly and effectively as possible?
Besides, I do not see how a show which ranges from the metal inclinations of Tool to the indie storytelling of the Decemberists, from Pop and Folk to Reggae and Soul, could be viewed as generic.

Poor popularity? As I said, I've been heavily involved in the show since its creation, and spent nearly the entire summer babysitting for Joe since he had yet to be trained. When we'd ask for requests, or put a poll out there for listeners, we would get far more callers than I've come to expect. Each show, we would regularly get multiple calls telling how much they were enjoying the music we were playing.

I have seen few people more passionate about getting involved with WMBR than Joe. Throughout the summer, I saw him experimenting with new styles and ideas (occasionally even at my behest) and coming up with potentially useful plans and ideas for WMBR. The upcoming concert is but one example of this.
Since when is it the mission of an independent college radio station to crush potential and ambition under one's heel? You can argue against or justify actions however you like, *all* I mean to do is give you some perspective, from someone outside the board, and *this* is the perspective shared by many others who have come to me voicing their complaints. If not for these people I would not feel so strongly about this, strongly enough to spur me into sending an email of this nature.

These individual cases speak for themselves in most regards. However, uniting these cases is the programming board's decisions to assign slots that specifically violate the hours noted by these individuals on their sheet as being *impossible* to make. Furthermore, none of these individuals received any kind of notice about the fact that they were essentially being given time slots that would be for them to make. What you have chosen to do has come across to these individuals, and myself, as a slap in the face accompanied by a clear statement: "No you cannot have a show and we're not even going to bother saying it to your face." This is the message that has been heard.

In my time at WMBR I was never entirely clear on why vast sections of primetime night radio, one of the best times for hard tooling MIT students to DJ, were being sucked up by vast two hours expanses of single shows. The schedule looks very full this season; I am very glad that WMBR is popular this year. However, this should never be an excuse to discourage newer DJ's from having shows, which is at least what *appears* to be happening here. Why not take those two hour blocks and make something more of them? Whatever reason you have for keeping them blocked, is it really worth more than keeping WMBR a healthy community with fresh perspectives? Is forcing people into impossible late night slots really the best solution you could come up with? This is MIT, I think we can do better than that.

It is *extremely rude **and unprofessional* to force out shows in this way and to treat fellow music junkies with these kinds of disregard. While WMBR is a "student run" organization, that is no excuse for this kind of behavior. As I have said, there are a good number of people heartily displeased with this schedule, and in all these cases I have outlined, unless something changes, WMBR is going to lose these people as DJ's, as listeners, as patrons, and as advocates. You are driving these individuals away in a hostile fashion.

Is this the message WMBR wishes to project to the world?