Chico State University's KCSC on XMU Today

Today on XM satellite radio station XMU's "The Student Exchange Program," (where college radio stations take over the airwaves for a few hours each week) Chico State's Internet-only radio station KCSC was featured. I caught a bit of the program and heard upbeat pop, electronic and some hip-hop flavored tracks, including Go! Team ("Grip like a Vice"), Justice Part 2, Battle Royale, Prints ("Blue Jay"), The Confusions ("The Pilot"), Fischerspooner ("Cloud"), Rivers Cuomo ("Chess"), and Galactic ("...And I'm Out).

KCSC has an interesting and tumultuous history and you can view 2 documentaries about the station from their website. They began in 1951 broadcasting radio dramas over the school's PA system and eventually were voted best college station in a reader poll in Spin magazine in 1987. Over the years they've faced funding crises, periods of student apathy (station going off the air for periods of time), and changes in how they were broadcast (many moves, periods on FM, periods on cable, and now Internet-only).

According to a station documentary from 2005, they did have an FM frequency that they lost in the late 1970s because they couldn't afford it. For some reason it always saddens me to hear about stations losing their FM licenses, although one of the documentaries on their website discusses how liberating it actually is to not be regulated by the FCC and that they have more freedom to play what they want.

P.S. The next college station on "The Student Exchange" will be Radio UTD (an Internet-only station from University of Texas, Dallas) on Sunday, March 1st from 3-5pm CST.