Summertime in College Radio

I got a comment last week from a musician wondering if summer was a good time to send promo CDs to college radio stations, since many stations are shut down or operate with a skeleton crew during that time.

I'm sure it varies tremendously by station. Many bigger stations operate year-round, and listeners and bands don't notice any difference between the school-year and summertime. Other stations, however, shut down completely. When I was at Haverford station WHRC, there was no radio during summer and winter breaks. At Bowling Green's WBGU-FM, we were on the air during the summer with longer shows (3 to 4 hour shows vs. 2 hours during the school year) since there were fewer DJs around. Other stations have DJs pre-record shows to be aired during vacation-time.

Boston University's student-run carrier-current (and online) station WTBU (Howard Stern's alma mater) also shuts down programming during winter and summer break, but this year they decided to spend the down-time focusing on beefing up their blog with station news, music reviews, concert reviews, etc.

What did your station do this summer?