mtvU College Radio Channel Features Rotating Trio of Campus Stations

Well, clearly I'm not the target market for this, since I'm only now discovering that mtvU (the on-campus TV network and website) has been featuring and streaming selections from a variety of different college radio stations for 3 years!

According to mtvU's description of mtvU College Radio ("somewhere under the radar"):

"Think of mtvU College Radio as the strainer that separates the delicious noodles from that dirty Ramen water. It's a place where the best new music from the underground (and not so underground) is served up hot by three of the country's top college stations. None of that top 40 filler. Not only will it hip you up and keep you happy, it'll microwave your popcorn. Let's go."

Currently the featured stations in the "Enjoy the Summer" edition are KCSU-FM (Colorado State University), Radio X-FM (Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL), and WMUC-FM (University of Maryland, College Park, MD). The mtvU website includes descriptions of each station, along with some "tops" lists of favorite tracks, albums, etc.

There's also a streaming station on the website called mtvU College Radio. You can jump from track to track and I didn't hear any DJ commentary, so it would seem that perhaps the 3 selected stations have a hand in contributing tracks to the playlist, but that their stations are not actually streamed on the website.

The college radio feature on mtvU began in the summer of 2005, when mtvU started to promote a collection of college radio stations on their website. According to a 2005 article in the Drexel student newspaper, The Triangle:


"The inspiration for streaming excellent college radio stations came from MTVU's desire to increase the value of the relationship that it has with its affiliate colleges, according to Senior Director of Marketing for MTVU Lori Raimondo. 'We are all about college and we are a music network, so it just made perfect sense to partner with college radio stations,' said Raimondo."


The September 2005 article discussed Drexel University station WKDU's appearance on MTVu:


"WKDU is among the second group of radio stations recognized by MTVU. The practice of streaming college radio stations began early this summer. Every month, a new group of stations will be available at the MTVU Web site.

Radio stations must meet certain criteria in order to be under consideration for the nationwide exposure that this recognition grants. First, the college that the station serves must be affiliated with MTVU. The station must also be programmed by students for a predominate student audience. Out of that pool of possible stations, MTVU selects a few of the best.

'Our whole goal is to serve [the] college audience,' Raimondo said. MTVU hopes to provide a local feel and to present students with music that might be popular locally but relatively unknown elsewhere. 'This is a way to provide students with another way to hear music being played at colleges other than their own.'"


It's hard to tell how this whole program has evolved and how often the list of stations changes. On mtvU you can go back in time a bit to see the most recent stations that have been featured (by the way, many are also nominees for this year's mtvU College Radio Woodie Award). The stations below are grouped by the edition that they appeared on, although I'm not sure when each edition was featured.

mtvU College Radio Featured Stations:

Fourth Edition: Knoxville (and elsewhere) Rocks!

WUTK-FM (University of Tennessee-Knoxville, TN)
WSOU-FM (Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ)
KCOU-FM (University of Missouri-Columbia, MO)

Fifth Edition: School's Out For Summer

WVPH-FM "The Core" (Rutgers University & Piscataway High School, NJ)
KDWG-FM (University of Montana-Western, Dillon, MT)
WMTS-FM (Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN)

Sixth Edition: The Thirteenth Floor Edition
(be sure to view each station's short promo video, where staff members/DJs talk about their shows in this edition)

WCRD-FM (Ball State University, Muncie, IN)
WZND-FM (Illinois State University, Normal, IL)
WPIR (Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY)

Happy New Year! (7th edition?)

WRGP-Radiate FM (Florida International University, Miami, FL)
WSOU-FM (Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ)
WXYC-FM (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)