Tuesday, September 29, 2009

mtvU College Radio Woodie Nominees Whittled Down to Top 25


mtvU has just released the list of the 25 finalists for the College Radio Woodie Award. As I've discussed in previous posts, this list of "top" college radio stations is based on nominations and online voting that's been taking place over the course of the past month or so on RateMyProfessors.com.

Many of my faves were never nominated, so I will be eternally bitter. I'm also really surprised that none of the amazing San Francisco Bay Area stations made the top 25. I am happy to see that several stations featured on Spinning Indie made the cut, including my most recent "50 State Tour" stop of KBGA and my second station stop on the tour: WSUM.

According to the rules listed on the Woodies website, the next round of voting (which is now open) will serve to select the first "nominee" for the final round. It's unclear what that means exactly. Perhaps the college radio station with the most votes will be a finalist? Or if it's like last year there will be regional winners every week.

It's interesting to note that this list of 25 finalists is quite different from the top 20 stations nominated for a Woodie in 2008. I'm guessing that the procedure for voting must have changed, leading to a new crop of stations taking the lead. If nothing else, that's refreshing to see a variety of stations getting some exposure.

In case you're having trouble reading the list of nominees on the Woodies website (the station names are kind of obscured by a radio tower graphic), here's the complete list:

mtvU College Radio Woodie- 25 Finalists for 2009

West (6 finalists)

Coyote Radio (California State University, San Bernardino, CA)
KBGA (University of Montana, Missoula, MT)
KSCR (University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA)
KSSU (Sacramento State University, Sacramento, CA)
KUCI (University of California, Irvine, CA)
KUPS (University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA)

Midwest (9 finalists)

90FM (aka WWSP) (University of Wisconsin-Steven's Point)
KCOU (University of Missouri)
KRUI (University of Iowa)
KUOM (University of Minnesota)
WCRD (Ball State University, Muncie, IN)
WIUX (Indiana University, Bloomington, IN)
WMUR (Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI)
WONB (Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH)
WSUM (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

South (4 finalists)

WASU (Appalachian State University, Boone, NC)
WRGW (George Washington University, Washington, DC)
WRVU (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN)
WVFS (Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL)

Northeast (6 finalists)

WICB (Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY)
WKPS (Penn State, University Park, PA)
WPTS (University of Pittsburgh, PA)
WRHU (Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY)
WRSU (Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ)
WTBU (Boston University, MA)

No offense to any of the nominated stations, but I have had a number of issues with the whole voting process for this award. See my post on Radio Survivor for a detailed look at why I think this particular contest has been so flawed. And if you really love one of the stations listed, take the time to vote.

This just in: After taking a careful look at the Top 50 nominees, I've found that the Top 25 nominees includes a station, WMUR, that did not appear on either the Top 100 or Top 50 lists.

How is that possible? And I wonder if it's related to the fact that similarly named
WNUR popped up on the Top 50 list without being in the Top 100. It's all very questionable since nominations are supposed to be closed at this point.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We here at KSCR are very excited to have made it to the Top 25! This is a great thing for us :)

http://kscr.org

Kyle Cooper said...

do you know when this years will start?

Jennifer Waits said...

I'm guessing that nominations will be accepted in August. Based on last year, the first round of voting ended the week of September 8th. So far, nothing up on MTVu about it.