COLLEGE STATIONS PROVE RADIO CAN BE DIFFERENT

College radio stations have always been known as the last frontier for the new, the untried and the eclectic in broadcasting.

Unlike commercial radio stations, which are more inclined to stick with the hits, college radio is open to anything and everything that comes out on vinyl, from the avant-garde jazz of Air and Old and New Dreams to the hard-core punk rock of The Damned, Black Flag, and The Circle Jerks.

One of college radio’s most important functions is introducing new performers.

“Because of our unstructured formats and our willingness to try anything at least once, we are able to play a lot of music that cannot fit into the neatly programmed commercial stations,” said Susan Drummet, general manager of San Diego State University’s KCR.

“We have such a free-form style that at any given time in the 24 hours a day we’re on the air, listeners never really know what they’re going to hear: from industrial sounds and experimental jazz to hard-core punk, folk, soul, swing, reggae, African and the blues.”

Indeed, KCR’s programming elasticity, while in concept the antithesis of a regular radio format like Top 40 or country, has in recent years become a loosely defined format of its own, known around the country at similar college radio stations as “college alternative.”

Locally, the “college alternative” format has also been adopted by KSDT at UC San Diego, which broadcasts 21 hours a day, seven days a week.

San Diego City College’s KSDS, which since November has been on the air 24 hours a day, broadcasts exclusively jazz, from the traditional sounds of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker to more commercial pop-jazz by the likes of Pat Metheny and John Klemmer.

Grossmont College’s tiny KGCR, which went on air 18 months ago and now broadcasts Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., has three formats. The first hour is devoted to jazz; 9 a.m. to noon is alternative music, and noon to 7 p.m. is Top 40.

Similarly schizophrenic is Palomar College’s KSM, where the three weekday formats are the ones taught in instructor and general manager Russell Jackson’s broadcast classes: Top 40, 7 a.m. to noon; college alternative, noon to 8 p.m., and album-oriented rock, 8 to 11 p.m.

In addition, Jackson said, KSM plays jazz and classical music from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays; Christian rock from 4 to 6 p.m., and AOR again from 6 to 10 p.m.