After months of letter writing, legal counsel, and lots of patience, Bowdoin's radio station WBOR kept its rights to broadcast over the Brunswick airwaves. As of January 22, the station has been re-licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
WBOR received word on January 23 that its license had been renewed until April 2014. The FCC was previously investigating the station for failing to file quarterly reports of its public issue lists, which recorded the public service announcements (PSAs) that DJs were required to make on the air.
"WBOR's not going anywhere, luckily," said Adam Paltrineri '07, the station manager. "There were a few places in our record-keeping where it wasn't filed on time, and for some reason they decided to come down hard on us."
Paltrineri added that the station had been keeping track of its PSAs, but the failure in record-keeping came when the station did not synthesize the PSAs into quarterly reports at the Smith Union Information Desk.
To save the station's license, WBOR hired communications lawyer David O'Connor '91 and launched the "Save WBOR" letter-writing campaign. There were over 600 letters of support, including one from the office of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe.
Though WBOR has been re-licensed, the FCC issued a $10,000 fine for the problems with the public issue lists and a $1,500 fine for a late application.
"We're going to fundraise as much as we can, hopefully all of it," Paltrineri said.
The station plans to ask for money from different college departments, classes, college houses, and the president's office. Paltrineri and Ted Power '07, WBOR's publicity director, also joked about making money through lemonade stands, bake sales, and T-shirts.
"[The FCC] is just doing their job," Paltrineri said. "They chose not to come after small radio stations in the past."
"I sometimes flash my nipple on the air. But I think in the larger scheme of things, people are more interested in Janet Jackson flashing her nipple," Power said.
"They have bigger fish to fry than WBOR," Paltrineri said.
To keep the re-licensing scare from happening again, the station plans to stay on top of its quarterly reports and keep broadcasting PSAs. The station requires that at least one PSA be broadcast every hour.
"There's a lot more public service content on the air than ever before," Paltrineri said.
Paltrineri and Power cited Randy Nichols and Mike Brown's show, "Listen!" as devoted to public service content. Also, Archie Abrams '09 has a show on constitutional law and interviews legal personalities.
These shows, as well as various announcements about local non-profit events, the Army, the American Red Cross, and other community organizations, qualify as public service content.
"We're very tapped into the community," Power said. "Roughly a third of our DJs aren't students."
"Not only are we broadcasting to Brunswick, but a large portion of the DJs are community members, and that really ties Bowdoin into the Brunswick community," he added.
Since the station is student-run during the school year, Bill Morse, a local resident, runs the station while students are away on breaks. Morse also oversees the Bates radio station when Bates is not in session.
Seniors dominate the station's current staff, so officers like Paltrineri and Power are looking to younger DJs to carry on the management of the station. Paltrineri said that he is available to answer questions about the station's management or ideas for fundraising.
"We're a little hard to find, but we're an incredible resource," Power said. "The station goes back to at least the '50s, and we get about 50 CDs a week of lots of great music."
Power added, "It's great we'll be around for more years."