Walk into KSPC‘s retro radio studio and you’ll be transported back in time. Shelves of vinyl records fill one room, while images of Miles Davis, Yoko Ono, and Public Enemy decorate a nearby wall.
One recent afternoon, Allison Riegle ’14, a Scripps College student, hosts her live show, “Riegle for a Season,” using the moniker of “DJ Shmal.”
“You rock!” she tells a listener who’s called in with a song request. The listener tells her he listens to her every week.
“He kept saying, ‘You’re the best!'” Riegle says.
KSPC signed onto the FM band in 1956, becoming the sole student-run college radio station at The Claremont Colleges. Since moving its broadcast antenna last summer to Padua Hills in north Claremont, KSPC 88.7 FM has experienced a renaissance as its listening audience has expanded throughout Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties. The number of listeners streaming the station online also is on the rise.
Tucked away in the basement of Thatcher Music Building at Pomona College, KSPC offers an independent newscast and original music shows and public affairs programming – all produced and hosted by student volunteers from the 5C’s.
Student DJs are required to select playlist songs from the station’s in-house library, and of those, 50 percent must be new releases. About 60 student volunteers serve as rotating DJs, newscasters and talk show hosts or segment producers. Many, like Allison, seek out the station because they love music.
“This is an escape for me, yet it’s also one of the most important things to me. I wish this was a class,” says Riegle, an art major, while hosting her weekly show that airs Mondays from 12:00-2:00pm.
Each student DJ makes his/her playlist available online. KSPC never airs commercials because it’s licensed as an educational, non-commercial radio station. Instead, it airs public service announcements.
For the past 20 years, Erica Tyron ’92 (right, with Riegle) has managed the radio station, serving as its full-time director/advisor.
“It’s been incredible,” Tyron says. “I’ve worked with so many students in that time, seen so many changes in music and technology. It’s never dull.”
Recently, the student DJs have reported receiving more phone calls from listeners in Los Angeles and throughout the Inland Empire. “It’s gone through the roof,” she says.