Photo by Annie Gilbertson

DJ/News Director Tasnia Matin reaching for a higher caliber of music in the new WEGL office.

Where have all the WEGL voices broadcasted from Foy gone? To the new student center - a move that for WEGL resulted in a week of dead air, a current un-DJ-ed broadcast, and a whole new set of personnel, office and broadcast procedures.

WEGL, AU’s student operated radio station, can be heard all over Lee County and in neighboring counties. It has played the background music of the party on the plains since the early ‘70s.  However, a recent hiccup of dead air was just the start of WEGL’s changing tune.

Staff is proposing a twist in the sounds you are used to hearing. They have suggested doing away with the variety station and anything goes mentality, opting for stricter rules and once again enforcing guidelines on all non-specialty shows.

These guidelines will put new music on air all the time - the type of new music that will have WEGL reporting their favorite emerging artists to CMJ.

CMJ, or the College Music Journal, is a media outlet that caters to university radio stations by charting what is played. Stations receive free CD’s, posters, even concert tickets from various promotion departments and in return put new artists on air.  The radio station then reports the amount of playtime, or level of rotation, songs have to CMJ - granting new artists even more publicity.  Distributors take note of this, and the non-commercial radio station gets more free stuff.
Changing from a variety station, which past management saw as accessible radio for everybody, to a strict CMJ station has several implications. First and foremost, a listener can grow to expect a tighter stream of newly emerging artists.
In addition, all new DJ’s will have to play selected songs based on the level of rotation. Shows that house hours of anything from the classics to forgotten folk will have to be auditioned for and a higher caliber of informed DJing would be enforced. Also, Top 40 hits will not be played, because WEGL does not intend to compete with commercial radio stations.

However, these changes cannot be implemented yet due to hold ups with the new student center. WEGL doesn’t have furniture to broadcast off yet, so the dead air that plagued the airways during the move has turned to a computer shuffling tunes. Since the office doesn’t have furniture yet, the voices of music, sports, and news will not be heard until sometime in September.

Once DJ-backed broadcasting resumes, now no shows will be broadcasted after 12 a.m. due to the new locks and regulations of the student center. This will make Auburn University the only college in the country that doesn’t allow students to broadcast 24/7, but the issue has several proposed resolutions going to administration.

“The staff understands that there is a lot of work to be done in the building, and we are just trying to be patient,” reported Tasnia Matin, WEGL news director.

Until then, the radio station will continue making a home out of its new sterile environment, tolerantly boxing up their free posters rather then fighting to have them hung on the barely dry paint.