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College Radio

 College Radio
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FeatureClass
 College Radio
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College Radio
 College Radio
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CollegeRadio
 College Radio
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Radio stations in colleges and universities, often portrayed as a couple of students working as unpaid volunteers to try their hand at being an announcer or talk show host, which is usually Truth in Television. The students are probably majoring in communications or a related field, although oftentimes, there won't be enough communications students to fill the roster, so students from other departments are allowed to take air shifts. College radio stations are very rarely a high priority.
There was a time when college radio, even at state colleges in fairly conservative states, was both the last bastion of truly unadulterated '60s liberal radicalism in both the media and within the university system, and the proving grounds for many a genre of music that eventually became mainstream, such as Alternative Rock, Indie Pop and rock, and Hip-Hop. The Golden Age of sorts for college radio was in The '80s, before NPR really took off as a major force in "alternative" radio. Nowadays, college radio is still going strong, even if the Internet has mainly taken over the once-pivotal role that it played in the development of pop culture. However, they are still a useful source of underground music.
In fiction, the college station is something that either everyone listens to, or no one does. Either the whole campus (and no small number of people in the school's metropolitan area) tune in to the station, or the astonishingly low listener base becomes a Running Gag. The output will generally either be mind-numbingly boring or Large Ham Radio.
If the school has an Absurdly Powerful Student Council, this will most likely be either its tool or its greatest rival; see also the School Newspaper Newshound.
Community radio stations can also act as college stations, and there are (or were) a few campus/community stations. Some allowed non-students and high school students to participate. One could really learn the details of how radio works, essentially getting a Columbia School of Broadcasting education for free.
 College Radio
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DBTropes
 College Radio / int_2353af76
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College Radio
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Three Canadian series, Radio Enfer, Radio Active, and Radio Free Roscoe, brought this premise to high-school settings.
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College Radio / int_2353af76
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College Radio
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In Blinded by the Light, Javed attempts to get his 1980s secondary school radio station to have an entire show dedicated to Bruce Springsteen. When the student DJ refuses, Javed and his friend trick him into leaving the studio, put on "Born to Run", and lock the door. note  This was loosely based on something that the Inspiration for the Work Sarfraz Manzoor actually did while in school.
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College Radio / int_2870da36
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College Radio
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The Radio Research Society from The Girl In Twilight.
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College Radio / int_2902aed6
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College Radio
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In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, love interest Becky Barnes works at NYU's radio station. While she admits it doesn't get too many listeners, it does lead to a few bonding moments between her and protagonist Dave, including the introduction of the film's Breakaway Pop Hit, "Secrets".
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College Radio / int_2e645086
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College Radio
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Max from New Dynamic English said that he started his career in radio because he was pretty good when he was on college radio.
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College Radio
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Doonesbury has "Marvelous" Mark Slackmeyer, who started out as an announcer-programmer on Walden College's campus-community station WBBY, where he alternated music with anti-Vietnam War, anti-Richard Nixon rants (these got the strip moved from the comics section to the politics page in many newspapers). He still works for an unnamed NPR station.
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College Radio
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The Replacements' song "Left of the Dial", named after the physical motion to find these stations - they'd usually be found on the low end of the FM dials (anywhere between 88.1 and 91.9, the Non-Commercial Educational band reserved by the FCC) before the commercial stations start to pop up around 92.1 (or earlier in some places bordering Canada and Mexico, which made these stations hard to hear because of the larger station conflicting with the signal of the tiny college stations).
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College Radio / int_41c13dd7
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College Radio
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On Married... with Children, one of the show's many poorly disguised pilots included an episode that focused on the radio DJs at Bud's college.
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College Radio
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On Family Ties Alex had a college radio show playing old music from the Thirties and Forties.
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College Radio
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In a 3rd Rock from the Sun episode, Harry took over Pendleton University's radio station and became a talk radio host. He proved popular until he started needlessly insulting everyone.
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College Radio / int_5562da6a
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College Radio
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In Degrassi the namesake high school where the show is set has its own radio station, which in real life is not unheard of at larger high schools in North America.
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College Radio
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Pete White of The Venture Brothers used to be a college radio DJ for a while. He once pulled a prank on his friend Mike Sorayama, claiming Mike request he informs his crush that "I masturbate furiously to your picture every night", then got kicked off the air for it.
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College Radio / int_6c9193a1
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College Radio
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Saints Row 2 has an indie rock station titled 99.0 The Underground, which is defined in-game as a college radio. It also happens to be a pirate radio station with a limited signal range.
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College Radio / int_7b429ebd
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College Radio
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Dear White People features broadcasts from the titular controversial radio show, hosted by Sam White. This example falls into the "everybody listens" part of the trope, with Sam often receiving angry letters about the content of her show, and even the title.
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College Radio
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That Gosh Darn Hippie Show started out on Camden Community College's station, WDBK.
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College Radio / int_9214fcdc
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College Radio
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In an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Hal is shown to have operated an underground radio station in college where he went by the name "Kid Charlemagne".
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College Radio
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In the movie Urban Legend, some plot includes Sasha's radio sex advice show.
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College Radio
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Garrison Keillor, best known for A Prairie Home Companion, has a terrific monologue on this subject, detailing his experiences as a classical music DJ on college radio, that ends with his discovery that the station was not on the air for most of the time (due to their engineer turning the transmission off for his Christmas vacation in California and forgetting to turn it back on when he got back) and the realization that for the last three months he had been, essentially, talking to himself.
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College Radio / int_b86fe5e5
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College Radio
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At the end of Old School, Frank "The Tank" becomes a college radio host.
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College Radio
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Beverly Hills, 90210:
During the high school years, there was "KWBH, the voice of West Beverly High!"
The college years had both a radio station (which allowed a plot line where David became addicted to uppers so he could do his show) and a TV station, with Brandon as director.
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College Radio
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One episode of The Facts of Life took place entirely in the campus radio station. Jo was forced to fill in all night when another DJ passed out drunk, and the rest of the gang stayed to help.
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College Radio
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Homestar Runner: Strong Bad really made fun of this in the Strong Bad Email "radio", where college radio is depicted as being run by a "bewildered freshman" who mumbles and stutters through his announcements.
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College Radio
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In How I Met Your Mother, a flashback reveals that Ted had a radio show in college, where he took on the persona of "the mysterious Doctor X" (a ridiculously over-the-top Soapbox Sadie). His show and his attempts at a secret identity are universally mocked. See for yourself on the Doctor X website.
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College Radio
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In an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, her normally grumpy roommate turns out to be great at talk radio (although this isn't spoken of again).
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 College Radio
processingCategory2
School Tropes
 Pitch Perfect / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 The Sorcerer's Apprentice / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 Infinite Jest / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 MTV
seeAlso
College Radio
 The Replacements (Music) / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 That Gosh Darn Hippie Show (Radio) / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 All of Us Are Dead / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 Breaker High / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 Dear White People / int_8e054b09
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College Radio
 El Reemplazante / int_8e054b09
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College Radio
 Sabrina the Teenage Witch / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 The Facts of Life / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 Melody (Visual Novel) / int_8e054b09
type
College Radio
 Teen Girl Squad (Web Animation) / int_8e054b09
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College Radio
 FrillyShirt
seeAlso
College Radio