“GOOOOOD MORNING HILLSDALE!”
Thanks to the college’s recent acquisition of a local radio signal, that’s one of many phrases — assuming Federal Communications Commission [Nd1] compliance — that could soon resound through the air around Hillsdale’s campus.
The college learned of the opportunity through Vince Benedetto, a Pennsylvania-based radio entrepreneur who heard about the college, fittingly enough, through radio.
“On a Scranton-area station we bought in 2010, I would hear on-air people — Mark Levin and Hugh Hewitt — talk about the college, and I was impressed with what I heard,” Benedetto said. “Concurrently, I met people from the area and told them to take Hillsdale’s online courses.”
Eventually, Benedetto visited the Allan P. Kirby Center of Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, joined the President’s Club, and alerted the college of the opportunity to acquire a low-power FM signal that appeared as a result of the Local Community Radio Act of 2010. The act reduced the protections of local broadcasters’ signals like 95.5, freeing up adjacent frequencies like 97.7 or 95.9 for nonprofit and educational use.
Benedetto first informed President Larry Arnn of the opportunity. He then helped the college prepare its FCC application through Bold Gold Media Group, his company. The FCC accepted it this past January.
“It’s generally infrequent to just get to start a brand new radio station,” Benedetto said. “But now the college has the opportunity to starts its very own.”
The station — WRFH or “Radio Free Hillsdale” — has to start broadcasting by July 2015, but much of the programming by deadline will be automated, said Dow Journalism Program Director John Miller. The signal will also be local and not audible far beyond the campus. But both Benedetto and Miller still expect students to go ga-ga for the radio.
“The college is going to be creating opportunities for students interested in broadcasting,” Benedetto said. “This is in every real sense a real radio station. It’s hard to learn radio in a classroom environment because it’s so specific and technical.”
Miller agreed.
“I’m confident there will be a high level of student involvement,” he said. “I want it to be for radio what the Collegian is for journalism.”
Jeremy Steiner `95, a Hillsdale alumnus who has been with the Michael Medved Show from its inception, said he would have loved the opportunity to work in radio while still in college.
“At that level, it would have been very beneficial,” Steiner said. “Going from college radio to professional radio is just a normal fit. I just wish it had been around when I was there at Hillsdale.”
Miller and Benedetto both maintain, moreover, that video has not killed the radio star, and that radio is neither a dying nor a fruitless medium.
“Radio is a booming medium. Radio reaches 90 percent of the American population on a weekly basis, and not only on air,” Benedetto said. “Better technology has increased people’s engaging with radio, not decreased it.”
Miller stressed a certain noteworthy precedent for success in radio leading to success elsewhere.
“We have a statue of a radio guy on campus,” Miller said, referring to former President Ronald Reagan. “Let’s not forget what this can do for people.”
