WRVU

Infobox Radio station
name = WRVU


city = Nashville, Tennessee
area = Tennessee college
slogan =
branding = "91 Rock Nashville"
frequency = 91.1 MHz
repeater =
airdate =
share =
share as of =
share source =
format = Variety
power =
erp = 10,000 watts
haat = 212.0 meters
class = C2
facility_id = 69816
coordinates = coord|36|8|27.00|N| 86|51|56.00|W|region:US_type:city
callsign_meaning =
former_callsigns =
owner = Vanderbilt Student Communications, Inc.
licensee =
sister_stations =
webcast = listen live|http://www.vanderbilt.edu/wrvu
website = official|http://www.vanderbilt.edu/wrvu
affiliations =

WRVU (91.1 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a college radio format. Licensed to Nashville, Tennessee, USA, the station serves Vanderbilt University. The station is currently owned by Vanderbilt Student Communications. [ cite web|url=http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?call=WRVU |title=WRVU Facility Record |work=United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division ] [cite web|url=http://www1.arbitron.com/sip/displaySip.do?surveyID=SU08&band=fm&callLetter=WRVU|title=WRVU Station Information Profile|publisher=Arbitron]

The station is run by student volunteers from VU, although many of its disc jockeys are Vanderbilt alumni or community volunteers. As with most student-operated college stations, its general focus is to play independent-label music. From the 1970s until the mid-2000s (with the sign-on of WRFN-LP), WRVU was practically the only widely accessible outlet for the area's underground music acts to have their recordings get airtime.

History

Vanderbilt's first radio station, and hence WRVU's progenitor, can be traced to the early 1950s, at which time it was called WVU. The station eventually became known as WRVU and started to broadcast beyond Vanderbilt campus in the early 1970s. Prior to that time, WRVU had been a carrier current station, broadcasting its signal through the university's steam tunnels to small transmitters in each dorm. The transmitter emitted its signal to be received at 580 kHz on the AM band.

Prior to moving to VU's Sarratt Student Center in the fall of 1973, WRVU for many years broadcast from studios in one of the towers of Neely Auditorium. It was there, in December 1971, that University officials got FCC approval to begin broadcasting as a non-profit educational station at 91.1 on the FM band. The quest to move to FM had taken almost two years of effort; VU placed the transmitter on top of the Oxford House building.

The VU student government body operates the station as one unit of the student communications division, which is subsidized by a student activity fee, charged to each student's tuition bill every semester.

Programming

Students and others broadcast numerous shows every week on WRVU; most are one to two hours in length.

WRVU broadcasts 24 hours a day all year long; prior to the mid-1990s, the station shut down operations entirely during the summer and Christmas/New Year's holiday breaks.

References

External links

*FM station data|WRVU