REEMS CREEK "basically WE'rE asking oursElVEs What can WE offEr our listEnErs that pandora doEsn't."
NURSERY & LANDSCAPING
FALL COLOR!
Pumpkins Pansies Mums
— drEW proctor, station managEr at thE bluE Echo
Pandora, or both in the previous month. And according to this year’s State of the News Media study conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Americans who listened to online radio last year did so for an average of 9 minutes, 47 seconds — compared with an estimated 6 minutes, 13 seconds in 2008. And to Asia sheppard, the Blue Echo's programming director, that spells opportunity. "You have to bring something new to the table and engage your audience to get an audience," says Sheppard, a former station DJ. "We don't just want to play music that we like: That's not what radio's about at all. We want to give our campus a voice." But how you do that inevitably leads to money questions. Around the time the Blue Echo started up, someone else on campus was trying to start a low-power-FM station. Equipping and running such a station would have been a lot more expensive, and even though the Federal Communications Commission accepted UNCA's application, Brophy says it just wasn't worth it in the end. "At 10 watts, you could only hear it on campus, and we would have to share it with a local community station. That whole idea fell off, but at the same time, that was when people started streaming," he explains. Funded through the university, the Blue Echo has a budget of a couple of thousand dollars per year; Proctor says a show is doing well when 20 people tune in at once. Brophy attributes those low numbers to the station's unstable history and the resulting attitudes. "Because of the tumultuous times and the things that went downhill, people stopped listening, stopped paying attention and thought, 'Blue Echo is a joke,'" Brophy recalls. And though he, Proctor and Sheppard all say they think college radio is dying, that won't stop them from trying to keep the Blue Echo alive. "You can get your music anywhere, and I think college radio stations need to figure out why their students should listen to them,” notes Brophy. “We need to find our niche on this campus, and I think that's what college radio has to do.” X Caitlin Byrd can be reached at cbyrd@mountainx.com, or at 251-1333, ext. 140.
Series #34
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DaviD Gantt Disability Social Security Workers’ Compensation
I was involved in a car accident while working. Can I make a claim against the car insurance in addition to the Workers’ Compensation insurance company? Yes. You will likely have a Workers’ Compensation (WC) claim regardless of how the car accident occurred. If the wreck was caused by someone else’s negligence, you will also have a personal injury claim against the responsible party. You should consult a lawyer familiar with both personal injury and WC law to sure make these claims are brought in proper legal procedure. Failure to coordinate both claims could result in enforceable liens on one or both of the insurance payouts. ® Copyright 2012
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