CTVR hold student forum on loss of KSBR 88.5 radio station

Two radio students have conversation with CTVR professor Melodie Turroi – Christian Roberts | Lariat

Saddleback Cinema-Television-Radio department held a student forum in the LRC building in room 109 on Friday, Jan. 23. Faculty and students attended to discuss the KSBR 88.5 Jazz FM radio station and its departure from Saddleback to Cal State Northridge. 

The forum discussed the loss of the station, how it will impact them and what steps they can take in the future to help students find a career path in radio.

“So today was just really about hearing from the students and envisioning what the greater program looks like in far as how our Cinema TV Radio program is going to function in the future,” said Scott Farthing, dean of arts, media, performance and design at Saddleback. “And we had a great brainstorming session”.

The reason for the stations departure is that the FCC license has been sold from SOCCCD to Cal State Northridge due to a deal made by the two campuses six or seven years ago. The deal would come into effect this year which means Saddleback will no longer be the home of Jazz 88.5. 

“I think it’s definitely a pretty disheartening blow to any students who wish to have a career in radio broadcasting specifically,” Aiden Nolan—a student majoring in illustration and animation—and has just joined the radio field said.

Students in the forum who worked in the station talked about how the station helped them gain experience in the field. One student mentioned that the station helped him with his bilingual skills and helped him learn English. Another student who also does sports commentating said that the station helped him get into that field.

CTVR radio instructor Melodie Turori emphasized that if students want to pursue their careers in radio, they need to have the hands on experience that is needed to enter the field of radio broadcasting, hence the purpose of the class.

“Radio is an industry that considers college radio work to be industry works. See, now we sometimes talk about job postings and the job posting, it’s an entry-level job, but they want you to have like 5 or 10 years of experience already,” Turori said. “This is how a student is able to secure an entry-level job and have two, four years of broadcast experience already with them.

Karyn Bower, a CTVR TV instructor, believed that the station along with other media outlets at Saddleback are useful to help students gain experience.

“It’s really important for students to be able to do that sort of coverage so they have that hands on experience,” Bower, a former reporter for KDOC Channel 12 said. “Experience for their resume, yes.”

Since the radio license is being transferred over to Northridge, it adds to a number of media entities that cover Los Angeles, but another that leaves Orange County. 

“My concern is about Orange County being a news desert. We are a news desert. We already have been, and now this license is getting moved to a college, but they’re in LA,” said Bower.  

She says that this is a loss for the Orange County community since it won’t have radio coverage on the events around the area and that LA news organizations don’t want to cover events in Orange County.

Bower also said that the license transfer is an example of Orange County being a “news desert.” There was a story she recalled when she interned with ABC7 that contributes to her point.

“I was in a big board meeting, at one of these large networks, and said a lot of folks are really upset that you don’t cover Orange County that much,” she said. And the owner of the station, an older gentleman, said, ‘Tell them to move to L.A..’”

This is one of Bower’s reasons why Orange County needs more coverage and be covered as good as LA, believing that the students are the hope to bring coverage to the area while also telling her students to be as accurate as possible.

The forum discussed alternatives to move forward since they still have all the resources to keep the program moving forward. 

“So we had some pretty good ideas and suggestions proposed for how we could move forward with potentially having a website or an app based solution to have some kind of portal by which student bodies and various media they produce,” said Nolan who also has a background in esports as a broadcaster. 

He says that journalism, art and broadcasting radio along with other student media can be on the website. 

Turori also mentioned in terms of radio, a streaming radio or internet radio station would be the way to move forward.

With the radio stations impending departure from Saddleback, CTVR is still committed to give students opportunities in the broadcasting field and will continue to look into the future and provide students with the experience to pursue their careers in broadcasting.

“We’re still able to pursue them, obviously, and we still have amazing teachers and faculty members available to provide us with the help we might need in these fields,” said Nolan.

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