Geneseo's on-campus radio station, 89.3 FM, is on the air 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week.
The station is broken up into three main categories: sports, music and news. The sports show and live game commentary is streamed through the Web site and can be listened to live. WGSU's music is generally indie, or independent, but the station also makes room for specialty shows that run at different times throughout the week and every weekend.
WGSU is student-run, led by this year's station manager, junior Rachel Coleman-Gridley. "I never really thought about joining the radio before college at all," she said. "I absolutely fell in love with WGSU for the music, friends and obviously the radio shows. My sophomore year I was public service director for the station and this year I manage the whole thing!"
The radio staff seems to be a tightly knit group of friends, which most say is the best thing about being involved with the station. "I probably would not endorse the station as much as I do if not for the people involved with it," said News Director Joe Cooper, a junior. "I've met lots of cool, interesting and funny people who are at the different radio functions."
As it's a difficult task to meet all the DJs (this year alone, 59 new DJs stepped up to the plate), the radio team manages to have lots of different functions that allow the DJs and staff to interact with each other.
Music is one of the main draws to WGSU. With its indie-rock format and specialty shows, DJs have the freedom to play music according to their passion. Shows encompass many different genres, such as underground hip-hop, pop-punk and classic rock. The music staff goes through and picks out what CDs will be played and which songs will make it into rotation. The staff also goes through all the CDs that are sent to the station, listening and reviewing each one before deciding if they are to be played or not.
The sports section is dedicated to the same standard of excellence. "All our sports programs are webcasted from our Web site," said Sports Director Josh Carey, a senior. "That includes Sportswrap, every hockey game - we broadcast every game home and away - and basketball games." The sports director and DJs make a point to get really good content out to listeners. "We did three interviews with every coach in the SUNYAC hockey conference, broadcasted 26 hockey games, and about eight basketball games, and we interviewed players," Carey said, explaining that such interviews are his favorite part of working with the sports section.
The news section is still a work in progress. "I'm still working on the logistics of everything," Cooper said with respect to improvements for the news section. "I am hoping to make the WGSU News a lot more relevant than it's been since I've been going to school here. We are looking into covering local politics and possibly starting some sort of debate show for students. Don't hold me to those though."
"We are in dire need of a new [mixing] board for our studio," Coleman-Gridley said. "The mixing board we're running off of right now is from the 1970s. The microphone inputs are breaking on it and we are risking a complete breakdown if we don't get a new board."
Overall, the staff for WGSU seems to be a very welcoming group of students. "I think the most common misconception about WGSU is that it's full of elitists," Cooper said. "People have a common interest in independent or semi-obscure music, but I can't think of an instance where someone was talked down to for liking a mainstream artist."
"I think a lot of people think we just play weird music they've never heard of and that we're snobby about it," Coleman-Gridley stated. "That's definitely not true. Anyone who is a music snob is usually yelled at by us staff and E-council members!"
Members of the radio station encourage anyone who may be interested to contact them and check out the station.