Last Thursday, the station known to generations of Nashville listeners as 91 Rock shocked fans and staff alike with an announcement dropping the bomb: VSC was considering "the migration of radio station WRVU to exclusively online programming and the sale of its broadcast license." Citing declining revenues (via print ads in the Vanderbilt Hustler, which underwrite WRVU's programming) and a concern for the future viability of all Vanderbilt media, the press release presented the idea as exploration only — i.e., not necessarily a done deal. But those opposed to silencing the venerable station's FM signal couldn't help feel the move was all but finalized, save a buyer and a price.
As they began to mount a counterstrike against the proposed sale, organizers found that the domain names savewrvu.org and savewrvu.com were already taken. Not only were they registered by proxy (meaning that the name and contact of the registrar remain hidden) but they were registered on Sept. 7 — nine days before the VSC announcement. And both sites re-directed to the official announcement page on insidevandy.org, indicating that the VSC board not only had anticipated how the news would be received, they had sought to outmaneuver their opposition by taking away its first move.
WRVU was an important part of my teenage years and I certainly do not want to see it go. The Music City needs a real college radio station as an alternative voice to the industry there.
