WGXC: Many Niches, One Radio Station
by Elias Isquith

The bankruptcy and liquidation this summer of the once ubiquitous Borders Books & Music was yet another stark reminder that when it comes to media, we live in an era of transition. Similarly, the recent arrival in the United States of the music-streaming platform Spotify, long adored by millions of subscribers in Europe, portends the beginning of yet another chapter in the music industry’s precipitous transformation. Simply put: for those in the media without Facebook, Google or Twitter somewhere on their business card, things are rough out there.

Yet amid all the rubble, one pillar of traditional media still stands tall: the radio tower. It often goes underappreciated, but by and large, domestic radio in the United States is getting along. NPR, for example, saw its listenership increase by nearly seven million in the past decade. And perhaps the best indicator of the medium’s survival is a simple test: when’s the last time you saw a young person reading a book (Kindles and other e-readers don’t count), or a magazine, or buying a CD? When’s the last time you saw the same listening to the radio?

“I think there’s something raw and immediate about the medium of radio, about the voice, that feels kind of untouchable,” Sara Kendall told me. Kendall is the Station Manager for 90.7 FM WGXC, a new station that moved from online streaming to old-fashioned terrestrial radio in February of this year. “There’s a kind of thrill to radio,” she continued, “that has to do with the unknown listenership and the sender-receiver element that’s really old—even eternal.” Kendall’s is a romantic perspective, to be sure; and it may be the one thing binding together WGXC is many strikingly diverse parts.

Volunteer hosts/programmers Joan Geitz, Philip Breslow, and Tom Roe in WGXC's Hudson broadcast studio.

WGXC was founded by the artist collective free103point9, a group that has historically concerned itself with giving a wider platform to artists whose work might otherwise go neglected. The station, which can be heard terrestrially in Greene and Columbia counties as well as anywhere online, is a rare and treasured commodity in today’s market—one that can appeal to so many niche audiences so as to become, in a roundabout way, accessible on a general scale. “We are in an incredibly diverse region,” Kendall continued, “with a lot of communities that don’t necessarily overlap.”

Indeed, whether listening on your radio or through your computer, WGXC’s line-up is likely to surprise. Spend a few hours with it and you’re just as likely to hear a talk show hosted by and about the area’s local independent farmers as you are an experimental smorgasbord of ambient and pre-recorded material. You’ll learn how to best fertilize your crops right before delving into “the increasing convergence of humans and technology.” And there will be plenty of local and national news in-between.

“If you were to ask 10 people different here what WGXC was about, you’d get 10 really different answers, which is part of what makes the project exciting” says Kendall. Alongside its creative and experimental inclinations, however, WGXC tries to be a deeply civic and community-oriented addition to the region. “We’ve got folks here who are really invested in the local media landscape and are concerned about the lack of local media where we are,” explains Kendall, “so we are trying to fill [that] void.” The station frequently broadcasts local town hall meetings and local government hearings; as Kendall calls it, “the kind of stuff people can’t always get to.” Broadcasting those events “is something we see as a service for our listeners.”

But of course, radio is a remarkably useful platform for not only furthering the common good, but for making the morning drive or late-afternoon snack a little bit better. “I think we’ve been defined thus far as a group by taking on more than we can afford and then somehow doing it,” says Kendall, but at WGXC “there are people who’d say we’re just trying to get the funk on the air.”

For a perspective on a far different era in radio broadcasting, see the article in this issue: “Our Guy Woody: Radio Man of Echo Valley Farm.”