Washington University launches Internet radio station

    (KRT)SEATTLE-With the song Norwegian Wood by The Beatles, RainyDawg Radio officially debuted on the Internet last week, giving University of Washington students what they have not had for more than 20 years-a radio station they can call their own.

    After five years of planning, the station at long last launched its 24-hour Webcasting schedule, which features student disc jockeys broadcasting live from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and pre-programmed music overnight.

   Streaming on www.rainydawg.com actually began sporadically two weeks ago, as student DJs familiarized themselves with new, state-of-the-art equipment.

   The station is the product of UW student investment, decades after former campus-based radio stations KUOW and KEXP matured from student training grounds into professionally run community assets.

   RainyDawg is a student organization, operating under the Associated Students of University of Washington (ASUW).

    "We were the only Pac-10 school to not have a student radio station," Scott Somers, 20, RainyDawg's general manager, said in an interview with Knight Ridder Tribune.

    Students had pent-up interest. In November, RainyDawg put a call out on campus for DJs and received 250 applications.

    About 120 applicants were interviewed to fill about 30-plus slots. An additional 10 were reserved for students already active in RainyDawg, Somers said.

    RainyDawg's DJs are volunteers and must be students or have graduated within the past year.

    The UW School of Communications, once affiliated with KUOW and KCMU, stopped offering a broadcast-journalism curriculum in 1996.

    "I don't think DJ'ing is in the cards for me as a career," said Erin Whitcomb, 22, a senior double-majoring in communication and political science who hosts a local music show on RainyDawg.

    "It's just cool to bring the local music scene to my campus. College radio has always been the cutting edge. There is a need for it, and I hope that long after I graduate, RainyDawg keeps going," Whitcomb said.

    While RainyDawg gives students a more resonant voice on campus, that expression for now will mostly be through music.

    The station's format is light on talk and heavy on modern music, much of it rock Ôn' roll.

    The three top station managers are students, and each is paid. Somers has worked in radio for four years, including at a Top 40 station in Billings, Mont.

    The genesis for the station was a project five years ago by a student in a speech communication class.

    Somers said the project sparked interest among students, who formed a task force to examine the prospect.

    With no FM radio frequencies available in Seattle, the focus was on Internet radio. Students opted to pay for and run the station through ASUW.

    "That way, if the station became successful, it would never be taken away from students like KUOW and KCMU were," Somers said.

    To buy equipment, the station obtained $87,000 through a technology fund that students pay into as part of tuition and fees.

    Student activity fees pay for operations, including salaries and station licensing fees. Somers said the station's annual budget is $30,000.

    During its test run two weeks ago, the number of daily listeners peaked at about 800, he said.

    While RainyDawg can be accessed by anyone with a decent Internet connection, the target listening audience is its own university students.

    "Students' parents living in New York can listen, and alumni all over the world can listen and find out what's going on at the U-Dub," Somers said.

    "But we are focusing on students," he said.

    The station also is supporting local bands that include UW students.

    The local bands are invited to play their music and participate in live studio performances.

    RainyDawg still has hurdles to clear.

    The future of Internet radio is hazy, although Webcasters benefited from a federal decision last summer that limited the amount of royalties stations must pay. And RainyDawg, which must be self-sustaining within three years, must figure out a way to raise revenue while finessing UW rules about commercial influences.