NorthEast Radio Watch 2/23 and 3/2/2026: The Kids Are OK

In this week’s issue… Student radio survives, thrives at IBS – Crichton to retire – Kerr extends contract – WSAR sale falls through – WIVB GM departs amidst merger talk – WGR expands east

By SCOTT FYBUSH

[Programming note: barring major breaking news, NERW will be on vacation for a few days and will return with our next issue Monday, March 9.]

*Just before that massive wall of snow descended on the eastern seaboard on Sunday, your editor made it home by train from New York City – and a bit of rushed travel was well worth it to be able to spend a couple of days in the company of the students, educators and advisors who were in the city for the annual conference of IBS, the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System.

The IBS conference has been around for a long time (your editor and the future Mrs. Editor attended for the first time way back in 1991, when we were college students doing news at Brandeis University’s WBRS near Boston), and you’d be right to wonder about its relevance at a time when many colleges are selling or surrendering broadcast licenses and most teenagers and twenty-somethings aren’t listening to radio as we knew it.

But here’s the good news, and it’s very good news indeed: there are still plenty of colleges and even high schools where radio is alive and doing pretty well, with lots of students who still have a passion for making it work.

In addition to being on the vendor floor showing off the Myriad suite of automation and scheduling software, your editor had the pleasure of speaking on several panels, talking to students about the need for broadcast engineers (and the career potential they might enjoy if they join SBE and get involved with the industry), the potential for eventual broadcast ownership, and FCC compliance in an era when none of us really know exactly what’s coming next out of the Commission.

And what a great group of experts were on hand to provide insight and connections! RadioInsight’s Lance Venta led a panel with some of the brightest minds in the business, including columnist Sean Ross and LOUD Radio’s Pat Grooves. That’s WATD (95.9 Marshfield MA) owner Ed Perry and Neversink Broadcasting owner Bud Williamson on the panel with me in the photo above. Andy Gladding, who leads the phenomenal broadcasting program at Hofstra University and owns WKZE in the Hudson Valley, ran the engineering panel with Bud and Mindy Hoffman (of WVPH “the Core” in New Jersey and Audacy New York), and lots of top New York programmers were on hand as well.

Awards? The convention recognized top student talent, too, naming WHPC (90.3) at Nassau Community College as its community station of the year.

There’s no question that (like everything else these days) college media is changing, and college radio in 2026 can’t just be the linear stream of FM programming that we were creating back in the 1990s and before. Fortunately, today’s students (and IBS leaders such as WHPC’s Shawn Novatt) understand the changes, which is why so much of the programming this year was about podcasting and other digital platforms to meet students where they are, and preparing students to emerge into a job market where the “town to town, up and down the dial” DJ is a thing of the past, but engineers, sportscasters, social media experts and interactive audio creators are still needed.

It was a pleasure to be there and we look forward to returning soon. (And one more thing: if you remember the days when Ari was just the “NERW baby,” you’ll be amused to know she was assisting all through the show at the Myriad booth, now that she’s a New York City resident heading for grad school…)

(Read more about IBS from our friend Nick Langan over at Radio World, too.)