WJCU Hits Record Six-Figure Pledge Drive in February Radiothon

For the sixth year in a row, WJCU broke the station record for the amount of money it raised from donors during its annual Radiothon. In ten days, from Feb. 5 to 16, more than a thousand donors gave a combined $109,000 to support John Caroll’s college radio station.

That six-figure pledge, used to keep the lights on at station partially-funded by the university, wrapped up roughly five months after Cleveland State University abruplty shuttered its station, WCSB, in favor of passing the radio antenna to Ideastream for 24/7 jazz programming.

WJCU admins say the untimely and controversial end to CSU’s station undoubtedly played a role in the attention to and money raised from its pledge drive.

“I don’t think anybody is going to lie to you and say that what happened with Cleveland State wasn’t a factor in this,” WJCU director Jasen Sokol told Scene.

“I think people realize now, ‘Hey, you know, college radio—there’s no guarantee day to day that college radio is going to be there,” he said. “So, if I want something around, I’d better put my money where my mouth is.”

And WJCU fans certainly did. It took DJs and phone bank operators just days to meet their fundraising goal of $75,000. One DJ, Jumpin’ Joe, said he helped raise $25,000 in the ten-day span of the Radiothon.

WCSB’s closure has led to both a lawsuit and a guerilla-style format of the station now called XCSB by alums of 89.3 FM. And it’s put college radio squarely in the public eye in Cleveland, serving as a reminder why so many fans tune in for culture-crossing programming filled with quirks and eccentricities and personalities.

It’s a community, after all.

That community, donors are saying, is worth paying for.

“To be blunt, commercial radio has not given us a reason for many to tune in again and again,” Jumpin’ Joe, full name Joe Madigan, told Scene in a call. “Talk to college kids about radio: ask ‘em to name their favorite DJs—they can’t because commercial radio hasn’t given them a reason to listen.”

Sokol agreed. “You’re not gonna find a commercial station that’s playing ambient music or speaking to the Hungarian community,” he said. “You’re just not.”

Coming off the Radiothon, Sokol said he has a hunch the post-WCSB energy will impact other stations, including WRUW at Case Western and WBWC at Baldwin-Wallace., both of which have pledge drives later this year.

While John Caroll backs about a fifth of WJCU’s budget, Sokol said, the remaining 80 percent is covered by donors. Money that helps with a bit of everything — new records, paying licensing bills, the cost of new computers or servers. (All 80 or so DJs, students and not, are volunteers.)

And then there are the fringe benefits Sokol said sometimes go overlooked. WJCU and college radio stations in general act as a training ground for students—those who actually want radio careers or just a two-hour block to riff and play blues music.

Which of course ends if the university ever pulls the plug.

“It’s definitely a scary time,” Nikolena Samac, 21, a junior marketing major at John Carroll and co-director of WJCU’s sports programming said.

“But being here, it’s made my college experience, like, 1,000 times more exciting,” she said. “It’s grown me as a person more than anything else—in confidence, in public speaking. Just in communication in general.”

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