Our theme for this year’s Radiothon is “All Together Now”, which we’ll explain by establishing a little context. To begin with, in the summer of 2006, WJCU finally succeeded in building out a completely new transmission facility that took us up to 2500 watts in signal power, and that project cost approximately $106,000. While we were able to finish the project, it drained our entire financial reserve saved over four previous years of Radiothon.

With the new transmission facility done, things were looking up. But then the US copyright board and the recording industry (RIAA) threw a curve ball. A final interim agreement between those two bodies was struck last fall that imposed onerous new restrictions, reporting requirements, and costs on web streaming of small non-commercial broadcasters. Because we were unsure of WJCU’s ability to comply with these complex new requirements, we were forced to shut down the web stream before Jan. 1st 2007. So as things worked out, 2006 was an ironic year for WJCU…even as we increased our broadcast signal, our world-wide signal on the web had been silenced.

Since our stream shutdown, we’ve worked furiously to develop a plan that allows us to meet the new copyright requirements imposed on us by SoundExchange, the entity given sole authority over the administration and collection of webcast performance royalties. Now, the good news is that we’ve developed a plan we think will work…but the bad news is that it will now cost us more than ten times as much to stream our programming, and also requires upgrading our digital infrastructure - we’re talking about many thousands of dollars of increase for operating expenses alone.

Unfortunately, the money we get from the University (our operating budget) has been fixed at the same level for many years and was actually cut in 2006. That money is used to meet our normal, every-day expenses; so, only a successful Radiothon 2007 will allow us to grow and improve WJCU in a way that accommodates vital services such as an improved web presence, more podcasts, renewed audio streaming, and more opportunities to give voice to under-represented elements of our community.

And that’s why we’ve chosen this year’s theme of “All Together Now”…because the only way we can continue to maintain and grow WJCU is by enlisting the help of every one of our listeners.

So tune in during “All Together Now: WJCU Radiothon 2007″ and pledge your tax-deductible support to WJCU - we can’t do it without you!

Sunday, February 18th thru Sunday, February 25th * Our Goal this Year - $40,000