History Main / CollegeRadio

* ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'' had "KWBH, the voice of West Beverly High!"

* In ''Franchise/Degrassi'' the namesake high school where the show is set has its own radio station, which in real life is not unheard of at larger high schools in North America.

There was a time when college radio, even at state colleges in fairly conservative states, was both the last bastion of truly unadulterated [[TheSixties '60s]] liberal radicalism in both the media and within the university system, and the proving grounds for many a genre of music that eventually became mainstream, such as AlternativeRock, IndiePop and rock, and HipHop. The GoldenAge of sorts for college radio was in TheEighties, before Creator/{{NPR}} really took off as a major force in "alternative" radio. Nowadays, college radio is still going strong, even if the Internet has mainly taken over the once-pivotal role that it played in the development of pop culture. However, they are still a useful source of underground music.

* In ''Film/BlindedByTheLight'', Javed attempts to get his [[TheEighties 1980s]] secondary school radio station to have an entire show dedicated to [[Music/BruceSpringsteen Bruce Springsteen]]. When the student DJ refuses, Javed and his friend trick him into leaving the studio, put on "Born to Run", and lock the door. [[note]] This was [[LooselyBasedOnATrueStory loosely based on]] something that the InspirationForTheWork Sarfraz Manzoor actually did while in school.[[/note]]

* In an episode of ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'', Hal is shown to have operated an underground radio station in college where he went by the name "Kid Charlemagne".

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Averted in ''VisualNovel/{{Melody}}''. The title character is a rising star on the music circuit, yet she never once makes an appearance on her college radio station.
[[/folder]]

* Two Canadian series, ''Series/RadioActive'' and ''Series/RadioFreeRoscoe'', brought this premise to high-school settings.

* In ''Film/TheSorcerersApprentice'', love interest Becky Barnes works at NYU's radio station. While she admits it doesn't get too many listeners, it does lead to a few bonding moments between her and protagonist Dave, including the introduction of film's BreakawayPopHit "Secrets".

* In ''Film/BlindedByTheLight'', Javed attempts to get his [[TheEighties 1980s]] secondary school radio station to have an entire show dedicated to [[Music/BruceSpringsteen Bruce Springsteen]]. When the student DJ refuses, Javed and his friend trick him into leaving the studio, put on "Born to Run", and lock the door. This was [[LooselyBasedOnATrueStory loosely based on]] something that the InspirationForTheWork Sarfraz Manzoor actually did while in school.

* In ''Film/BlindedByTheLight'', Javed attempts to get his [[TheEighties 1980s]] secondary school radio station to have a show dedicated to [[Music/BruceSpringsteen Bruce Springsteen]]. When the student DJ refuses, Javed and his friend trick him into leaving the studio, put on "Born to Run", and lock the door. This was [[LooselyBasedOnATrueStory loosely based on]] something that the InspirationForTheWork Sarfraz Manzoor actually did while in school.

* In ''Film/TheSorcerersApprentice'', love interest Becky Barnes works at NYU's radio station. While she admits it doesn't get too many listeners, it does lead to a few bonding moments between her and protagonist Dave.

* In ''Film/BlindedByTheLight'', Javed attempts to get his [[TheEighties 1980s]] school radio station to have a show dedicated to [[Music/BruceSpringsteen Bruce Springsteen]]. When the student DJ refuses, Javed and his friend trick him into leaving the studio, put on "Born to Run", and lock the door. This was [[LooselyBasedOnATrueStory loosely based on]] something that the InspirationForTheWork Sarfraz Manzoor actually did while in school.

* In ''Film/TheSorcerersApprentice'', love interest Becky Barnes works at NYU's radio station, which leads to a few bonding moments between her and protagonist Dave.

* In ''Film/BlindedByTheLight'', Javed attempts to get his [[TheEighties 1980s]] school radio station to have a show dedicated to [[Music/BruceSprinsteen Bruce Springsteen]]. When the student DJ refuses, Javed and his friend trick him into leaving the studio, put on "Born to Run", and lock the door. This was [[LooselyBasedOnATrueStory loosely based on]] something that the InspirationForTheWork Sarfraz Manzoor actually did while in school.

->''"College radio can be summed up in five words: DeadAir, 'um', DeadAir."''

* In an episode of ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'', her normally grumpy roommate turns out to be great at talk radio (although this isn't spoken of again).

In fiction, the college station is something that either ''everyone'' listens to, or ''no one'' does. Either the whole campus (and no small number of people in the school's metropolitan area) tune in to the station, or the astonishingly low listener-base becomes a RunningGag. The output will generally either be mind-numbingly boring or LargeHamRadio.

* Canadian AlternativeCountry band Ox was propelled to quasi-recognition due to heavy play on college radio in the 2000's, before fading to obscurity. This is reference in several of their songs, such as "Indie Rock Radio Nation" which is about college radio and those who listen to it, and in "Burnout", which is about their attempts to make it in music.

[[folder:Films]]

--> "Got a stolen guitar and I'm breaking the scene
--> Livin' the college chart radio dream"

[[folder:Film]]

-->-- '''[[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Strong Bad]]''', [[https://youtu.be/qto3SOsl2F0 sbemail 120]]

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* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' has "Marvelous" Mark Slackmeyer, who started out as an announcer-programmer on Walden College's campus-community station WBBY, where he alternated music with anti- UsefulNotes/VietnamWar, anti- UsefulNotes/RichardNixon rants (these got the strip moved from the comics section to the politics page in many newspapers). He still works for an unnamed NPR station.