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Nov. 8, 2004 Volume 29, Issue 15 |
WMSV counts listeners from Starkville to South Africa
The general manager of the campus radio station at Mississippi State recently asked listeners to indicate the location from where they heard the 24/7 FM broadcast.
A 14,000-watt station that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, WMSV normally reaches an approximately 70-mile radius of the university. But because the transmission now is available over the Internet, Steve Ellis quickly learned that regular-actually, devoted may be a better word-listeners are not limited to East Mississippi.
The adult alternative music and public affairs programming has a following that stretches from Los Angeles to Lubeck, Germany. Since going out over the Web earlier this year, WMSV is averaging approximately 240 electronic listeners each day, Ellis said.
"It's a wonderful exposure both for Mississippi State and Mississippi," he said.
Ellis said distant listeners have responded from such diverse cities as Denver, San Jose, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Boston, and Salt Lake City. He's even heard from England, Korea, Canada, Germany, and Africa.
"This all started when a listener in Jacksonville, Fla., wrote to say that he's never been to Starkville but loves our music," Ellis said. "For three weeks after that, we asked listeners to e-mail from where they were listening. We then mounted a map on the wall and began marking the locations with pins."
"One listener at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth said her entire residence hall listens to WMSV," Ellis said.
The commercial-free station's daily format features artists such as Eric Clapton, Counting Crows and Coldplay. Weekend jazz and blues programming also are "very, very popular," Ellis added.
"We clearly are offering an alternative not being provided by many local stations in the country," he observed.
In his e-mail, the Jacksonville, Fla., listener called WMSV "one of the better college radio stations on the Internet." He praised the "variety of music, diversity of information and format."
Each distant listener who wrote the station was mailed a WMSV bumper sticker. Responders from the farthest location also received a WMSV T-shirt, with winners tuning in from Santa Clara, Calif., and Capetown, South Africa.
"And we're still getting e-mails," Ellis said.
To receive WMSV broadcasting on the Internet and list your location, visit http://www.wmsv.msstate.edu/.