A deejay who goes by Baconfat hosts Fantastic Expedition – a two-hour program on Charlottesville’s community station.
“Alright, good afternoon. You are tuned to WTJU, 91.1 FM in Charlottesville.”
It’s licensed to the University of Virginia which provides some funding, but the station relies heavily on listener contributions, and about 15% of its money comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. General Manager Nathan Moore says the station has about 300 volunteers, but it still needs money to pay rent for its studios.
“And tower rent up on Carter’s Mountain. It pays for utilities. It pays for equipment and gear, but it also pays for festivals and educating programs, our high school program, summer camps and scholarships for kids to experience creativity and collaboration and learn how to make radio.”
With an estimated 40,000 people tuning in each month, he hopes listeners will make up for the loss of federal funds, but he worries about stations in less populous areas.
“One of my close colleagues is out of Allegheny Mountain Radio in Highland and Bath County, Virginia and Pocahontas, West Virginia. That three-county area has only for 15,000 people combined, and federal funding is literally half their budget," Moore explains.
And that group of stations – like many others in rural communities – serves an important public safety function.
“Over the years they’ve been there, providing really local, really important information during flash flood events, mudslides and natural disasters, and doing that core service on the ground can help save lives," says Moore. "I think we saw that in Asheville recently with Hurricane Helene. There was Blue Ridge Public Media and one commercial station. That’s all that could get back on the air. You know radio is that lifeline when all other systems fail.”
In Charlottesville, the community station’s role is different. It’s not an NPR member station – doesn’t broadcast Morning Edition or All Things Considered. Instead, it broadcasts all kinds of music – some of it live, giving important exposure for local musicians, allowing area residents to try their hand at hosting shows, and Moore recalls what T-J-U meant, during the pandemic.
"We were such a lifeline at that time. When people feel lonely or not really connected, they can always turn on TJU, and their friends and neighbors are there. It’s real humans. It’s not some algorithm in corporate America. There’s real value in that. Increasingly there is more value in having things made by people, meant to connect people to each other, because everything else seems to be driving that away."
So he’s disappointed that lawmakers don’t recognize that some things need to be done for the public good.
"We need to have things that make a society rich and matter, and they're not profit things. They're public good things — things that anybody can access for free, and there's no barrier. They serve people's human needs, and to have Congress abandon that concept is so disappointing."
The station is talking with the University of Virginia about helping to fill the financial hole -- $150,000 -- left by federal budget cuts, but Moore understands it’s a complicated request given the uncertainty UVA and other public universities are also facing.
