The Hawk radio now on Internet

By Jessica Mellet
Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of WNCP The Hawk

The Mass Communication Department has been working hard for the past two years to provide UNCP with a radio station. After the many ups and downs, WNCP the Hawk, is up and running.

Although there will not be a disc jockey until next semester, students can log on and listen to a wide variety of music from the 70s all the way to today’s most popular music.

Eventually, broadcasting majors will do their own music shifts, news, interview shows and game coverage on air.

Students will also have a chance to have a say in what is played on air next semester when the station will provide listeners with their own time slots. The Hawk is still in its beginning stages, so it still has many kinks to work out.

If listeners use the “pop-up player,” they can continue surfing the Internet without losing the audio. But on the “Now Playing” page, listeners currently must click their browser’s “refresh” button when a song changes, if they want to see the title and artist, said Dr. Jamie Litty, Mass Communication Department chair.

“If this radio station on the Internet does well, hopefully, one day we can get the show on air waves,” said senior James Freemen, a mass communication major.

The department started an Internet radio service almost two years ago, hosted on Live365.com, but the website was costing $248 a month.

The department doesn’t have the budget to keep up with the fees and was nervous about promoting the service to audiences because the charges would increase with more listening.

“I think this is a great opportunity for broadcasting students to gain experience on the radio,” Freemen said. “Not every broadcasting student wants to be a television anchor,” he continued.

“Students will be able to practice what they learn in classes and at their internships. Many of our majors seek a future in radio or the music business and only get relevant practice if they land an internship in radio,” Dr. Litty said.

“In our lecture classes up to this point, what they learn about radio programming and management, writing, and performance is merely academic, you could say,” Dr. Litty said.

“But our department emphasizes laboratory experiences in mass media, so an Internet radio service is a logical complement to what we’re already doing in television, print and other converging media,” she added.

Visit their website at www.uncp.edu/wncp-radio.