WMFO Tufts Freeform Radio on Friday celebrated its 40th anniversary, showcasing its newly updated facilities at an open house event in its Curtis Hall studios.
This year also marks the 100th anniversary of student-run radio at Tufts; in 1910, students founded a "wireless society" dedicated to the budding technology.
WMFO, founded in its current form in 1971, launched the first overhaul of its technical facilities in nearly two decades in March 2009, according to WMFO General Manager Andy Sayler.
"This is an excellent opportunity for us to show the community what we have been doing here at WMFO for the past 40 years," Sayler, a senior, told the Daily at the event. "In the past few years, especially, we have made some important changes that have increased the quality of our broadcasts and our programming."
WMFO's recent renovations installed in its two main studios new digital equipment that is superior to that used by many commercial radio stations in the local area, Sayler said.
WMFO also acquired an expansive digital music library and digital turntables that enable DJs to perform live mixing on the air, and the radio station last year founded its label On the Side Records to record student musicians, he said.
During the event, WMFO conducted an on-air interview with University President Lawrence Bacow in which he emphasized college radio's importance to today's society.
"It used to be that college radio stations could only broadcast within proximity to the campus, but now [WMFO] is really broadcasting to an infinite audience, literally around the world," Bacow said in the interview. "I think the Web opens the world up to college radio."
WMFO Assistant General Manager Alex Michaelson, a senior, echoed this sentiment.
"As a freeform radio station, we are excited about the opportunities new technology affords our DJs to broadcast their choice of programming to a wide audience," he said. On freeform radio, the DJs have complete control over programming choices.
Representatives from radio stations at Berklee College of Music, Boston College and Salem State University attended the open house, which featured a crowd of over 100 people, including Bacow, WMFO alumni and current students.
Michaelson, a senior, said that despite the difficulties the radio industry faces with the advent of music sharing on the Internet, college radio stations could still flourish.
"I think the changes we have made display how we have adapted to new technology and how the [radio] business is changing," Michaelson said. "The truth is that college radio is still very big."
Michaelson said that college radio and WMFO in particular provide an important community service in offering a platform for smaller, less visible labels and artists to play their music, which larger commercial radio stations do not provide.
"I think the real importance of this anniversary is that, notwithstanding all the changes the radio industry is facing, [WMFO] is still running strong, thanks to the commitment of the Tufts community to freeform radio over the years," Michaelson said.
