Huntleigh Gilbard, political science sophomore and Crescent City Radio programming director, sat crouched over a computer keyboard in an office the size of a broom closet, stuffed with layers of papers without shelves, hand-me-down audio equipment and three broken computers. As an advertisement-funded program at Loyola, this scene could mark the final days of the radio station, which may continue in 2010.

Crescent City Radio thought it was on solid ground when Loyola renovated parts of the fourth floor of the Communications/Music Complex last year to enhance the program with more space and updated audio equipment.

In 2008, John Snyder, chairman of the music industries department, said the renovations would serve as “a teaching production facility where students can learn by doing.” Most importantly, students would learn skills that make them more marketable.

Still, this can only be achieved if the students and the station have the proper funding and equipment. Currently, they do not, according to the Station Manager, Jay Crutti.
It costs $2,000 a year to keep Crescent City Radio running, which includes $1,000 for licensing fees, Crutti said. The remaining $1,000 goes to RadioActivity, a Web-based system for radio station playlist logging, reporting and tracking.

Crutti said that is not nearly enough to cover the expenses of a legitimate radio station, which he estimates is  $13,000 a year to cover repairs, upgrades, general production costs, promotion and development.

As of Wednesday, Oct. 4, station has $33 in the budget, raised from a bake sale last week. Crutti admitted he doesn’t have enough to buy paper for copies and his six work-study students are using their Loyola accounts to print flyers.

Crutti explained this as the “chicken or the egg” problem. Crescent City Radio needs to advertise to get funding, but they don’t have the money to advertise. Former student Mark Glynn gave bandwidth from his own online radio station to help get the station off the ground, but it was meant to be an initial donation, not continuous funding.

The staff of Crescent City Radio is not paid and the Federal Work Study Program funds work-study students. The station relies on advertisements and donations to continue service.

Now that they’re down to their last few dollars, Crescent City Radio could go offline on Jan. 15, 2010.

“It would be losing a critical platform of student expression,” Gilbard said.

Ashley Stevens can be reached at [email protected] and Russell Shelton can be reached at jrshelto@loyno.