Over two thousand new songs have been purchased for SDSU’s radio station, KSDJ, with the help of its advisor, Brian Stemwedel.
Stemwedel said that this was an important decision because “to my knowledge, there hasn’t been a significant investment into the music library case for probably 20 years or more.” and that “right now the music that we do have is mostly from the early 2000s through the mid 2000s and really no music other than a few anomalies from before that. And so, we’re really trying to grow the student radio and bring back some excitement to it.”
The purchase cost around $2,500 and was bought from a company called Radio Musical which helps supply songs to local radio stations.
The songs that were purchased come from a variety of genres and decades. There’s everything from pop, rock, and even some dance music.
Even though Stemwedel doesn’t think that this purchase is going to entice many more people to tune into the radio station, he still thinks it was an important purchase.
“You know, we just felt like it was a needed thing, like it hadn’t been an investment made in music in quite a while,” Stemwedel said. “And so, the scope of the music getting played was pretty narrow. College radio is more about giving students an opportunity to work in broadcasting, get some experience and just have fun.”
Stemwedel also has a few things he wants the community of SDSU to know. The first thing is “We’re entering our 30th year of being an entity here on SDSU’ campus. We first went on air in December of 1993. So, we’re kind of coming up very quickly on that 30th anniversary,” Stemwedel said. “You know, the last few years had been rough. I think there has been a dip in student engagement with those that were taking the opportunity of working at the station. And then with COVID, you know, that really put a dent in things” and that in turn “we’re kind of building it back up.”
He also wants people to know that they are getting more, as well as a wide variety of, student programming. Some of this new programming ranges from podcasts, interviews, to even more sports.
Finally, Stemwedel wants students to know that “if you or anybody you know, has a desire to either be on air, either as an out announcer or an interviewer, or if they’d like to work in audio production or really in any of the capacities of just kind of running a a small radio station, they can contact us and, you know, we’d welcome them aboard.”
For inquiries about how to get started at KSDJ please contact Brian Stemwedel at [email protected].
