WHRB to Broadcast Over Summer For First Time in 37-Year History

For the first time in its 37-year history, Harvard's student-run radio station, WHRB, will broadcast during the summer.

Russ I. Gershon '81, jazz director and acting station manager for the summer, said yesterday, "We want the station to be less a function of the school year than a part of the Cambridge atmosphere. We're striving to sound more professional."

He added that advertisers who are unaccustomed to the college schedule, prefer a year round schedule.

Lawrence J. Jacobson '81, station manager, said yesterday WHRB will offer a simplified and more heavily jazz schedule this summer, playing classical music from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., jazz from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., and rock from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Not Collegiate

"Our audience doesn't run on a college schedule," Jacobson said. Listener response indicates jazz listeners are not Harvard students, but most often people from Berklee College of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music, and other people in the community, Jacobson added.

"We are trying to set a precedent by staying on all year. We have a lot of enthusiastic people right now. If we're going to do it we have to do it this year," Jacobson said.

The station may add some news and public affairs programming as well, depending on who joins their summer crew, he said.

About 20 to 30 students will staff the station without pay this summer, working with a $3000 budget. WHRB's usual operating costs are about $1200 per month. The summer staff will include a full-time salesman to solicit ad- vertisements, a job WHRB members are sometimes reluctant to take on.

"The station doesn't run on people just coming down and going on the air," Jacobson said. He added that staffers usually have to find a job and place to live in Cambridge while working at the station.

In the past month WHRB has had morning and late night programming, and the new summer hours are the final step in filling in gaps in the station's schedule.

"The summer is the best time to do radio," Jacobson said, "Without a lot of academics worrying you it's really fun," he added