It's 11:30 a.m., and midday host Helen Leicht is almost through the first half of her daily program on WXPN-FM. Seated alone in the tranquil new studio -- John, it's called (referring to Lennon; the four main broadcast studios are named after The Beatles) -- she seems much calmer than a person should be when her voice can be heard by 300,000 people.
After introducing a couple of songs, she adjusts the knob that controls the volume of the big black headphones that are reining in her tremendous mop of frizzy blonde curls.
"Don't stand behind me," she cautions with a dismissive wave.
Helen is a veteran at the station, and like many of XPN's other on-air personalities, she takes her work very seriously. And she should.
Each day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Helen is at the helm of what has become one of the most recognizable and trend-setting stations in public radio, and she is acutely aware of how long and hard so many people worked to get it that way.
Last October, the University of Pennsylvania's member-supported public radio station completely funded its own move to a new state-of-the art facility at 3025 Walnut Street on the eastern edge of campus. The building, once home to a manufacturer of plumbing fixtures, has been transformed to house not only all of WXPN's operations, but also a brand new live-music venue and restaurant called World Cafe Live, which serves three meals a day seven days a week.
Entering through heavy glass doors and stepping in to a cavernous lobby with bright mural-covered walls, it's hard to believe that only a few months ago WXPN's studios were confined to the top two floors of a crumbling 19th-century mansion where squirrels could sneak in and knock the transmitter off the air, and the administrative staff was spread across several abandoned dorm rooms on the second floor of one of Penn's high-rise apartment buildings.
These new digs are cool.
But despite the flashy paint, the slick new restaurant/performance venue, the rodent-proof technology and the pieces of designer office furniture that adorn the new facility, there's one thing missing that most people would expect to find at a college radio station: students. Many Penn students aren't aware the new facility exists -- or, more surprisingly, that Penn even has a radio station.
Today, WXPN is a professionally operated, financially independent, $6 million a year non-profit, non-commercial radio station, broadcasting 24-hours-a-day throughout eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, with programs in syndication across the nation. The station, which was once run entirely by Penn students and funded completely by the University, has evolved into something very different.
WXPN has carved out a niche for itself on the radio dial that few stations in the world can compete with.
WXPN traces its roots to 1923, when a group of students began collaborating with a local commercial AM radio station to broadcast various academic programs from a makeshift studio in the attic of Houston Hall. Things gained momentum after World War II when a group of engineering students -- who'd grown up in the early days of commercial radio and worked with military radio -- established the Experimental Pennsylvania Network (WXPN).
On November, 14 1945, WXPN-AM went on the air and after over a decade of success, added a new FM transmitter extending the reach of the station beyond the boundaries of Penn's campus.
In the early '60s, WXPN increased its output power to 1000 watts and separated the signals of its AM station (which was supported by on-air advertising) and its FM station (which was supported entirely by University funds).
By 1965, the voice of Penn could be heard from 50 miles away.
With this new range came new sponsors, new staff and new studios (at 3905 Spruce Street -- the address that, until this year, WXPN still called home) and a new responsibility that the entirely student-run station wasn't ready for.
In the '70s, Penn, like many schools, was caught in the midst of a social revolution. From its perch at the center of the Penn student community, WXPN-FM became home to several somewhat controversial student programs.
Its most famous was called The Vegetable Report, a call-in show where students openly and often obscenely discussed some of their favorite topics: politics, drugs and sex.
In 1975, the show almost cost WXPN-FM its FCC license. According to the official complaint, "During the show in question, callers carried on sexually explicit conversations with the disc jockeys that included the words 'fuck,' 'piss,' and 'titties' and discussed 'beating off' and 'blow jobs.'"
During one call, a three-year-old boy was "asked if he could say 'fuck' and the boy's mother was told that she should let her son 'screw' her so he wouldn't turn out to be a rapist."
This episode, coupled with allegations of financial fraud and rampant drug use amongst on-air talent, started to attract a lot of negative attention, and when a mysterious fire almost destroyed the station's headquarters, the University seized control.
Almost overnight, a professional staff was brought in to redevelop the station.
In 1979, the Student Activities Council cut back its support of WXPN; students were now only peripherally involved. Seeking a new source of funding, the station's Board of Overseers began petitioning for support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting who reluctantly approved a provisional grant for the station in June of 1986.
But even with the grant, the station faced a larger problem: over $300,000 of its annual budget still came from the University, and financial independence seemed an unobtainable goal.
Like many public radio stations, WXPN needed its listeners to donate money. They needed listeners, period.
Desperate to solve this problem, the Vice Provost of University Life conducted an extensive nationwide search for a new station manager. In October 1986, they hired Mark Fuerst.
No one knew it then, but it was the beginning of a public radio revolution.
Mark Fuerst knew he'd have to build a dedicated listener base for WXPN. He began by replacing the wide variety of student and community volunteer hosts with recognizable voices, and changing the station's block format (two hours of R&B followed by an hour of new age, for example - programming with no common thread) to a more streamlined, consistent sound.
In January 1991, Fuerst sat down with then-program director Mike Morrison, a former WXPN student DJ, to hash out a plan. Morrison, according to Fuerst, was an aspiring musician and "really sensed a format change to a music station."
But what kind of music was still a big variable. They knew they'd need to do a lot of research.
Fuerst wrote a grant application and Morrison created a mix tape of songs. Within a matter of months, the pair secured a $305,000 CPB grant to research and develop new programming for a younger, more diverse audience.
One of the first on-air professionals Fuerst hired was Michaela Majoun, brought in to host a morning show, that, 16 years later, is still on the air.
"What we were doing," Majoun recalls, "in a way, was more like what NPR does, and I think the decision -- a good one -- was made to focus on the music."
The station's Assistant General Manager for Programming, Bruce Warren, came to WXPN shortly after Michaela.
Like many other characters at the station, Warren possesses a passionate intensity for his work. He wears comfortable clothes and likes to bounce around in his orange plastic desk chair while he talks. Though he has to wear reading glasses these days, his head is shaved and he has a silver ring in his left ear.
When Warren tells the story of WXPN, he doesn't speak with any hint of nostalgia, but rather with the excitement of a 10 year-old recounting a summer vacation.
"I did this world music show in the afternoon and one day I was like 'what if I just played Peter Gabriel?' or what if I just played this or what if I just played that. And every time we'd breathe out a little bit - and make the programming more accessible -- we'd get an incredible reaction from the listeners."
On August 11, 1991, World Cafe, which was based on this carefully crafted mix, was broadcast for the first time. It was an instant success with the CPB, and went in to national syndication that October.
The format of World Cafe, and the genre that emerged from it -- Adult Album Alternative, as it's called by the trade magazines -- became the backbone of WXPN's programming.
Today, aside from a few special programs, all of WXPN's programming follows a standard format with play lists compiled from an extensive central database of both new and old songs by emerging and established artists.
Since going to this format full-time in 1991, WXPN has achieved phenomenal success both locally and nationally.
"We've been through a lot of firsts," Majoun says. "I think there's a sense of camaraderie, a sense of contributing to something really exciting. We have developed a reputation nationally as a trendsetter in music -- not just in public radio -- in the music business, amongst artists, at Billboard magazine."
WXPN's success can best be measured by its membership. As of last year, the station has more than 25,000 members who give on average $121.38 a year. It may not seem like much, but it adds up to almost $3 million -- 50% of the station's annual income.
When the station looked to members to make additional gifts for the new building, the response was overwhelming.
"We made over a $1,000,000 in five days," Majoun recalls. "The phone rang off the hook. This really speaks to how many people feel a kinship with XPN."
"All those discs in the hall," Majoun says, pointing to a wall of silver, gold and platinum compact discs displayed artfully above the reception desk in the lobby, "represent people who've given $5,000 or more. And almost all of them are from individuals.
"It's not big corporate support -- it's people who get it."
Those who "get it," though, are an older crowd.
According to a 2004 survey the station commissioned, over 60% of WXPN's listeners (not just members) are over 35. Few other music-format radio stations in the country reach this demographic so extensively. Serving this audience, the WXPN community has diverged substantially from the student body.
These days few students even know WXPN exists, let alone tune in. For some alumni this disconnect is a controversial issue.
In a guest column appearing earlier this year in the Daily Pennsylvanian, Nick Spitzer (a WXPN alum who's worked in commercial radio for much of his career) argued that "unlike WXPN, hired staff don't run the DP or play Penn sports. University leaders should be asking if a station focusing on commercially-correct artists is primarily how they want Penn represented on public airwaves."
While they're no longer on the air or in management positions, more students -- up to 100 per semester -- are involved in WXPN than ever before.
With guidance from seasoned and enthusiastic professionals such as Warren and Majoun, students have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in a professional environment that never existed at the old student-run station.
"I have two work-study students this semester," Majoun says, "and they are the most resourceful, eager, excited, smart people, and they take care of a lot of stuff, and they've gotten into arranging interviews and interviewing."
Ultimately, WXPN is about the music it plays more than anything else, and it's through that music that listeners old and young find common ground.
Penn senior Anna Black took a work-study job at WXPN her sophomore year. A Philadelphia native, much of her musical taste has been influenced by the station over the years.
"Working at XPN is a music lover's dream job," she says. "One of my daily tasks involved sorting new CD arrivals. I was the first one to hear new music as it entered the station. The first album I tracked was by an artist named Shelby Lynne; later that year she went on to receive the Grammy for Best New Artist.
"I was most likely the first person in Philadelphia to hear her music."
Majoun feels the same way. "I've met so many of my musical heroes," she says, thinking back about her most memorable encounter with a musician. She looks at her watch, and for an instant, her face flushes with sheer panic.
"Oh my god, can we ... are we almost done? I really want to hear this guy," she says, moving across the atrium toward the World Cafe Live, where a 17-year-old local blues guitar player was finishing up his set. "He's probably almost done playing. I just remembered!"
Majoun begins to swallow the ends of her words in gulps of giddy laughter.
"Can we walk in there? Do you want to hear him for a sec?
"People are raving about him, and I really want to hear him"
