YSU students relaunch web station

On the heels of the announcement that Robert Morris University is launching a web-only student radio station comes word of renewed efforts at another tri-state university.

The WYRE will go live at Youngstown State University within “one to two weeks” as a series of podcasts according to the school’s student newspaper, the Jambar.

A previous incarnation of WYRE, created a few years ago, was streamed, but the webcast ended as student interest faded out.

A new group of students hopes that broadening the content beyond music will increase campus involvement. “The more people we can get associated with this, the more diverse of an audience we can ultimately reach,” junior Shaun Brown said. “We’re looking at just about any idea anyone has. We will do our best to make it come to life.”

If and when WYRE returns, it will use a new podcasting lab in YSU’s Maag Library. Like RMU, YSU offers courses in radio, TV and digital media, but hasn’t had a student radio station in recent memory.

P.S.: A few of you will remember when 1080 in Pittsburgh was WYRE, the “live WYRE station,” where “the news is instantaneous.” The station was a short-lived Top 40 competitor to KQV in the early 1960s. The WYRE call letters are currently used by a daytimer on 810 in Annapolis, Md.