From between the Delta Zeta and Kappa Alpha Theta houses on old Greek row, passersby can see a neon sign from the third floor of the Pitman Center that advertises KUOI in glowing red and blue lettering, bringing good tidings of great music. This is where the campus radio station lives. The Pitman Center’s third floor houses all the University of Idaho’s student media: Blot magazine, The Argonaut newspaper and the radio station KUOI 89.3 FM Moscow.
KUOI turned 80 years old on Wednesday, Oct. 29. To celebrate this feat, KUOI’s 80th birthday party will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1 on the third floor of the Pitman Center.
KUOI began in an attic in 1945 when UI students ran transmitting electrical wire through steam tunnels to broadcast two hours a day of music and Shakespearean drama. Class attendance was mandatory, so there was no one to listen to nor run the station during the daytime, and freshmen had to be home by 6:30 p.m.
During the first years, the station only played two hours a day on weekdays. This was before weekend broadcasting. With time, the station used World War II surplus equipment and a deal with Big Tobacco to gain a teletype machine.
In the 1970s, the Black Student Union executed a takeover of KUOI to read a list of demands concerning the university’s foot-dragging on affirmative action. KUOI did not put up resistance to the BSU. 1975 marked KUOI’s switchover to full stereo and 24-hour broadcast.
You can listen to KUOI at 89.3 FM or through the web stream on kuoi.org.
The DJ booth boasts two record players, two CD players, a soundboard, a broken cassette player and an old monitor that houses “The Robot.”
“The Robot” is the program the station uses to play music when a live DJ is not in the booth. The walls of the booth are plastered haphazardly with colorful posters for local shows, band stickers, sticky-note doodles and a calendar for upcoming shows. A shelf under a “Neutral Milk Hotel” poster and a wooden 4×6 inexplicably inscribed in Sharpie, “Hail Satin! It’s so soft!” features CDs sent to the station by current artists.
Behind the DJ booth are three rooms filled ceiling to floor with shelves full of music that leave just enough room for a fold-out metal chair between them to reach the top shelf. The music has all been sent to the station as promotion over decades, says Student Media Manager Jim Niedbalski.
KUOI holds one of the largest university music libraries in the Northwest with an approximated 70,000 CDs and vinyl records, but the station was not always the great expanse it is today.
The modern world presents unique challenges to the radio. Streaming platforms like Spotify give users the ability to listen to any song ever at the touch of a button. Freshman DJ Garrett Grube acknowledges the benefits of Spotify for music one is already familiar with, but says radio presents people with the opportunity of discovery.
“I believe art is about discovery, and the radio is one of the best ways to discover all kinds of new music,” Grube said.
KUOI production assistant Delaney Drummond echoed this sentiment. “Being able to tune into a live DJ and hearing them talk about why they love the music pushes me to listen to more music outside my dome of listening.”
Student station manager Mackenzie Davidson spoke of the community that comes with listening to other students, “real people,” she stressed, play music over a corporation’s algorithm.
“It’s a voice for students,” Davidson said. “We fight the man.” When asked why people should listen to KUOI over a streaming platform like Spotify, she brought up Spotify’s policy of artist cuts: Spotify pays artists a paltry average of $0.004 per stream. “No artists were harmed in the making of KUOI,” she added with a smile.
KUOI also serves the UI campus and Moscow community through airing public service announcements for non-profit organizations and playing daily from 8:30-9:30 a.m. “Democracy Now.” As production assistant, Drummond curates and records the PSAs that go on air. “I try to make them as curated to Moscow and UI as possible so the listeners can use the information for themselves.”
Drummond is a DJ, as well. She says she plays all sorts of genres. “I think having a variety of music is what expands people’s love for [KUOI].”
Grube says he DJs at the station because he loves showing people music and because he was told he has a voice for radio. “I have a deep love for art and those who create it, and I believe they deserve to be highlighted.” You can listen to his show “The Little Man” on Thursday nights from 11 p.m.-1 a.m. for music. He plays “niche, obscure, or whatever [he] dang well [pleases]” music, per the introduction to his show.
He can do this because of KUOI’s free format policy. Originally adopted in the 1980s, free format means DJs can play anything they “dang well please.” At KUOI, “total creative freedom is policy” and DJs are not constrained to any genre or Top 40 chart.
With KUOI’s current 32 DJs, the station lives up to its slogan “Where diversity reigns.” Listeners tuning in on Fridays from 5-7 p.m. will hear “Jazz Freak” with EvanJames Mulroy. Just a few hours later, on Fridays from 10 p.m.-12:30 a.m., Gus Trudell-Richardson hosts “Something Vicious for Tomorrow” which plays “heavy doses of classic rock, post-punk/new wave, new up-and-comers, and a little bit of 1990s indie.”
Miriam Moore can be reached at [email protected]