WKNC Celebrates World College Radio Day with 24 Hours of Live Content

Written by Eilee Centeno, WKNC promotions director

In celebration of World College Radio Day, student-run radio station WKNC 88.1 FM hosted a 24-hour live broadcast on Friday, Oct. 7. The broadcast included 24 one-hour DJ sets on WKNC’s HD-1 and HD-2 channels, and a 24-hour YouTube live stream.

Normally WKNC follows a format that blocks shows that follow certain genres together during specific hours; however, for World College Radio Day, WKNC mixed up the genres to better celebrate the diversity of college radio. Many of the DJs stepped outside of the normal genres they play to expand their music range.

Caitlin Carroll, WKNC’s content manager and a fourth-year student studying communications, started off WKNC’s World College Radio Day at midnight with a special electronic music set, different from her normal sets where she plays indie rock music. Jaden Abrams, a third-year student and the chainsaw/heavy metal music director at WKNC, closed out the 24 hours with a metal and hardcore set.

Erie Mitchell is a third-year student studying electrical and computer engineering who also serves as the local (North Carolina) music director and interview content creator at WKNC. She normally plays sets in the after hours (electronic) genre block, but for World College Radio Day played a 2 a.m. HD-1 set of songs from movie scores and soundtracks. Like her normal after hours sets, she live mixed this one as well.

“I played songs from movies like Trainspotting, Blade Runner 2049, Mandi and more,” Mitchell said. “It was a lot of fun, and there were a few people up and around during the set. I also did a harsh noise set on HD-2 at 5 a.m.”

In the production room at WKNC, staff hosted different hour-long segments for WKNC’s YouTube channel. The live stream featured WKNC staff making buttons, ranking curse words they can’t say on air, playing the game “Among Us” and more.

Adrian Lopez, WKNC’s program director, was very excited by the turnout of DJs for World College Radio Day and the amount of people staying for most of the 24 hours. “The production room was always welcoming and filled up with DJs, which was amazing to see because we don’t often get the opportunity to see everyone interact like that,” Lopez said.

“I think World College Radio Day went awesome,” Maddie Jennette, a fifth-year computer engineering student and WKNC general manager, said. “So many staff members showed up and a lot of them got to meet each other for the first time, which has always been my goal for World College Radio Day — to bring everyone together.”

One of Jennette’s favorite parts of the day was getting to hang out with some DJs in the production room, specifically ranking every single fast food joint for over an hour creating fun discourse that she enjoyed.

Throughout the day, the YouTube live stream had 127 unique viewers with a nearly 21-minute view duration for a combined 108 hours of total watch time. Nearly two-thirds of viewers were not already subscribed to the station’s YouTube channel, which brings the radio station to a new potential audience. The live stream also included 315 chat messages.