Silent ‘Voice’ may be back at BU

If you haven’t noticed, Belmont is a very musical school. So, where’s the radio station to showcase that music?

Three years ago, Belmont had a radio station called The Voice; but after student participation dropped to almost nothing the university disbanded it.

Recently a few students, Andrew Casey, Tiffany Portis, Abbey Francis and Justin Shaffer, have spoken out about their interest and are trying to get it re-started.

Rewind three years

Richard Tiner, a Belmont professor and the last faculty adviser for The Voice, helped run the station before it was disbanded. He was in charge since it was established in 1997.

The Voice was started as a student organization, designed to give students lab experience and an outlet to showcase Belmont’s talent.

This meant it was driven by student involvement, was not for a grade and all the music on the station was either written, produced or performed by Belmont students, faculty or alumni.

The Voice was never actually available on an AM or FM station but only through the Belmont cable television station. Eventually listeners were able to stream radio programming online as well.

The biggest problem it had wasn’t where students could listen, but rather who would participate each fall. Due to people graduating every semester and the fall bringing in freshmen, there was a completely new staff every year. This brought new ideas and excitement, but also the chance of less people wanting to participate.

That’s exactly what happened three years ago. Student participation dwindled to near nothing.

It was  like “the perfect storm” as Tiner put it. At the same time, Congress was debating royalties translating to more expenses for The Voice and Belmont no longer needed The Voice to stream broadcasts of sporting events because another company offered it for less.

At first The Voice went on hiatus, but when students didn’t speak up it was officially disbanded.

“It was really tough for me because it was sort of my baby,” said Tiner.

Facebook Revival

Now, three years and several Facebook groups later, The Voice has a demand again. Junior Andrew Casey started a Facebook group called “Belmont Radio Coming Back” while freshmen Abbey Francis and Justin Shaffer, named their unrelated group “Belmont Radio 2.0.”

Tiffany Portis, a senior, is also taking initiative to get The Voice back.

Though all of these students are reaching for the same goal, they’d all like to see The Voice accomplish and take part in different things.  For example, Casey doesn’t like the idea of all Belmont music and Portis does.

“I don’t know if the appeal is there that you’d want to listen to it. Some Belmont music is great. Some isn’t,” said Casey.

Casey is worried about funding and the time it takes to put in to a talk show. Portis would like to be a producer but also knows the station needs a lot of manpower.

“You have to have everyone involved with it for it to actually survive,” said Portis.

On the other hand, Francis and Shaffer have come in with no expectations and have been happily surprised. Francis would like to have more local music to broaden people’s horizons and isn’t opposed to a talk show.

But as Shaffer points out, it’s not about the programming right now. Their main concern is getting it jumpstarted.

“It could be explosive,” said Francis.

All of the students realize they need student involvement and Facebook has been their biggest contributor to getting the word out.

They all say the next step is setting up a meeting in person to see who will actually come out and do more than click the “Join Group” button on Facebook.

Reality

Tiner is all for having The Voice come back – if there’s enough demand and willingness to participate.

He says there are a lot of questions to be asked, expenses to be looked at and where resources will come from.

It’s one thing for students to say they’re interested. Tiner said they have to commit.