Key Points

• WVBR is rebranding and refocusing its station to focus on alternative rock.
• Weekend specialty content will not be affected.

Ithaca radio station WVBR 93.5 FM is changing things up. After years of broadcasting classic rock across the local airwaves as “Real Rock Radio,” WVBR is rebranding itself to be “Ithaca’s Alternative.”

The Cornell Media Guild’s acclaimed radio station will provide a mix of various alternative rock music. There will be a number of older alternative rock artists featured on the station, such as Nirvana and the Strokes, but the rebrand will also feature the most popular alt rock artists of today, from psychedelic projects like Tame Impala to bands like Cold War Kids with more of an indie rock sound.

A number of artists who hail from Ithaca will also be showcased and played regularly.

This isn’t the first change to the content on WVBR. It originally launched in 1958 with a focus on classical and jazz music before switching to rock 10 years later. In the years since, the station has continued to add new programming and switch out content to best serve the local community.

“It kind of made sense,” Assistant General Manager TJ Hurd explained. “We had a lot of alternative music on the station already.”

Why?

“There are a number of reasons for the rebrand,” Hurd said. Of those reasons, the biggest one ultimately came down to demographics.

“Studies have shown that the people who like classic rock are not the same people who like alternative rock,” Hurd explained. This sort of dissonance between two different kinds of audiences grew to be a bit of a concern for the station over time.

“A lot of people who still enjoy classic rock are 50 or older,” Program and Music Director Noah Beller said. “We wanted to target a much younger group, 18 to 34.”

The station believes that the refocus to feature more alternative music suits that demographic better overall.

“It’s also a pretty ripe target audience for this area,” Beller said. “There’s a lot of students.”

In spite of the refocus, long-time listeners of the station will ideally be able to stick around and enjoy some of the newer sounds in addition to the weekend specialty programming, which isn’t going anywhere.

“We don’t want them to think they’re undervalued,” Hurd stressed. “We’ve got awesome local shows that have been around for a really long time, stuff that people have been listening to for fifty-plus years. So we’re keeping all of that stuff on the weekend.”

For the DJ

Another key reason for the rebrand was for the people behind the microphone making the magic happen. WVBR and the Cornell Media Guild pride themselves on being a fully independent nonprofit and, as such, many of the disc jockeys are Cornell University student volunteers who, according to the station’s website, “are here just because they love music, news, sports, and interacting with the local community.”

Without people running the station, there is no station.

“We want students to be playing things that they want to play,” Beller said. “And although we did have some students who really liked that they could play classic rock here… the older the station gets, the less likely that’s going to be.”

WVBR can be accessed via FM radio at 93.5 or on their website, wvbr.com.