The Michigan Daily-Thursday, July 6, 1978-Page 7
WUOM celebrates its 30th with open house

By ELIZABETH SLOWIK
WUOM celebrated 30 years of broad-
casting yesterday by turning one eye
back to the live programs that graced
earlier airwaves while keeping the
other eye peeled to the future with a
new studio to produce those programs.
The new studio opened for business
yesterday, broadcasting a woodwind
quintet, a harpsichord solo and other
live classical performances. Despite a
few loose wires, the new turntables,
tape recorders and control board
operated without a hitch.
WUOM ALSO hosted an open house
for the public, which included group
tours of the station's newsroom, control
rooms, and music libraries. Close to 100
WUOM listeners, young and old, sipped
lemonade and sat in on several live per-
formances.
WUOM began broadcasting July 5,
1948 from studios in Angell Hall, on the
air only 30 hours a week. Today, the
studios are located on the fifth floor of
the LSA Building, with programs airing
from 6:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. daily.
Station manager Neal Bedford said
live performances are important to
WUOM. "This is a revival of what
radio's all about," said Bedford. He
raised the possibility of airing an oral
interpretation program like Reader's
Theatre in the future. "It would be very
marvelous in radio ... it would fit."
BEDFORD SAID he felt live perfor-
mances give musicians an alternative
to performing in front of sometimes
inattentive audiences. "It's a chance
for musicians to relaly show their
stuff," he declared.
Live performance jazz is the area in
which Bedford expects the most future
growth at WUOM. "There is a need for
this type of jazz," he said, adding that
the opening of the Earle, a night spot on
Washington, shows that Ann Arbor has
an audience for jazz.
WUOM, together with satellite
station WVGR in Grand Rapids,
reaches a potential audience of nine
million, stretching from Muskegon to
Midland, Toledo, Fort Wayne, Indiana,
and western Ontario. WUOM's signal
travels by microwave to the Grand

Rapids transmitter. The station's for-
mat is 60 percent classical and jazz
music and 40 percent talk shows.
IN ONE ROOM, which is no bigger
than a closet, $50,000 worth of modern
equipment sits besides WUOM's
original 1948 set-up. But the equipment
isn't the only thing which has un-
dergone a facelift. The station's 12-
year-old jazz record collection has seen
an extensive cataloguing system during
the past few years, which is close to
completion. 12,200 discs cram the
shelves in the record library. The new
reference system includes 42 items of
identification for each record to provide
as broad or as narrow a type of infor-
mation possible, according to Jane
Bradshaw, program assistant. Each
record must be identified by artist,
label, date, and other variables with
this information eventually fed into a
computer. Bradshaw said the
Smithsonian Institute called WUOM's
jazz cataloguing the most extensive in
the country.
Added Bradshaw, "Rumor has it
we're the second largest collection in
the country."
The jazz collection includes a 1945
album pressed with a picture on either
side: the Charlie Shavers Quintet's
"Serenade to a Pair of Nylons,"
illustratd by a shapely set of legs, nylon
seams running from thigh to calf, with
the flip side showing a man blasting on
a trumpet.
WUOM IS ASSOCIATED with
National Public Radio (NPR), a net-
work of public radio stations across the
country headquartered in Washington,
D.C. WUOM broadcasts some NPR
programs, either right from the net-
work or tape-delayed.
But by January, 1980, WUOM and the
rest of the NPR stations will be able to
broadcast live from anywhere in the
world, thanks to a new communications
satellite. The future of broadcasting,
Bedford said, lies in satellites.
But he added, "Our purpose is not to
reach a majority audience, but to share
some worthwhile contact."
TONIGHT-S P.M.
POWER CENTER
Box Office Opens at 6 P.M.
763-3333
Michign Rep. Info.: 764-0450

Doily Photo by PETER SERLING

Happy birthday WUOM
An unidentified WUOM employee examines the set of new tape recorders in the
public broadcasting station's new studio. WUOM celebrated its thirtieth birthday
yesterday.
Local feminists gear
up for ERA marc


By ELISA ISAACSON
Joining the nationwide effort to secure
an extension of the March 1979 deadline
for ratification of the Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA), local feminists are
gearing up to march in Washington this
Sunday with women's rights sym-
pathizers from all over the nation.
The march, sponsored by the
National Organization for Women
(NOW), marks the first anniversary of
the death of Alice Paul, who, in 1923,
wrote the first ERA ever proposed.
NOW'S WASHTENAW chapter has
been recruiting marchers, and several
members said they expect a large local
turnout. Carpools, chartered buses and
planes have been organized all over the
country, and all 39 spaces on the Ann
Arbor bus have been booked, leaving a
lengthy waiting list.

The Washtenaw NOW chapter for-
med a mobilization committee two
months ago which has put up posters
about the march around town, planned
broadcasts on local radio stations,a nd
sent information to local businesses in-
terested in the ERA.
"The march seems to me a mar-
velous opportunity to demonstrate what
I believe," said Cheryl Farmer, a
University doctoral student. "I've been
a feminist for a long time-before there
was a word for it."
ANOTHER REASON Farmer gives
for attending the rally is "to help make
history." She assisted in making a 10-
foot wide banner sporting the words
"Washtenaw County,
Michigan-ERA-YES" which will
lead the local segment of the march to
the Capitol.
See LOCAL, Page 14


July 5-9--The Musical Version of Shakespeare's Play
TiWO GENTLEMEN
Of VERONA


The Ann Arbor Film Cooperative
presents in Aud A-Thursday, July 6
THE LAST DAYS OF MAN ON EARTH
(Robert Fuest, 1972) 7 only-Aud A
CINEFANTASTIQUE called it "the best science fiction fantasy film since 2001."
This joke-laden, spaced-out psychedelic vision of the future stars Jon finch,
Patrick Magee, and Sterling Hayden. "Stunning, outrageous sci-fi satire ...
alternately macabre, eerily beautiful and simply hilarious . :. one dazzling
image after another. Brilliantly designed . . . lots of futuristic Deco. .."-L.A.
TIMES. Sax solos by Gerry Mulligan. Plus Shorts; FUN ON MARS and CHOW
FUN, two cartoons by Sally Cruikshank (QUASI AT THE QUACKADERO).
THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT
(Charles Jarrott, 1977) 8:40 only-Aud A
A plush melodrama (with elegant costumes, a tasteful score, and superb
sets) that concerns itself with love and hate, sex and violence, money and
power, and other such things which make the world turn. This sumptuous
film spans two continents and four decades. With Marie-France Pisier, John
Beck, Susan Sarandon, and Raf Vallone.
Tbtfdrkdw: M'f rooks' THE PRODUCER THETWIL% 5 A1R$'

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