By: Lathan Gil
From March 28 through March 31, 107.7 The Bronc is hosting its first ever RADIOTHON! Bronc Alumni and current students are teaming up to provide 74 consecutive hours of live on-air entertainment and to raise money to help The Bronc with future endeavours, with the goal being $10,000.
The event was created by two current Rider students, former student general manager Nick Witkowski ‘25 and social media director Emily O’ Conner ‘26. Witkowski said that his inspiration and reasoning for wanting to create the Radiothon was that he saw it online: “It was mostly seeing long marathons to raise money on YouTube or things like that, or streams to raise money. And I thought, ‘Hey, We can make something out of this with the platform that we have!”
He then went to Emily O’Conner about the idea to help bring it to life, and she was very elated to do so. With her background in creating social media for the radio station, Emily really loved the idea, even though she knew it would bring a lot of hard work, “Being social media director, we see what everybody is doing, and we see a lot of stations have radiothons, and I would really love the chance to market a radiothon, and to create the social media for it. It would be a great way to connect alumni with current students … Who wouldn’t want to plan a 72-hour event!” And those are just some of the reasons O’Conner was excited about being one of the co-creators and participating in 107.7 The Bronc’s Radiothon.
Getting The Alumni Back!
One of the main points for having the Radiothon (besides to raise money) is to bring WRCR, WWRC, WRRC and 107.7 The Bronc alumni back to Rider University to connect Broncs of the past to Broncs of the future. As Nick Witkowski says “it is a big celebration of what this radio station has done.”
It was Emily O’Connor who came up with the idea to do more with WRRC alumni than just have them on the air, “I knew we were reaching out to alumni to get testimonials to help us raise money, and I thought this was a great idea, but I thought lets take it a step further and get videos of them at their jobs and videos of them talking about their Rider experience and then we can make that into social media promotion videos!” –
One of the alumni returning to do more than just a show during The Radiothon is Emily Stratton ‘14. She started at the radio station doing an internship. She was a co-host for Sustainable U, which was a radio show for three years on The Bronc. She then went on to become a production director, then the student general manager in her senior year. She is SUPER excited to be participating in the Radiothon because The Bronc gave her so many experiences and opportunities to meet students who are creating content and doing some of the same things she did for The Bronc, now.
Some advice Stratton has for the current Broncs is as easy as this: “Take every opportunity that presents itself. Network, and learn from every opportunity.” Emily is currently working with one of the station’s current co-production directors, Owen Nelson ‘27, to create all of the audio imaging for The Bronc’s first-ever Radiothon.
The Technical Side!
Student Chief Engineer, Owen Mccarron ‘26 is in charge of the training all of the alumni for their on-air return and he has a plan to make their studio experience a success, “We are going about it like how we train our students. We are going to get them on one of the spare boards and show them all of the functions of the board…I have recruited a team of eight or nine other people at the station who will help me efficiently train everybody.”
All alumni will be will be getting trained the day they go on air! They are scheduled to arrive 30 minutes before their scheduled show time to receive their training. According to McCarron, “There will always be a two-person team at all times. One person on the team will train, the second person on the team will shadow them, so if they run into something, the person on air can ask them questions.”
The station will also keep students on call just in case something sudden happens and the person hosting a show can’t make it to the studios on time, so we don’t miss a minute of our 74 consecutive hours of live programming.
The Takeaway
When asked if he thinks the Radiothon is going to come back next year and become an annual event, co-creator Nick Witkowski doesn’t think so. “I wouldn’t say every year, there’s a lot that goes into it, and pretty tough to put together. I think a celebration every three to five years seems right. There would be a proper jump between alumni and students.”
107.7 The Bronc’s first-ever Radiothon starts on Friday, March 28 at 8 a.m. with Wake Up Rider. Now that we’ve hit the $10,000 mark, we’re upping our goal to $15,000! Click here to donate and listen live from March 28 to 31 to help us reach our new goal to maintain and upgrade our station computers and equipment while enhancing our student experience all at the same time.