Storyline · 1969–1994
The student station WCAR began broadcasting to UNC's dormitories in 1969, and students voted in 1973 to fund its move to FM. The Black Student Movement twice protested to keep the program Black Sounds on its schedule, in 1973 and in 1974. The University's WUNC-FM, silent for lack of money from about 1970, won grants in 1974 and returned to the air as an NPR affiliate in 1976. In 1975 the FCC granted and then set aside a permit for a student FM station after the chancellor withdrew University backing. WCAR went off the air in 1976, and the student station WXYC signed on at 89.3 FM in 1977.
WCAR, a student station in Granville West, began broadcasting to about 4,000 students through transmitters in 14 dormitories on October 7, 1969. The University's WUNC-FM, off the air for about two years, applied in 1972 to renew its license though it lacked money for equipment and operation. In January 1973, after WCAR's board vetoed the program Black Sounds, the Black Student Movement brought a petition signed by about half the campus's 900 Black students, and the board voted 8 to 1 to air it from midnight to 3 a.m., Sunday through Thursday. In September 1973 students voted 1,356 to 498 to release $35,000 to equip WCAR, which had just moved into the Carolina Union, for FM broadcasting. When the station manager cut Black Sounds to Sunday nights in September 1974, the Campus Governing Council urged its return and BSM members brought a 391-name petition, and from September 30 a Black progressive music program went back into the late-night slot. That month Vice Chancellor William F. Little announced federal and public broadcasting grants to put WUNC-FM back on the air, and in October he named Donald M. Trapp its director.
On January 24, 1975 the Federal Communications Commission granted Student Government a construction permit for a 10,000-watt noncommercial FM station, after three years of work by WCAR, to be paid for from the $35,000 students had approved in 1973. Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor then wrote the FCC retracting Dean of Student Affairs Donald Boulton's January letter accepting ultimate University responsibility for the station, saying WUNC-FM was the University's whole effort in public radio, and on February 20 the FCC rescinded the permit and put the application back in pending status. To reapply without University backing, Student Government formed a nonprofit corporation, Student Educational Broadcasting, Inc., chartered by April with Media Board members and four community directors, among them Mayor Howard Lee and Alderman Gerry Cohen, on its board. WUNC returned to the air as a National Public Radio affiliate on April 3, 1976, and WCAR, which had reached only the dormitories, went off the air that spring. On March 18, 1977 WXYC, run by about 65 unpaid students, signed on at 89.3 FM, with its transmitter on the South Campus water tower and studios in the Carolina Union basement, planning progressive rock, local news and sports. In the fall of 1978 the BSM announced Ebony Spotlight, a ten-minute public affairs program for WXYC, and the Carolina Gay Association began CGA On the Radio, a weekly five-minute news and feature program. On November 7, 1994 WXYC streamed its broadcast over the internet, in what UNC calls the first internet radio simulcast.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
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People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
George Curt Scheibner analyzes the audience for public radio by program preference, working from the 1986 WUNC listen survey. Topics include public radio and radio audiences in Chapel Hill, the rating of radio programs and college radio stations in the town. Dated 1988, 102 leaves with seven preliminary pages and a bibliography on the last two.
Interim report for 1977 to 1978 from a select committee of the North Carolina General Assembly on what the University of North Carolina television network needed to extend and improve its broadcast reach, following recommendations from the university's General Administration. Printed in Raleigh in 1978.
A 1978 planning document in which the General Administration of the University of North Carolina set out what the university television network would need to extend and improve its broadcast reach. Fifteen pages, published by the university. Topics include educational television stations at Chapel Hill and television transmitters in North Carolina, which places the report with the university's educational broadcasting.
George E. Bair's 1977 planning paper on public radio for North Carolina, including WUNC, the university's public radio station in Chapel Hill. Issued by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 20 pages.
Transcript of an oral history interview with the chemist William F. Little, recorded at Chapel Hill on 5 January 2007 by Arthur Daemmrich and Arnold Thackray for the Chemical Heritage Foundation and issued in 2009 with later corrections. Little taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the interview concerns the history of Research Triangle Park and the Research Triangle Institute. 47 leaves.
Academic affairs files of the University of North Carolina System, 1932 to 2012 with the bulk running 1954 to 1996, approximately 56,400 items in 73.5 linear feet, University Archives collection 40012. Topics include system curricula, graduate work and administration, name vice presidents such as Raymond H. Dawson and Roy Carroll, and reach as far as the history of basketball at North Carolina State.
Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor of UNC-Chapel Hill stands before the sundial at Morehead Planetarium in June 1973, on a color slide by Hugh Morton.
Thomas A. Bowers's history of a century of journalism and mass communication teaching at the University of North Carolina, published by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2009. It runs 282 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Robert E. Seymour's columns for the Chapel Hill News, gathered into a 192-page book by Chapel Hill Press in 2003. The short pieces offer anecdotes and reflections on Chapel Hill history, local manners and customs, and North Carolina life. Seymour (1925 to 2020) was the longtime pastor of Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church.
Anniversary booklet for the first twenty-five years of WCHL, the Chapel Hill radio station at 1360 on the AM dial, published in 1978. Topics include radio broadcasting and Chapel Hill history, with advertisements included. 20 unnumbered pages with illustrations and portraits.
Anniversary booklet marking fifty years of WCHL 1360, the Chapel Hill radio station, with profiles of fifty people from Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Published in 2003, 36 pages with portraits. Contributors include Roland Giduz, Jim Heavner, Jonathan Howes, Neil Offen and Rosemary Waldorf.
Thomas A. Bowers gave this talk on the beginnings of journalism teaching at the University of North Carolina on October 15, 2009 in Wilson Library, part of the Gladys Hall Coates university history lecture series. It was printed the same year.
Richard Hunter Simpson filmed this seven minute farewell to Howell Hall in 1999. The film concerns the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, its buildings and its history, and the teaching of journalism in Chapel Hill. One videocassette, color with black and white sequences.
Centennial edition of the Daily Tar Heel, the University of North Carolina student newspaper, produced at Chapel Hill in 1993 to mark one hundred years of publication. Jen Pilla is named as centennial edition editor. Topics include the paper's history along with college student newspapers and periodicals in Chapel Hill, which makes the issue a source for the paper's own record.
An illustrated volume, with portraits, published by Village Sports in 1993 to mark forty years of WCHL, Chapel Hill's radio station at 1360 on the dial. Its writers were Jim Heavner, Roland Giduz, Jim Shumaker, Zora Rashkis, Dan Dunlop, George McCall, Lee Pace, Beth Tatum and Larry Stone.
A television news report of three minutes and fifty six seconds by Kenley Jones, broadcast on NBC Nightly News in 1975, on the spelling and grammar test journalism students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had to pass for the major. John Adams, a former dean of the journalism school, is interviewed.
Stuart Willis traces the history of the North Carolina University Magazine, the student periodical published at Chapel Hill since 1844. His article was detached from the magazine itself in 1914 and printed by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Societies, which ran it.
Holland Thompson's history of the North Carolina University Magazine at fifty years, written while he was a student of the class of 1895. It ran in the magazine for March and April 1894 and was issued separately at Chapel Hill by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
Leaflet on the southern broadcast media history initiative of the Southern Historical and Folklife Collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed in 1995. The project concerned the history of broadcasting in the Southern states and the business records that document it. Five pages on one folded sheet with illustrations.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “Campus radio: WCAR, WXYC and WUNC-FM, 1969–1994.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/campus-radio-storyline-1969/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
