KCSB celebrates 60th year on-air
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- UC Santa Barbara's student-led community radio station KCSB-FM 91.9 is celebrating its 60th year on the air this year.
KCSB is the oldest of all the UC radio stations, founded by former student Bill Harrison in 1962, according to Zena Omar, KCSB general manager.
Harrison launched the radio station in his dorm room, and over the years the station transitioned from closed circuit FM and increased its signal strength.
The station's signal currently reaches most of Santa Barbara County and portions of Ventura and San Luis Obispo Counties, according to Omar.
“I never would have imagined that KCSB would have evolved into what it is today,” Harrison said.
Most of KCSB's on-air hosts are UCSB students, faculty, and staff who have been trained by the station to produce a radio show and broadcast live.
Omar said that Harrison recently dropped in to a KCSB news journalism workshop and "marveled that the station he founded in a dorm room six decades ago now has a news department, and conducts training sessions for the next generation of broadcast journalists."
KCSB's studios have sat at the bottom of Storke Tower for the past several decades, and the station's hosts have covered some of the community's most historical events.
"From the 1970s student demonstrations culminating in the Bank of America burning in Isla Vista, to providing daily COVID-19 news updates and an email newsletter early into the pandemic," Omar said.
"Through the COVID newsletter, delivered to 28,000 UCSB undergraduate students, KCSB formed a direct bond and connection with the greater student community, who during remote instruction learned that the on-campus radio station had over the years become a true multimedia institution."
The station is planning events to celebrate its anniversary, including an annual fund drive starting Wednesday and running until Feb. 18, and a KCSB programmer reunion in April.
During the 10-day fund drive, listeners are encouraged to pledge their support for the station and can donate online at kcsb.org/donate.
Donors will have the opportunity to select a thank you gift, which can include KCSB-branded merchandise, Omar said.
“The theme of the Fund Drive is Soup,” explained Omar. “I like to think of KCSB as one big, warm, melting pot with regards to both our rich content and unique community. We wanted to call back to Andy Warhol’s Campbell soup can painting from 1962 — the same year that KCSB was founded sixty years ago.”
The KCSB reunion will be held in late April at the Storke Tower courtyard, and everyone who has been involved with the station over the past 60 years is invited to attend, Omar said.
