Category: Announcements: What a Terrible Way to Die

You are welcome here

The window of our studio says it all: You are welcome here.

It should go without saying, but LGBTQ+ people are safe and celebrated on this show.

So are Black and BIPOC people. So are immigrants.

You all matter. You’re all Americans. And unless someone kicks me off of the radio, you’re all welcome here.

And if they kick me off the radio, I’ll be out in the parking lot, you can hang out with me there. Bring beer. Straub or Iron City are fine.

Actually, a bag of ice, a bottle of Grant’s and some paper cups. Luckily I’m a cheap drunk. Bottom-shelf blended stuff is fine.

Underwriting needed for WRCT

You may have heard the announcement, “Send your generous cash donation to Jay Thurber, care of WRCT, Pittsburgh.” That’s a joke recorded by a friend of the show, former WQED-TV announcer Glenn Tryon, who also does many of the other announcements you hear during the show.

BUT: All seriousness aside, Radio 9 lost its only underwriter recently. WRCT doesn’t have pledge drives, but it does need financial support.

If you or your business would like to get your message announced during Radio 9 (or another WRCT show), please contact me, or email Eden Weingart directly at pr@wrct.org.

Underwriting on WRCT is very affordable and it does reach an audience that otherwise doesn’t hear commercial messages. It’s a great opportunity for:

  • small start-up companies,
  • home-based businesses,
  • stores,
  • restaurants,
  • unions,
  • school groups,
  • churches,
  • and other organizations that need promotion, but can’t afford a lot of advertising.

For instance: Are you doing income tax preparation right now? If you underwrite on WRCT, we’ll announce your name and contact information.

Is your church or fire department having a lenten fish fry? In exchange for a small donation (and maybe some fish sammiches!), WRCT can make sure to announce that as well.

Anyway: Thanks for supporting WRCT!

Ring in the old (1971) on New Year’s Eve

Nostalgic for the AMC Gremlin, Spiro Agnew and “The Flip Wilson Show”? Of course you aren’t. Ready or not, WRCT-FM (88.3) will take listeners back to Dec. 31, 1971, this New Year’s Eve, beginning at 9 p.m.

In what has become a dubious New Year’s radio tradition in Pittsburgh dating back nearly 10 years, WRCT’s resident oldies guru, Jay Thurber, will again roll back the clock four decades, beginning at 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 31. The broadcast also will be heard online at www.wrct.org.

WRCT’s time-traveling sports car (well, actually, it’s a Dodge Dart Demon) will rev its slant-six-powered flux capacitor up to 88.3 MPH and head for Carnegie Mellon’s old student union, Skibo Hall, in the era when the station was still at 900 kHz AM.

Thurber, an aspiring elderly crank, will count down the top songs of 1971, interspersed with news reports, commercials and other announcements from the Pittsburgh of December 1971.

Even the audio — in glorious low-fi mono — will sound like 1971. No HD, IBOC or 5.1-channel digital sound here, even though WRCT is based at one of the nation’s leading research universities. (Please don’t tell the National Science Foundation that we’re setting back progress 40 years.)

The “number one song of 1971” will be unveiled at 12 midnight. (Don’t worry — WRCT will tell you exactly when the New Year 1972 … er, 2012 … arrives.)