Pictured (L to R): Chris Wise, Kevin Granath, Ryan Beinstein, Jeremy Swiger, Ian Bates, Phil Effiger

As the Web/IT Director at WVYC at York College of Pennsylvania, we have received three nationally recognized awards from the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System last week at the IBS convention in New York City. We have taken home the awards for “Best Sports Program,” “Platinum Microphone Award,” and “Best Website,” designed and maintained by yours truly. This is a great honor for myself, the station, and the college as a whole for doing what we love to do. Soon to be added – “The Spartan” news report about the event, and other various newspapers with this content.

Check it out and tune into WVYC.org.

From The Spartan:

WVYC had an award ceremony Wednesday, March 10th at 5 p.m., where “The Platinum Microphone award for broadcast excellence”, “Best Sports Talk Programming” and “Best Website” were presented to the station. The Intercollegiate Broadcasting system is the sponsor of the platinum microphone award for broadcast excellence. There are thirty awards that IBS presents to colleges and universities.

IBS is the only national organization representative for college and university stations. This was a big step for the radio station at York College of Pa., we beat out all of the colleges in the country including Ivy league institutions, WVYC Faculty Advisor Tom Gibson said. WVYC along with hundreds of other college and university stations, submit entries to an independent panel of judges in Chicago. The panel was made up of individuals selected by the IBS board of directors. The entries were judged on established criteria by IBS. Some criteria included; was if the station had a designated program director, a promotion department, or sports programming department and how effective these individuals and the station were with these positions.

Although the exact number of schools that submitted entries was not recorded, it was in the hundreds. Each school could submit multiple entries. A lot of work went into achieving this award, “To win the Platinum Award for Broadcast Excellence, it took input from everyone involved with WVYC. This isn’t an award just for the executive board, but for everyone that has helped make WVYC the best college station in the country”, We are very grateful for this national recognition, and it is a testament to the hard work that everyone at WVYC puts in every day. It means that what we are doing is working, and we need to keep up the hard work,” FM Department Director Phil Effinger said. On top of winning the platinum award York College came home with Best Sports Talk Programming, and Best Website. The show that won Best Sports Talk Programming was, “ The Sports Take”. The show airs every Monday from 4-7p.m. and consists of Rob Mayer, Kevin Granath, Chris Wise, Pete Pirone, and Ryan Beinstein all York College students. “ I have been doing a sports show now for 4 years, and its very gratifying to know that someone recognizes us as one of the best,” said Sports Director and creator of “The sports take” Ryan Beinstein. The website was a reconstruction project that was conducted during the fall semester of 2008 and was launched in March 2009. “ The aim of the site design was to ensure ease of access for everyone, with the aid of large images in the header section with links to the latest article and gallery, as well as large listen live buttons to stream the FM and AM feed right on your computer,” Web/IT Director Ian Bates said. The site also includes: a live shoutbox, which allows listeners and viewers to request their favorite songs online while listening to their favorite program. Other features include, photo galleries, and promotional event flyers.“ It is a great honor to have received the award for “ Best Website” at the IBS convention. As one of the largest organizations on campus, we have a lot going on, and the website needed to reflect that. A lot of hard work has been dedicated to making the website the best it can be, and it surely paid off, Web/IT Director Ian Bates said.

WVYC has come a long way from when they were first signed on to the air November 18, 1976, which was a live broadcast from the Wolf Gym on campus. The first song played on this station was Don McLean’s American Pie, played by Dave Davies, according to the WVYC webpage. The mission statement of this organization is, “ The purpose and objective of non-profit, educational radio station WVYC, is to offer the York community cultural, informational and entertaining radio programming that is just not available from any other radio station in our area. We also serve as a training facility for all interested York College students to learn the art and science of radio broadcasting,” according to the WVYC web page. This organization has done just that, they brought an entertaining, educational and unique program to the York College Community.