KCPR Ranked Best in the Nation by Great Value Colleges

Cal Poly’s student-run radio station 91.3 KCPR took the No. 1 spot on Great Value Colleges’ list of 30 Amazing College Radio Stations of 2017-18.

The list of rankings was released in September and includes university radio stations such as Georgetown University and UC Berkeley. Cal Poly took the top spot based on its “dedication to the students and culture,” according to Great Value Colleges, a website dedicated to helping students make decisions about their college education.

“Our programming has moved to appeal to a larger demographic on the Cal Poly campus,” said journalism senior and General Manager Brian Robbins. “We’ve really pushed new music in the last three years and we’ve gotten a lot more structure as an organization.”

KCPR was started almost 50 years ago and has grown to broadcast 24 hours a day from its station headquarters on Cal Poly’s campus. A number of structural and management changes within the last 10 years have further integrated the station into the Journalism Department curriculum. KCPR is now part of Mustang Media Group, Cal Poly’s full-service student-run news organization, which also includes a weekly newspaper, a newswebsite, a weekly TV broadcast and a business department that markets to the community and manages advertisement sales. The new structure gives the radio station real-time access to breaking news.

“The mission statement of KCPR is ‘where different matters,’ and we really embody this as a brand across all platforms,” said KCPR Faculty Advisor Keli Moore. “We’re developing our news and podcasts. We are going to start working with PR students to get more brand awareness. There’s a lot of opportunity out there, and we should be using every part of our team that we can.”

KCPR streams live on www.kcpr.org and has a weekly playlist on Spotify.