It was a time for radio engineering to shine at this year’s Intercollegiate Broadcasting Systems conference.
On Friday afternoon, SBE Chapter 15’s Bud Williamson and Andy Gladding hosted multiple sessions, including an introduction to engineering, a technical Q&A and a discussion on the value of membership in the Society of Broadcast Engineers.
The sessions also included Mindy Hoffman, engineer for Audacy, and Scott Fybush, engineering consultant and U.S. sales representative for software automation provider Broadcast Radio.
These were part of a two-day conference where approximately 850 college and high school students gathered in New York City.
The festivities culminated in a boisterous atmosphere inside the Metropolitan Ballroom, where the 2026 IBS Media Awards were presented.
Receiving this year’s best overall college station award was 91.7 WSUM(FM) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It also secured the win for best college/university station for a student body greater than 10,000.
UW student members Vincent Hesprich, sports director, and Johnny Raider, production director, were on-hand to show off the new hardware. In all, the station brings four trophies back to the Badger State.
Other top honors included:
- Best college/university station (less than 10,000 students): 91.1 WGCS(FM) Goshen (Ind.) College
- Best community station: 90.3 WHPC(FM), Nassau County (N.Y.) Community College
- Best high school station: 88.1 WLTL(FM), Lyons Township (Ill.) High School
- Tom Gibson Award for outstanding radio engineering: Cornelius Gould and Eric Simna, 88.7 WJCU(FM), John Carroll University
Engineering extra
Hoffman is also an advisor for Rutgers University’s 90.3 WVPH(FM) in Piscataway, N.J., and she offered a tutorial to the youthful audience.
She pointed out the visual differences between AM, FM and TV antennas and quizzed her subjects on their functions.
Her presentation also highlighted notable broadcast “tower farms” across North America, ranging from Mount Wilson in Los Angeles to Cedar Hill in Dallas–Ft. Worth and the Mount Royal farm in Montreal.
She recounted a story of scaling the steps at Mount Royal and looking out at its antennas, which drew oohs and aahs from the crowd.
Hoffman offered two key pieces of advice for student technical directors:
- If a piece of equipment is malfunctioning, first check the power source.
- It’s tried and true advice, but if a problem involves a station computer: Unless it is running a specifically scheduled event, turn it off and turn it back on.
As students move into more demanding tech roles, Williamson provided an explainer on the different methods of delivering AoIP commonly used by stations today.
Williamson and Gladding also encouraged students to capitalize on their physical presence on campus.
“It has to be visible,” Williamson said. “Maybe it’s in front of a mailroom — somewhere with a lot of foot traffic.”
What motivates you
Keynote speaker Helen Little shared her inspirational career path, which saw her climb the ladder from UNC-Chapel Hill to WPEG(FM) in Charlotte, with subsequent stops in Houston, Dallas and Philadelphia.
At Radio One in Philadelphia, Little became the first African-American female operations manager of a radio station cluster in the country.
While she originally envisioned a career in a warm-weather market like Miami — a sharp contrast to the Blizzard Warnings being hoisted across the tri-state during her speech — a challenge from an ex-boyfriend changed her trajectory. He teased that she could never get a job in New York.
“That was a matter of someone telling me something I couldn’t do, which is one way to motivate me,” Little said. “Listen to your inner voice. Pay attention to your inner compass and let that guide you.”
She moved to New York as the program director of iHeartMedia’s 105.1 WWPR(FM), but eventually realized she missed being on the air. In 2008, she took a chance to become the midday host of the top-rated 106.7 WLTW(FM), a post she has held ever since.
It could have been viewed as a backwards move by some.
But addressing the students, Little emphasized finding personal motivation. “It’s not always going to be money. For me, it’s the fun of it all,” Little said.
She also touched on modern tools, noting she’ll use ChatGPT for show prep while adhering to iHeart’s “Guaranteed Human” policy.
“AI definitely has a great purpose, but not to make up a story for me to tell,” she said.
The future runway
Little was asked by a student how they could make it to the New York radio market. She admitted that many of her on-air coworkers at iHeart New York have been there for a while.
“In New York, when people get these jobs, they don’t leave,” Little explained. “It creates a bottleneck of opportunity,” she said. “But if you really want to do this, you’ll go where the work is.”
On that note, Saturday morning, a panel featuring Lance Venta of RadioInsight, Sean Ross of Ross on Radio and Pat “DJ Grooves” Cerullo from Loud Radio Pennsylvania discussed the current state of the industry, including for career opportunities.
Venta, who has chronicled radio since he launched the Mid-Atlantic Radio Message Board in 1997, observed a dearth of Gen-Xers at the management level, leaving a gap between aging leadership over 60 and the newest faces in the building.
The few entry-level positions that are available do often involve relocation, and that’s just not appealing to the current generation, the panelists agreed.
“Overall, there is a future-vision problem,” Venta remarked.
But the panel also celebrated the fact that technology now allows many shows to be produced remotely — a major draw for young talent.
Cerullo, who operates his Loud Radio network from home, recently hired a 22-year-old Jabez “Bez Musiq” Carrasquilla for afternoon drive. “He’s active on social media and he has a great following, but the linear aspect of radio appealed to him,” Cerullo said.
Ross added that while “great radio” is harder to find, it still exists. He cited the K-Love network as an example: “They have seven great on-air shows and they present themselves with a swagger.”
Fybush, who recalled his first IBS in 1991, chimed in from the audience. He noted that versatility is now mandatory: “Most successful broadcasters are their own ad agencies these days.”
Ultimately, the conference highlighted that while radio faces the same hurdles it has for decades, the next generation is there, waiting, if the industry at large is willing to offer those opportunities.
As Little concluded in her keynote: “Give them a reason to listen, give them a reason to show up and they’ll do it. When you don’t take care of your audience, they start looking elsewhere.”
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