Q&A with University of Evansville’s Tommy Housman on Fireside Aces Radio launch
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In July, the University of Evansville launched Fireside Aces Radio, a digital radio station licensed through the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. The new platform offers podcasts, music, sports and live broadcasts at fireside.evansville.edu.
Tommy Housman, communications instructor at UE, spoke with Inside INdiana Business about creating Fireside Aces Radio and why listeners should tune in to the student-run streaming station.
Tell me about your role at the University of Evansville.
I am an instructor of communications. I teach four classes a semester. I usually teach a ChangeLab as well. My ChangeLabs are usually focused on food insecurity in the city and on campus. I’m vice chair of Urban Seeds, so food insecurity is a big deal to me.
Tell me about the Student Media organization at UE.
I also run Student Media, a group of students that do all kinds of different things. We have three magazines published and printed a semester. We print about 1,000 copies for the campus, and then we post them online as well at crescent.evansville.edu. We have a brand new radio station, Fireside Aces Radio. We’ve had up to 10 podcasts at one time, and I suspect that this semester won’t be any different.
We also do photography and video and create all kinds of digital content for different reasons, to use on social media, on our websites and in print. We also have a small little room where students who are musically inclined can create music for their projects in theater or any kind of project they’re working on video-wise.
What is Fireside Aces Radio?
It’s an online radio station. We thought we needed a hands-on, broadcasting opportunity to come back [after student-run radio station WUEV was sold in 2019], and we found a way to do it with internet radio. We talked about it as a group with the students, and I went and got permission to do it.
There are all kinds of different shows, and some of those change just like podcasts. There’s all kinds of music on Fireside. But making the decision about creating it was mostly student-driven. And then we branded it and created it, and now it exists. We’re not getting a lot of listens quite yet, but we will eventually. We need some financial backing, and there’s room for people to have commercials.
The big change will be when we get an app. I have hit a roadblock with the app we need. Our Apple developer account on campus is missing for some reason. Apple has made it very complicated for us to get access to that account. So I’m in limbo waiting on creating the app version, but that’s going to help a lot.
[Fireside is] an opportunity for students to be traditional DJs, have talk shows, cover sports, do interviews, really anything. The sky’s the limit with this. I have a room dedicated to it in my office, but they can do it from anywhere they can take their phone or computer with access to the internet. We can stream live and have live broadcasts. It’s more than just having different styles of music. It’s an opportunity for sports communication students to practice their skills, too.
Besides the app issue, what other challenges have you faced with Fireside?
Music was a challenge, trying to get music. To play music live is pretty easy. We’re licensed in a way that we can just get on there live and play music from any streaming service. We can curate a playlist, get online, be live and play that playlist, and then talk in between just like any normal radio station. But to have music play when nobody’s live was the problem. Finding CDs was complicated.
But other than that, we had so many students eager to participate. We have a wide variety of music on there now. Student Media is comprised of design students, writing students, theater students and everything in between. We even have students from archaeology and criminal justice. We have such a wide variety of students interested in participating, even though it has nothing to do with their major.
It was a little complicated on my side, getting the license, but it wasn’t too bad. Making sure that if you say, “Alexa, play Fireside Aces Radio,” that it worked, but it works now. You go to your Alexa device and tell her to add a skill, and you can add Fireside Aces Radio and it’ll play, which is pretty cool.
How long did it take to get Fireside up and running?
It was actually very quick. All I really had to do was pay for the service, and it was up and running, then we had to start figuring out what kind of content we were going to play. We did figure out a lot of this beforehand before we jumped in. But once we had a basic understanding of what we were going to do, it took about a month to get it all ready and branded.
You mentioned seeking financial support earlier. What’s the goal of Fireside? Are you selling ads? Will the station be profitable?
It will eventually, yes, but to get some actual sponsors would be interesting. If somebody is interested in being a sponsor, going through the [Office of University Advancement] is the way to go.
This is an opportunity for commercial space not only on our radio but also on our podcasts. Our podcasts are played on Spotify, Apple Music, RSS and a couple of other places. We have a tier set up for people to be sponsors and have commercials. We’ll integrate their brand into the podcast. We haven’t done that yet, but we’re ready to do it.
How is Fireside different from WUEV?
The only thing that’s really different is how you get [Fireside]. You can get it on your phone, computer and Alexa device. That’s the direction of radio now. Our programming will be somewhat similar. We’re probably going to have some of the same goals. It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to WUEV. I remember some local people enjoyed the jazz hours.
We have such a large variety of things like that, so many different genres we highlight. We highlight the 90s, new artists, Royalty on the Radio, that’s Queen. Musical Madness is all about musicals like Hamilton. We have an hour dedicated to local listening, R&B, Decades of Pop, where it’s pop music from all over the decades. And we have some hours where it’s dedicated to pop by decade. There are lots of things to tune into and listen.
Why should people listen to Fireside?
If you’re my age, there will be all types of music you’ll recognize throughout your life. Bringing that music back is pretty nostalgic for me. That’s a good hook to get people to listen to the original content students create with podcasts and hear their points of view about what’s going on in the world and what college life is like. Living in a world where we’re so divisive and how they’re dealing with that. It’s an honor and joy to be part of that and hear their points of view.
And if you’re interested in sports, we’re covering sports, too. It’s just a good way to stay tuned to what’s going on the campus, how the campus interacts with the students and how the students interact with our community.