Henry Santoro is one of the voices of the legendary WFNX station. 101.7 was in its day the ultimate alternative radio station. Santoro helped build 101.7 into what it is today. In an interview he told me that he was the second person that was hired when the WFNX was es- tablished in 1983. Santoro has been covering rock and roll news for over 20 years and has had extensive expe- rience with commercial and college ra- dio which are distinctly different from each other including the listening au- dience. Santoro has also had the unique ex- perience of being involved in a station that is responsible for popularizing some amazing and influential bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Nir- vana. We talked about how he was one of the architects of WFNX and how they helped influence what it means to be a radio station. He was and still is very involved in the alternative radio scene, “I’m not only the guy in the newsroom who has done news for a rock and roll audience my whole career; I helped build FNX.” He went on to explain that back in the early days playing music on the radio was much more of an art. He even re- ferred to disc jockeys of the time as Mu- sicologists. Santoro went on to explain that modern radio utilizes computer programs and other technologies in- stead of having the radio personalities spin the records themselves. “You put the songs that you want to play into the system and you tell it how many times you want it to play,” said Santoro. He continued, “In the early days, before cds of course, you could play whatever you wanted. That’s what the early days of rock radio were; going into deep cuts and playing the songs you wanted to play.” Santoro got frank about what the business of radio really is, “We are re- ally in the business of playing com- mercials. We don’t want to play too many but we want to play enough to pay the bills. We’re fighting for add dollars just like every other station. Without them we wouldn’t get paid. The key thing for radio programmers is to not let the public know that.” I think we take for granted the great historical importance Boston and FNX has had on music. “We were the first commercial station in the country to play Beck… we were the first to play The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Green day, we broke Nirvana. Matter of fact Kurt Cobain used to love hang- ing around FNX. It wasn’t uncommon to walk out of one of our studios and there he would be sitting on the coach, just hanging out.” The UMASS radio station, WUMB seems to disapprove of giving students air time and I asked Santoro what his opinion was on the fact that our col- lege radio station doesn’t really allow college students airtime. “I’m not sure how I feel about that; I think if you have a college radio station you need to set aside time for students to broadcast on it. That’s how I got my start.” A lot of people might consider college radio completely different from its commercial counterpart, but Santoro assured me they aren’t so different. “College radio and commercial radio have never been closer than they are right now. Take a look at your radio sta- tion at UMASS; UMB is a spectacular radio station. You’ve got professional announcers on that radio station but it’s listed and classified as a college ra- dio station. You’ve got Albert O., who is one of the top announcers in town, Dick Pleasants, who is just a legendary broadcaster in the folk circles, and Meg Griffin, who does nights now and she’s a national legend.” He explained how both of these types of radio are there to sell ad time. The real difference is that because college has fewer things to pay, for example salaries, so they don’t chase the ad time as vigorously. “We’re fighting for ad dollars just like every other radio station in town; EEI uses sports to sell advertising, we use music.”