WCAS Returning to Air After Three-Day Hiatus

Cambridge radio station WCAS will resume broadcasting at sunrise this morning, Terri Taylor, the station's news and public affairs director, said late last night.

The debt-ridden "alternative" station shut down Friday, when electricity leading to its transmitter was shut off. Taylor said yesterday, though, that the owners of the land on which the transmitter sits had "turned the juice back on."

The station's staff also managed to reach what Taylor termed an "interim agreement" with the station's owners, who first announced plans to shut down the station more than a week ago when the Internal Revenue Service drained their bank account to cover back taxes.

Under the agreement, volunteers will be allowed to go on the air despite union guidelines that normally permit only guild members to broadcast.

The station's staff, which has been trying to raise money through benefit concerts and donations to cover the station pavroll, still has yet to reach an accord with the owners over responsibility for operating expenses, like phone bills, Taylor said.

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Owner Daniel J. Murphy, who is attempting to get FCC approval to sell the station's license, was unavailable for comment last night.

Since the IRS action, station staffers and community residents have been working around the clock to raise money needed to keep the station on the air.

Advertising sales have gone up dramatically in the last two weeks, Taylor said, adding that the response from businesses has been "incredible, just beyond belief."

And the concerts and other benefits raised $6000, enough to cover the payroll for two weeks, Taylor added. "Forty checks came in the mail just today," she said.

But WCAS is not resuming normal operations, she stressed. With the phones shut off and the pressure of meeting the payroll continuing until the new owners are expected to take over the station in the spring, fundraising efforts will have to continue, Taylor said.

The 25-year-old AM station, 740 on the dial, bills itself as an "alternative" radio outlet. Specializing in folk and acoustic music, it is the non-University radio station in the city