Friday: World College Radio Day
• Over 700 college radio stations in over 50 countries will unite to celebrate the 16th World College Radio Day (WCRD) this Friday, Oct. 2.
This year’s WCRD theme is “HOPE — Always in the Air,” and college radio stations around the world are invited to participate for free. WCRD will also host its annual 24-Hour Global Marathon, hosted by Live365, which will take listeners on a continuous radio journey around the world over the course of 24 hours.
Multi-platinum singer-songwriter Andy Grammer has been named the official World College Radio Day (WCRD) 2026 Ambassador. Grammer sat down with the College Radio Day team for an exclusive Q&A interview, which will be broadcast across all participating stations. Grammer shared his philosophy on maintaining a positive outlook, noting, “If you prime yourself to be searching for the good things in life, that’s what you’ll see. If you wake up and go, ‘there’s a lot of good in the world and I want to go out and search for it,’ then it shows up!” Grammer’s new album, Big Stupid Heart, will be released worldwide on Oct. 16.
Featured artists Jake Bugg, GirlBand!, and Allison Russell have also recorded exclusive content to be broadcast across participating stations on the day, including an acoustic performance by Bugg. The UK’s Northern Sky are also named as College Radio Spirit Ambassadors this year.
“It’s an event where stations around the world are sharing one frequency of humanity: different languages, different cultures, different stories, but one message. We are here. We are listening. We are connected. And hope is always in the air!,” said WCRD 2026 President, Gabriel Menchero, from Frecuencia CEM, at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico.
“College radio has always been a vital platform for hope, connection, and new artistic voices. This year’s theme, ‘HOPE — Always in the Air,’ speaks directly to the uplifting power of student broadcasting, and we are thrilled to have such great content for this special day,” said Dr. Rob Quicke, WCRD Co-Founder & Director of the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism & Mass Communications at Marshall University.
The annual WCRD event is organized by the College Radio Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit, which also raises money for student scholarships and college radio station grants. For more information about College Radio Day and the College Radio Foundation, please visit collegeradio.org. Contact Dr. Rob Quicke at rob@collegeradio.org or 973-356-7631.
