The changing college radio model of broadcasting in Ghana Michael Yao Wodui Serwornoo Abstract There is a considerable history of campus radio that is under-developed and analysed as part of the larger community media movement. This paper situates an account of the history and recent developments at one campus radio service in Ghana within an international perspective. Inspired by the notions of participatory communication theory and the ideal public sphere, the paper recounts how a restrictive ownership policy directive issued by the National Communication Authority (NCA) of Ghana led to further commercialisation and bureaucratisation commercialisation of ATL FM, a college radio at the University of Cape Coast. Through a longitudinal ethnographic research, this paper argues that these changes have weakened the prevailing power dynamics and excluded students and lecturers from participating in the core activities of campus radio broadcasting. The surrender of ATL FM to the university wide bureaucratic entanglements and vigorous commercial interests has also empowered the professional management team with distorted incentives rather than the ideals of a community public sphere rooted in active participation and deliberation. Introduction The institution of campus radio in Ghana has existed, either as pirate or de-facto broadcasters, since before the deregulation of the broadcasting sector in 1996. Prof. Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang confirmed in a personal conversation on 8 th April 2009 that by 1991 ATL FM had requested broadcast authorisation and assistance from the Secretary of Information. In 1993, two years later, the station received a transmitter rather than the formal authorisation from the Secretary of Information and continued to broadcast as a “recognised” pirate radio until 1997 when the station was issued with an authorisation. According to Sauls (2009, 9) most campus radio stations globally were started as experimental radio stations, operating on university campuses. In the United States, for instance, before the commercial model of broadcasting was introduced in the 1920s, there was an alternative non-commercial system that included campus radio stations. These radio stations were hosted on both state supported universities and private colleges and universities (Slotten 2006, 486). However, scholars over the years have rather ignored campus radio broadcasting as part of community broadcasting. According to Wallace (2008) and Downing (2001), community radio stations are expected to lift local communities with peculiar content useful to their circumstances. It also gives communities the opportunity to represent themselves in mass media. Even though campus radio stations fall squarely within the frameworks mentioned in Wallace and Downing, they have not received the commensurate attention from both regulatory bodies and scholars. In 2007, over a decade after deregulation in Ghana, the National Communication Authority (NCA) issued a directive that classified campus radio stations as part of community radio. The directive also ordered university authorities that had radio stations on their campus to take over the running of the stations or risk the withdrawal of their authorisation. This move was partly to de-commercialise and stabilise the campus radio sector. Today, there are about 15 campus radio stations across Ghana, mainly on public university and polytechnic campuses.