The Cornell University student-run radio station is about to get a big upgrade thanks to famed liberal TV broadcaster Keith Olbermann.
Cornell announced Thursday that WVBR-FM will move to a new building closer to campus and into a space twice the size of its current headquarters, a move made possible by a donation from Olbermann, class of '79 and a former sports director at the radio station in Ithaca, N.Y. The new location will be named the Olbermann-Corneliess Studios, in honor of Olbermann's late father, Theodore, and Glenn Corneliess, a friend and former colleague of Olbermann's at WVBR. Corneliess died in 1996 at the age of 39, according to a press release.
Drew Endick, a junior at Cornell and general manager of WVBR, stated in the release that they'll have new modern, professional studios and production editing suites, as well as room for recording live performances.
"Everything I have began at WVBR, and I'm honored to help future generations of broadcasters who'll be able to gratefully say the same thing," Olbermann said in a statement by the Cornell Radio Guild.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, WVBR has been run out of a basement studio, nicknamed the Cow Palace, in the National Holstein Association building, which is about a mile away from campus.
A Cornell official told HuffPost that neither Olbermann nor WVBR have disclosed the amount of the gift, but the Ithaca Journal reports it's part of a $935,000 capital campaign for the station, of which $555,431 has been raised.
"Everyone thinks [Olbermann is] the best person in the world right now,” Endick told the Cornell Daily Sun.
Olbermann was fired from his previous position at Current TV back in March 2012, and is said to be looking for a new opportunity.
According to TV Newser, NBC News anchor Kate Snow and CNBC producer Peter Schacknow also worked at WVBR in their younger years.
"For years, we'd been looking to get the students out of The Cow Palace and back to Collegetown," Schacknow, who's also a WVBR board member, told The Hollywood Reporter. "Keith expressed a similar reaction the first time he visited that location."