WICR, the Iona College radio station, received four final nominations at the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System Awards.

The four nominations are Best News Interview, Best Sports Talk Program, Best Specialty Music Show and Best Use of Social Media.

Although WICR did not take any wins home at the awards on March 7, getting to the final stages of the nominations was enough for club adviser Michael Damergis.

“Being nominated in four categories was a tremendous honor,” he said. “I think it really motivated members of the club.”

The IBS Awards reward high school and college radio stations for their efforts in 40 different categories. Radio stations are in charge of sending in clips of their best work in as many categories and they deem fit.

Juniors Ian Sacks and Joseph Archino were nominated in two categories: Best News Interview for “Ray Rice Returns to New Rochelle High,” which they collaborated on with senior Ken Reischmann, and Best Sports Talk Program for “Sports Talk,” which also included fellow junior Robert Boncardo.

Sacks is hoping that being a finalist in the nominations will help take WICR to the next level.

“Now that we have submitted and were placed as finalists, it shows that we are putting together good material,” he said. “It is making us aware of the whole side of college media competitions.”

In the interview Sacks, Archino and Reischmann were nominated for, they spoke with Yvonne Wenger, a “Baltimore Sun” reporter who was reporting on the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. She had come to New Rochelle to report on Rice’s return to the city after the scandal broke last September.

“We asked her what it has been like covering Ray Rice in Baltimore but also what it was like in New Rochelle and how the neighborhood is viewing him here,” Sacks said.

Having an outside reporter on a WICR show is one reason why Sacks thinks the show was nominated.

“That’s a really great way of building the station by having guests from the outside and other media outlets come on your shows,” he said.

Currently, WICR is broadcasted over the Internet on the station’s Ustream.tv channel. Every show gets recorded and is uploaded to WICR’s YouTube channel.

Many stations of the college radio stations that WICR was competing against have radio towers and broadcast on airwaves.

In order to take WICR to the next level and win at next year’s awards, Damergis believes the station needs to invest in a radio tower and broadcast over the air.

“My feeling that we need a tower was only re-enforced by attending the IBS conference,” he said. “While I am very proud of what WICR accomplished this year, you realize some of these college stations are radio ‘Godzillas.’ Having a station on the AM dial will help with getting credentials for media events.”

Damergis is in charge of working on the station’s social media through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Because the station is only online, social media is the key way to get listeners to pay attention.

“We’re not on the AM dial, so being online and promoting our club is the only way to get listeners,” he said.

Sacks is hoping that the nominations will help to inspire other Iona students to join the station as well as help to grow the fanbase.

“This is one step in moving towards something bigger for WICR,” he said. Yes, we received nominations, but hopefully next year we can win more awards and that will help expand the station.”