Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Breaking News Breaking: WRVU 91 Rock Purchased by WPLN, Will Become Classical Station
Posted by Jim Ridley on Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 2:16 PM
The Scene has received word that after months of speculation, the Vanderbilt college radio station WRVU 91.1 FM has apparently been purchased by WPLN 90.3 FM, the city's National Public Radio affiliate. The new 91 Rock will be WFCL — Classical 91 One. It will offer classical music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, freeing WPLN to pursue all-NPR news programming.
A press release is expected later today. More details as they arrive.
UPDATE, 3:09 p.m.: Official press release posted below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Vanderbilt Student Communications and Nashville Public Radio Announce Launch of Classical 91.1
Nashville, Tenn.- June 7, 2011 - The Board of Directors of Vanderbilt Student Communications and the Board of Directors of Nashville Public Radio agreed today to the transfer of the license of WRVU 91.1FM to Nashville Public Radio. The new station’s call letters will be WFCL and its mission will be to showcase classical music and the arts and promote local performances and events. The change in format is effective June 8.
WRVU’s eclectic programming format continues without interruption as an online service and will resume over-the-air broadcast service on WPLN’s HD3 channel beginning in the fall of 2011.
The agreement calls for a payment of $3,350,000 from Nashville Public Radio to Vanderbilt Student Communications, gives WRVU the use of WPLN-HD3 and guarantees internship opportunities for Vanderbilt students in Nashville Public Radio’s award-winning news department.
Vanderbilt Student Communications is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization chartered in 1967 to manage Vanderbilt’s student media. After careful deliberation, which included inviting extensive feedback from the community over the last nine months, its Board concluded the creation of an endowment was critical to ensuring VSC’s ability to service the information and cultural needs of the Vanderbilt student population.
“The media industry is changing dramatically, a fact nowhere more obvious than on a college campus where younger consumers and content producers are gravitating to innovative technologies,” said Mark Wollaeger, Vanderbilt University English professor and chair of the VSC Board of Directors. “This agreement will help ensure for our students the opportunity to shape the future of media for years to come.
“Students and faculty members representing VSC researched various options privately and publicly for two years and ultimately concluded the sale to Nashville Public Radio best addresses the greatest number of needs,” Wollaeger said. “This arrangement will allow 91.1FM to preserve students’ radio experience online and on-air via HD, remain a community asset, develop an internship program at Nashville Public Radio and create financial security through an endowment for VSC.”
Nashville Public Radio is an independent, community-licensed public radio station, originally licensed by the FCC in 1962 as a unit of the Nashville Public Library. Nashville Public Radio, a charter member of National Public Radio, separated from Metro Government in 1996 and has since been governed by a board of private citizens.
Nashville Public Radio operates 90.3FM, WPLN 1430AM, WTML 91.5FM in Tullahoma, WHRS 91.7FM in Cookeville, WPLN-HD2 and WPLN-HD3. All of WPLN’s program services are available as an Internet stream.
Michael Koban, the Chair of the Board of Directors of Nashville Public Radio, said, “The board was excited about the potential for the acquisition of 91.1FM to strengthen our entire organization. We saw clearly how our signature public radio formats, music and news, could reach their full potential for audience service as standalone stations.”
Nashville Public Radio President Rob Gordon said, “This move strengthens our ability to deliver both news and music because it gives us room to enhance and build each service.
“Over the years our listeners and supporters have asked us to establish separate news and music services, which we’ve not been able to do because of the limited number of frequencies available on the FM band. Multiple public radio stations have proven successful in many other cities; now we’re proud to say Nashville can support both an NPR news and a full-time classical music station.”
As part of its mission the new station will partner closely with area arts organizations and present local performances and interviews with artists and musicians.
“This belongs to the community,” Gordon said. “We want Classical 91.1 to reflect our region’s vibrant, energetic arts scene. Over the coming weeks and months we’ll ask area arts organizations for feedback and input on how to make the station a vital resource for the arts in our region.
“We are grateful for the confidence the Vanderbilt Student Communications board has placed in us and applaud the current and earlier VSC boards and staff for their many years of careful custodianship and management of WRVU,” Gordon said. “We are also delighted to offer opportunities for Vanderbilt student interns to experience what it is like to work in a professional newsroom.”
###
Contact:
Rob Gordon
President, Nashville Public Radio
(615) 760-2002
Mark Wollaeger
Chair, Vanderbilt Student Communications Board
(615) 915-4686
Comments (24)
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So now where will we turn for independent eclectic programing? Radio Free Nashville's signal is too week. Can Lightnin' become KCRW or even KGSR? They'll have to drop the Train and Goo Goo Dolls, and Adam Duritz, and.... they may be hopeless. Power to the people. PLN needs to annex one more for us. KCRW (Santa Monica) is public radio. They really should consider who isn't being served with what's currently on the air. Rise up.
We already have a classical station. WMOT took up the slack when WPLN switched to all-talk, a move I can't say I share as a good decision.
Now the shut down the last ray of light for Nashville radio. Shame on them. Shame to all of them who worked to bring this station down.
It's moves like this that take the unity out of community.
A sad day for Nashville/Vandy. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get XM for some sort of college radio in Music City.
Can't wait to roll down my windows, step on the gas and turn up the dial on my streaming internet connection to tune in!
Just . . . damnit.
Oh great, another classical music station. They've ruined WMOT and now another high brow station. Who exactly do they think their audience is?
Could this be because of the interests of a tiny band of perceived Public Radio financial contributors--or is there, alternatively, documented demand--any at all --for adding a 24 hour classical station in Nashville--an identifiable wide audience here, not in other Public Radio locales, demanding to be served and more worthy, somehow, of being served than RVU's audience? Perhaps some reporter could look into this.
@midnitelamp - as of June 30, 2010, Nashville Public Radio had almost $12 million in assets. Those of us who gave our money to Nashville Public Radio financed the sale of WRVU.
I suppose all those taxpayer dollars helped with the almost 3 million dollar price tag
payed for this broadcasting license? Does the Metro budget have an annual appropriation
for WPLN?
@NeverFear - no, Metro does not.
@tinycorkscrew - read the press release: The board conducted a capital campaign to buy the license.
@bmazor - how soon we forget the uproar that ensued when WPLN went news/talk all day until 7:30 pm. There's the core audience right there.
@Ridley - were you forced to "speculate" because they didn't trust you with the truth?
I do remember the "uproar" Hokey. I am asking how large an audience was behind it. It's amusing that the people suggesting that a switch to all digital, multi-platform including HD for this station's format is fine, don't seem to be suggesting that it is and would have been equally fine for the classical music format. So what's that about? And last time I checked, besides PLN, 1430 AM was basically all PBS news almost all day, other left of the dial stations provide PBS news/talk to, and it's virtually the same national All Things Considered/On Point/ Car Guys talk on all of them. Will the "Nashville All News and Talk" PLN be assigning large scale money to the hiring and assignment of news reporters--or did that just go into buying a classical station? Questions.
Hokey: Actually, it doesn't say anything about a WPLN capital campaign anywhere in the press release.
It talks about VSC's board forming an endowment, but that doesn't give any indication of WPLN's role in the capital formation.
So. Care to share any more about the mechanics of how a radio station "funded by listeners like you" comes up with $3.4 million in scratch, other than what comes on top of 29,000+ pledges at the $120 annual level? You really can't divine the source of the funding from the presser.
Once again stoking the conspiracy theory that the people behind the WMOT formatting change are only trying to run the station into the ground and thereby free up some operating costs for its foster pappy, the College of Mass Comm at MTSU. Yes, they couldn't have seen the RVU takeover coming last winter, but even back when they were upping the amount of news programming while reducing the jazz, they must've known they couldn't make a dent in PLN's demographic, much less "grow" a new one. And for whatever reasons, MOT's broadcast signal these days sounds about as sharp as 1960's AM, one more sign that the changeover was never more than a half-hearted move.
to hear wpln beg you would have thought the wolf was at the door.
not only do not contribute,support defunding tax dollars too.
This is all a precursor to the sale of WPLN-AM 1430 which has been for sale for some months. Unfortunately Nashville is regarded as an "FM market" to the handful of broadcasters in this city. AM continues to struggle against similar programming on the big FM commercial blasters of Country, talk schlock and sports. So, the prediction is what it is....WPLN-AM programming goes to 90.3 full-time and the small classical audience migrates to the lower powered 91.1. Preachers will probably be in 1430's future. Pity, as 1430 has never been promoted in a way that it should have been and the low night time power has been the impediment to garnering more listeners. Poor marketing: WPLN didn't even tell 1430 AM listeners when some programs were moved to 90.3. Case in point: I thought for months that my favorite show (On Point) had simply been removed from the Nashville air waves. By accident I found it on 90.3 one day. Now, how about actually telling your long-term Classical listeners that the format is over on 91.1? A newscast alone isn't enough.
VERY not happy about this. The only station I listened to. Gone. Phrrrttt. Now what?
@AndyAxel: You are correct, it doesn't appear in the press release, my error. It's in the WPLN Blog: "Nashville Public Radio’s Board of Directors has decided to conduct a capital campaign to cover the $3,350,000 cost of acquiring 91.1 FM." http://j.mp/iCnmAE
WRT funding, I think you might be confusing PBS' "Viewers like you" with Public Radio's slogan, which I don't recall at the moment. But if you look at the station's 2007 financials http://j.mp/k4XyXV (the most recent posted) you'll see total revenues from listeners like me = $1,463,970 while corporate underwriting = $1,580,186. Listener support is a huge chunk of income, underwriting is even more. It's certainly not the money-maker that a ClearChannel/Citadel/Cumulus group might produce, but public radio is on a different mission.
@AndyAxel: You are correct, the number doesn't appear in the press release, my error. It's in the WPLN Blog: "Nashville Public Radio’s Board of Directors has decided to conduct a capital campaign to cover the $3,350,000 cost of acquiring 91.1 FM." http://j.mp/iCnmAE
WRT funding, I think you might be confusing PBS' "Viewers like you" with Public Radio's slogan, which I don't recall at the moment. But if you look at the station's 2007 financials http://j.mp/k4XyXV (the most recent posted) you'll see total revenues from listeners like me = $1,463,970 while corporate underwriting = $1,580,186. Listener support is a huge chunk of income, underwriting is even more. It's certainly not the money-maker that a ClearChannel/Citadel/Cumulus group might produce, but public radio is on a different mission.
Thanks for the link:
>>>The staff and Board of Directors of Nashville Public Radio explored the opportunity thoroughly over ***several months***, assessing the audience and service potential and examining the financial implications.
Obviously they kept their counsel, as this came as a surprise to everyone not involved in the "capital campaign." That makes me feel so much better about their motivations and the respect that they might have for their potential "audience."
>>>WRT funding, I think you might be confusing PBS' "Viewers like you" with Public Radio's slogan, which I don't recall at the moment.
Gee, maybe that's because they use the phrase "listener-supported" twice for every time they let the call sign ring out.
>>>It's certainly not the money-maker that a ClearChannel/Citadel/Cumulus group might produce, but public radio is on a different mission.
Right. Classical music is "seeking an audience" that is so much substantially larger in this market than people that listen to non-commercial and experimental music. Uh huh. That and $3.4 million buys you FM spectrum so long as it doesn't go to auction.
I would assert that the most substantial difference between the two audiences is not aggregate numbers of functioning and attentive ears, but aggregate income. I simply don't believe that Frederic Chopin listeners outnumber Fleet Foxes by all that much, if at all.
The argument might have been made, but wasn't, that HD radio and online streaming would be appropriate and adequate for classical listeners. It is difficult to believe that the difference was the money that can be had supporting classical music, non-controversial, unthreatening to corporations and foundations, and aggrandizing for the wealthy. Maybe it pays for two FM stations. (All of which is not a problem in itself if it would pay for real local news reporting on the talk station.) The question now is whether anybody with spectrum will step up to RVU style variety and alternative programming. Because HD and online or low-power do not yet equal as broad outreach for audiences as on air; not nearly.
Vandy ITS flushed wrvu.org down memory hole about 2300 on June 9.
In cyberspace, no one hears a domain die...
