WKSU
WKSU is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Kent, Ohio, United States, featuring a public radio format. Owned by Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media, WKSU's primary signal serves the Akron metro area, Greater Cleveland and much of Northeast Ohio as the regional affiliate for National Public Radio, American Public Media, Public Radio Exchange and the BBC World Service. The station's reach is extended into the Canton, Mansfield, Lorain, Ashtabula, Sandusky, New Philadelphia and Wooster areas via a network of five full-power repeaters, two low-power translators, and two on-channel boosters.
Founded by Kent State University, the station had its origins as a radio training workshop on the university's campus that provided programming for commercial radio stations, and save for a brief hiatus due to World War II, continued into WKSU's 1950 establishment as one of the first educational FM stations in the United States. An NPR affiliate since 1973, WKSU evolved from a university-operated station into a public radio and classical music outlet, with additional emphasis on folk music during the weekends. WKSU's influence extended into Cleveland, where from 1978 to 1984, it was the NPR information station of record for the entire region. After a public service operating agreement with WCPN owner Ideastream took effect on October 1, 2021, this distinction was again made official as both stations combined programming and personnel, with WKSU as the surviving entity.
WKSU's studios are located at the Idea Center in Downtown Cleveland, while the station transmitter is in Copley Township. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WKSU broadcasts over four HD Radio channels, is simulcast over WCLV's third HD subchannel and WVIZ's 25.7 audio-only subchannel, and is available online.
History
Kent State Radio Workshop
Radio operations within Kent State University can be traced back to October 1939 with the establishment of the Kent State Radio Workshop, a division of the university's School of Speech led by director E. Turner Stump and professor G. Harry Wright, who joined Kent State in 1930 and 1935, respectively; both had worked together previously at Marshall College. The Radio Workshop entered into a partnership with WADC to air a series of 15-minute long radio dramas produced by the Workshop on Tuesday afternoons; this began on March 3, 1940, with the program Lunch Room Nocturne, performed at the WADC studios in Tallmadge. Studios were constructed for the Radio Workshop on the university campus that were comparable to a licensed radio station and took nearly five years for Wright to secure; Wright also suggested the possibility of a carrier current AM station for the campus proper. The Radio Workshop also assumed production of a weekly radio program by Kent State faculty members from WTAM in Cleveland, that program was also moved to WADC. One of the last programs offered on WADC was an adaptation of the play Arsenic and Old Lace by the university's theater department on December 1, 1942.Programs did not air on terrestrial radio between 1943 and 1945 due to World War II, but the Radio Workshop remained in operation to assist in war effort purposes; this included a listening hour of classical music selections played for military personnel stationed on the campus. When the Radio Workshop was able to resume regular operations, WAKR began airing the workshop-produced programs on January 13, 1945, and continued to do so through 1950, airing on Saturday mornings. The Radio Workshop also signed on "WKSU", an unlicensed carrier current station at, on April 4, 1949, carrying newscasts and rebroadcasts of the workshop's WAKR programs for the immediate university campus.
Early educational years
With the guidance of E. Turner Stump and speech professor Walton Clarke, the university and Radio Workshop filed paperwork in 1949 for a licensed 10-watt educational FM station. In April 1950, the FCC gave the university permission to build a small transmitter attached to the roof of Kent Hall, and after testing that began on July 19, WKSU-FM was born on October 2, 1950. The signal was transmitted only within the confines of the campus, but the station encouraged people to report reception outside of the campus while they were in testing mode. By November of that year, WKSU-FM was broadcasting five hours a day, five days a week. WKSU-FM's operations were housed on the third floor of Kent Hall with a staff of fifty people, mostly community volunteers and student assistants. The launch of WKSU-FM necessitated the closure of carrier current "WKSU", but a lack of FM receivers and reception issues among the student body led to the launch of another "WKSU-AM" at on May 11, 1953, simulcasting the FM, while Stopher Hall also introduced a carrier current station of their own at using that building's steam pipe system. Neither station is documented to have lasted long.The station suspended operations in June 1960 following the completion of Kent State's Music and Speech Center; Walton Clarke and WKSU-FM operations director John Weiser had been involved with the center's planning and construction process as early as 1954. A closed-circuit television station—also bearing the unofficial "WKSU" calls—remained in operation. On January 13, 1961, the university announced that WKSU-FM would soon return to the air following a $27,000 investment, with hopes of establishing a full-time operation daily from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. However, the initial choice of was challenged by a Cleveland FM station over potential interference. The FCC approved a frequency change to and a power increase to, on December 20, 1961; the former frequency was quickly reused by WAUP, the Municipal University of Akron's radio station which signed on the following year.
WKSU-FM resumed operations in mid-March 1962 with an eight-hour broadcast day, de-emphasizing rock and roll in favor of additional classical music programming, show tunes and jazz; the station also affiliated with the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. WKSU began broadcasting the university's annual "Campus Day" parade and all home Kent State Golden Flashes sporting events were carried live. A third iteration of "WKSU-AM" at emerged in 1964 again as a WKSU-FM simulcast but adopted a separate programming schedule on January 18, 1965. Both stations were placed under the supervision of a student-faculty advisory board, with students encouraged to submit programs ideas for WKSU-FM to the board via an application process.
Campus unrest and the Kent State shootings
WKSU-FM's news department covered much of the campus unrest at Kent State University in the late 1960s, operations director John Weiser later said that the staffers "handled the events... in a professional manner." One of the more violent clashes during this period involved the station itself. A closed-door discipline hearing for two students connected to the Students for a Democratic Society held at the Music and Speech Center on April 16, 1969, resulted in a group of supporters marching to the building and storming it, occupying the building's third floor and attempting to take over the station. One WKSU staffer and a Daily Kent Stater reporter suffered injuries when the demonstrators clashed with opponents outside the center's locked doors. The Ohio State Highway Patrol and riot police were called in to arrest 58 protestors in what Weiser later considered to be his most vivid memory working with the station.After Kent, Ohio, was placed under a state of emergency on May 2, 1970, following a series of riots in the city and on the campus, WKSU-FM was used for a rumor control center for the student body dubbed "News Rap". Called in to restore order, the Ohio National Guard directed WKSU to broadcast a notice the morning of May 4, 1970, banning all outdoor gatherings under threat of arrest, directly preceding the guard opening fire on demonstrating students at 12:24 p.m. that day. WKSU news director Greg Benedetti's written eyewitness account of the shootings was printed in newspapers internationally via the Associated Press. In conjunction with the university, WKSU established an online archive of recordings and transcriptions related to the shootings on April 29, 2010, marking its 40th anniversary.
Joining NPR
As 1971 began, WKSU-FM instituted a request-driven progressive rock format; station music director Carl Monday likened the programming approach to a hybrid of existing progressive rock outlet WMMS and Top 40 outlet CKLW. One particular program, the late-night Fresh Air debuted on April 11, 1971, over both WKSU-FM and "WKSU-AM", developing a cult following over the freeform musical approach taken by the on-air hosts. Still, WKSU-FM's existence remained relatively sparse. By 1973, according to former general manager John Perry, WKSU-FM had only 7,500 watts of power, and was not yet broadcasting in stereo. The station was only on the air for 85 hours a week, and programming was created by students, and scheduled around their class and vacation times. The entire operating budget was $42,000, resulting in the station having a full-time staff of three that reached an audience of about 1,200 listeners but Fresh Air was the only program that actually had an audience. By contrast, "WKSU-AM" had expanded to 24-hour broadcasting in 1971 as an unlicensed station that could operate commercially, able to affiliate with Drake-Chenault's Hit Parade and American Contemporary Radio. To avoid confusion with WKSU-FM, "WKSU-AM" renamed itself "WKSR" at the start of 1976.File:WKSU_NPR_1973_Salvador_Allende_ad.jpg|thumb|WKSU joined NPR in 1973; this ad promoted an interview with Chilean president Salvador Allende.
WKSU-FM secured a $ Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant in 1973, and affiliated with National Public Radio that same year, although an hour-long retrospective on the Kent State shootings was offered by WKSU to the network on May 3, 1971, the same day NPR began regularly scheduled programming. A separate grant from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare allowed WKSU to convert to stereo. By February 1974, WKSU-FM debuted Morning Show, created by Cleveland broadcasting veteran Dr. Bill Randle which featured sports reports from Paul Warfield, who was continuing his graduate studies at the university. WKSU-FM hosted their first fundraising drive over the weekend of April 19–21, 1974, offering in advance to give half of the money raised to relief efforts in Xenia, Ohio, following the 1974 Super Outbreak. WKSU-FM met their goal of $10,000, with the relief efforts receiving $5,000. NPR's gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment process against President Richard Nixon aired over WKSU-FM throughout the spring and early summer of 1974; area representative John F. Seiberling was a member of the Judiciary Committee, further driving local interest. Even with these advancements, the university considered shutting down WKSU-FM in 1976. A fundraising drive in late April 1976 was titled "Backs to the Wall" to reflect the urgency; at the time, WKSU-FM had the least amount of financial backing among non-commercial educational stations by its host institution.
Following the closure of part-time Cleveland NPR member WBOE by the Cleveland Board of Education on October 7, 1978, WKSU-FM effectively began doubling as the de facto NPR member in Greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, with Cleveland earning the dubious distinction of being the largest metropolitan city in the United States without a dedicated NPR-aligned outlet. In July 1980, the station expanded its signal to reach over a million potential listeners in Northeast Ohio thanks to a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration increasing its power to 12,000 watts. An additional power upgrade for WKSU-FM was filed with the FCC in early 1982 and contested by the Cleveland Public Library system, which had attempted to acquire WBOE's license and was competing with Cleveland Public Radio, who sought out a replacement license for. Incidentally, the director for the Cleveland Public Library was not opposed to WKSU-FM's power increase request. A settlement between the Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland Public Radio and the Cleveland Board of Education by September 1982 cleared the way for WBOE's replacement, WCPN, to begin broadcasting on September 8, 1984, ending WKSU-FM's status as the unofficial NPR member of record for the entire region; WKSU-FM and WCPN management expressed optimism that both stations could remain viable and help increase awareness of public radio.