Baylor University To Cease Funding KWBU-FM
Baylor University will stop funding its Brazos Valley Public Broadcasting Foundation's Public News/Talk 103.3 KWBU-FM Waco TX. In a statement
radioinsight.com
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Baylor pulling funding from KWBU
- Thread starter Mediafrog+
- Start date
radioinsight.com
Not sure if this link will work for anyone because of the aggressive paywalling, but the local newspaper, who is apparently a very big fan of KWBU, has some additional details and quotes... Baylor University cuts its $200K cash funding for KWBU
Seems rather abrupt. The station is now seeking to replace the Baylor money:
Looking at their budget, another big source of revenue is CPB, and that money may also go away this year:
There's a big gap between the number of listeners and the number of paid members. They're hoping to close that gap.
Looking at their budget, another big source of revenue is CPB, and that money may also go away this year:
There's a big gap between the number of listeners and the number of paid members. They're hoping to close that gap.
Deja Vu all over again, as Baylor operated PBS KWBU-TV Channel 34 from 2000-11, before ditching it due to funding issues. The station had previously been KCTF 1989-2000 and was briefly KDYW in 2011 during an aborted sale to Daystar.
The Waco-Temple market has actually lost two PBS stations, as KNCT/46 was sold to Gray Media in 2018. The area is served via video providers with PBS stations KLRU out of Austin or KERA-TV in DFW.
en.wikipedia.org
The Waco-Temple market has actually lost two PBS stations, as KNCT/46 was sold to Gray Media in 2018. The area is served via video providers with PBS stations KLRU out of Austin or KERA-TV in DFW.
KDYW - Wikipedia
Deja Vu all over again, as Baylor operated PBS KWBU-TV Channel 34 from 2000-11, before ditching it due to funding issues. The station had previously been KCTF 1989-2000 and was briefly KDYW in 2011 during an aborted sale to Daystar.
The Waco-Temple market has actually lost two PBS stations, as KNCT/46 was sold to Gray Media in 2018. The area is served via video providers with PBS stations KLRU out of Austin or KERA-TV in DFW.
KDYW - Wikipedia
Or if you're lucky... College Station/Bryan's KAMU-TV from Texas A&M Univ.
Pertinent to this conversation is that Waco was one of the cities that had spectrum available in last year's non-commercial educational tv application window.
There was one applicant (channel 20) and it was Capital of Texas Public Telecommunications Council, licensee of PBS member-station KLRN in Austin.
That application was granted last month. The application shows it operating from KXXV's tower in Moody halfway between Waco and Temple at 465 m HAAT, with some strong nulling to the south and southwest. It looks like it will likely have some coverage in eastern Bell County (Temple/Belton), but will be marginal at best in the Killeen area.
KNCT TV used to operate south of Killeen and didn't have much coverage in Waco before Gray bought it and moved it to Moody.
KWBU TV (also on channel 20), which was previously KCTF and ended its life as KDYW started off in Waco proper and was later moved to a shorter tower in Moody. It didn't have a great coverage.
Independent Public television seems like a hard road, especially in smaller markets. Even more so if you don't coverage huge portions of the market. Maybe that was less of problem when everyone had cable/satellite. Perhaps in this situation, whatever coverage in Killeen that is missed will be made up by KLRN's existing coverage.
I'm somewhat optimistic that this new station, running as a satellite of KLRN, has a good chance of making it on air and being successful part of their network.
Circling back around to KWBU FM, I wonder if a similar future might eventually be in store if the fundraising doesn't dramatically change. There is a lot of expense that would disappear immediately if it was running as a satellite of KERA FM (which has operated translators in Tyler and Wichita Falls), KUT (KUT actually applied for an FM in Waco in the late 90s, before KWBU became NPR. That spectrum ultimately was awarded to AFR and is now KWAA), or Texas Public Radio.
There was one applicant (channel 20) and it was Capital of Texas Public Telecommunications Council, licensee of PBS member-station KLRN in Austin.
That application was granted last month. The application shows it operating from KXXV's tower in Moody halfway between Waco and Temple at 465 m HAAT, with some strong nulling to the south and southwest. It looks like it will likely have some coverage in eastern Bell County (Temple/Belton), but will be marginal at best in the Killeen area.
KNCT TV used to operate south of Killeen and didn't have much coverage in Waco before Gray bought it and moved it to Moody.
KWBU TV (also on channel 20), which was previously KCTF and ended its life as KDYW started off in Waco proper and was later moved to a shorter tower in Moody. It didn't have a great coverage.
Independent Public television seems like a hard road, especially in smaller markets. Even more so if you don't coverage huge portions of the market. Maybe that was less of problem when everyone had cable/satellite. Perhaps in this situation, whatever coverage in Killeen that is missed will be made up by KLRN's existing coverage.
I'm somewhat optimistic that this new station, running as a satellite of KLRN, has a good chance of making it on air and being successful part of their network.
Circling back around to KWBU FM, I wonder if a similar future might eventually be in store if the fundraising doesn't dramatically change. There is a lot of expense that would disappear immediately if it was running as a satellite of KERA FM (which has operated translators in Tyler and Wichita Falls), KUT (KUT actually applied for an FM in Waco in the late 90s, before KWBU became NPR. That spectrum ultimately was awarded to AFR and is now KWAA), or Texas Public Radio.
The problem is that Baylor pulled its funding, but retained its ownership share.
Actually it’s KLRU in Austin. KLRN is in San Antonio.
Though if you are a boomer like me, you remember when KLRN served both Austin and San Antonio on Channel 9 from a tower northwest of New Braunfels. That was from 1962-79. KLRU/18 went on the air from the Austin tower farm in 1979, and the KLRN/9 signal was moved into San Antonio a few years later.
KNCT/46 was on the same tower as the then co-owned 91.3 FM. Both stations made it into Austin; I recall receiving both of them on their joint first day of operation in 1970. The TV signal was marginal but viewable at my then location around 48 miles away.
I’m surprised that a call letter change for the TV wasn’t stipulated when Central Texas College sold it to Gray/KWTX.
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The university press release, which appears to be the only source of information on this currently available, does not say why - now - all of a sudden - the university, which owns the station, does not want to chip in any more?
Is the university in financial trouble?
Or is this a political decision? Baylor is a Southern Baptist university. The Southern Baptist Convention is among the most conservative "evangelical" denominations both dogmatically and politically. The religious right is not exactly a fan of NPR. The station carries Morning Edition and All Things Considered, plus audio from the PBS Newshour and Fresh Air.
Besides, this is Texas, where universities expel students for not standing up for "Oh say can you see..."
Is the university in financial trouble?
Or is this a political decision? Baylor is a Southern Baptist university. The Southern Baptist Convention is among the most conservative "evangelical" denominations both dogmatically and politically. The religious right is not exactly a fan of NPR. The station carries Morning Edition and All Things Considered, plus audio from the PBS Newshour and Fresh Air.
Besides, this is Texas, where universities expel students for not standing up for "Oh say can you see..."
Perhaps. I just posted a story that South Carolina Public Radio announced it will be cutting back on NPR programming:
South Carolina public broadcaster to reduce NPR programming
South Carolina Public Radio aims to air more local programming.
current.org
The stations are owned by the state government. They claim it's not political. The stations are very dependent on the network feed. They receive about $3 million in CPB funding. That funding doesn't require carrying NPR. They can use that money for any programming, including local. Same with KWBU.
The other thing that's happening nationally is colleges and universities are getting out of the broadcast radio business. They're either selling to EMF or to local community groups. It's happening regardless of the programming.
I knew that and had a mental slip. Thanks for clarifying it to the others.
Where I lived for many years, on national holidays, the national anthem was played before every movie and theater show. Anyone who did not stand and, preferably, put their hand over their heart, would be removed and arrested. Those dates honored Independence and the various battles and heroes who achieved it, irrespective of how good or bad the current leaders were.
And all radio stations played the national anthem several times on those days.
BTW NPR recently signed a deal with the Religion News Service:
NPR, Religion News Service Form New Reporting Partnership.
NPR says it has created a partnership with Religion News Service (RNS) “to report on the impact of religion in our public and personal lives.” The new alliance will be
It might surprise people to learn that NPR has had a reporter covering religion for over 30 years.
The local newspaper article I linked to above does explain a lot more of the thinking behind the decision. Unfortunately, the paywall is blocking everyone. If you plug in the URL from above into 12ft.io you should be able to read it.
No.
First, Baylor is NOT "a Southern Baptist" university. It is a independent institution with a baptist heritage and some affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. That is not the same thing nor is it related to the SBC.
Secondly, Baylor is marginally conservative on the scale of colleges and universities. Conservative politically compared to Berkeley and Sarah Lawrence, but probably closer to Texas A&M and Auburn. Not close at all to Bob Jones or Liberty. I bet if you looked up their faculty's political donations it wouldn't even be close to 50/50.
NPR has not ever been conservative and Baylor blew up their student radio station in order to create this NPR affiliate. Perhaps they felt that public radio was an important local cultural amenity that would also serve the university's image and add value to the faculty that they wanted to attract.
That's interesting. Public radio stations were preceded by educational radio stations, and almost all of them were started and operated by colleges and universities - for the most part land grant universities. In fact, one of the claimants to being the world's oldest radio station is the University of Wisconsin's WHA, Madison. Some were started by schools of engineering to experiment with then-new technology. Most were started by the schools' agricultural extension or continuing education services. The only pre-CPB public station that comes to mind that was not started by a college or university was WNYC, which was owned and operated by the City of New York (which also has City University of New York and constituent under-graduate colleges). Add to that public radio stations which started as student-run stations and later became public radio stations. Many of the public radio state networks were also started by colleges or universities.
So, if public broadcasting becomes divorced from academia, how will it change?
There were once a lot of city owned stations or stations run by local school boards. WAEB in Atlanta is still owned by the BOE.
I don't think it will change at all. First of all, almost all of the stations are in the NCE or educational band. They're all run by non-profits of some sort. You don't have to be a college to be educational. A friend of mine runs a symphony and he sees his job as being educational.
Unless it has changed in the last 20 or so years, Baylor used to prohibit its students from dancing or consuming alcohol, even off campus. I don’t know all the details, but I would guess it required students to sign an honor code. It’s definitely not Bob Jones or Liberty, but it's pretty conservative. Having lived near Oral Robert’s University and Southern Nazarene University growing up and, after college, being near Mid-America Nazarene, attendees at all of them tended to drink and dance despite prohibitions. So long as they didn’t return to their dorms after curfew and weren’t reeking of booze and debauchery, they generally got away with it. I'm guessing Baylor is pretty similar. I should ask a high school friend of mine who went there sometime. By the way, I remember going to a bar remote with a friend who worked for a KC station, and the bar hosted a wet t-shirt contest. The winner was a young lady who went to Mid-America Nazarene. She had them announce her as Maria Magill, which was not her real name, in case someone affiliated with the university was listening to the station!
NPR also tends to bring in more (and larger) donations and sponsorships, though it also has minimum staffing requirements and such. You're correct that Baylor isn’t likely hurting for cash. Even though a couple athletic scandals rocked the university about 10 years ago, it boasts a large number of wealthy and influential graduates. It has a roughly $2 billion endowment, and the medical school adds about an additional $1.5 billion in a separate endowment. That's nothing compared to the University of Texas, which has the second largest endowment behind Harvard, but a $4 billion endowment would put it in the Top-15 if it were a public university. In other words, it's doing very well financially.
As I said earlier in this thread, the university is only cutting the funding. As far as I know, they're retaining their membership on the station's board, and I think they have a one seat majority. If the issue was programming, they can either vote to change the programming, or make their money contingent on not being used for NPR. There's a bill in congress with similar language. But a lot of universities are deciding to redirect their money towards what they call their "core mission," which is education.
An exception might be HBCUs that choose to hold on to their non-comm FMs, as any sale would result in severe community blowback. Here in Houston, I would be beyond shocked if Texas Southern University or Prairie View A&M were to unload KTSU or KPVU.
It seems public stations, at least in my area, have moved away from "education." They used to run TV courses during the overnight period in which one could enroll and for which one could receive academic credit. No more. Now what they run are tantamount to infomercials.
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