Geez, boys, what's with all the assumptions in this thread? If you ever listened to WOSU (guessing the "how come" subject line is a clue some of you aren't in its demographic), you'd know that they added NPR news magazines in morning and afternoon drive to the powerful signal on 89.7, which had been 24 hr classical music for decades. Kinda had to, since that's the core programming for most public radio listeners.
Having the news and talk programs on AM820 just wasn't drawing the level of listenership they should expect for a market the size and composition of Columbus. That's because it's AM, with a lower nighttime signal prone to lots of interference from the super strong skywave signal of WBAP. Too bad, however, for the scattered rural and smaller town listeners who can pick up AM 820 during the day for well over 100 miles away, and who usually have classical music outlets as their only public radio choice during the day.
And WOSU, despite having better audio quality, has had a hard time beating WCBE in the ratings for some time now. 90.5 also runs the NPR news mags, albeit with different local inserts, and also depends on that as the core of its audience appeal, and listener support. (Its adult alt music format middays has become too uneven in recent years, in my opinion, to sustain the station as its primary programming. And they've been running without adequate staffing for at least 10 years now. Yet 'CBE still "beats" WOSU in the overall ratings, even when they had serious technical issues with their signal (ie, an audible whine over the signal for at least a year).)
With these moves, WOSU will easily be able to become the dominant NPR affiliate in Columbus on 89.7, and the people who lamented not having classical music in drive time get it back on a not-as-good, but certainly not out of market, signal on 101.1 Just too bad the WWCD transmitter is in the south surburbs, which doesn't match so well with the typical classical demographics of Upper Arlington, Bexley, Dublin, Worthington, etc. But the signal shouldn't be too bad in-house in German Village, Short North and on campus, and most areas within the 270 outerbelt.
The bigger, unanswered question for WOSU AM820 listeners is what happens to the weekend bluegrass music? It draws a significant audience for the AM station, albeit one that is largely different from the listenship for the rest of the station's new and talk programming. It's not such a good match for an all-talk NPR station to run all-bluegrass dayparts on the weekends, so I wouldn't expect it to continue with its 12 hours a week on 89.7 when the change takes effect. Or maybe at all.
Frankly, one of the half dozen commercial country stations in the area would be smart to hire one or more of the bluegrass hosts from WOSU, pronto, and offer a speciality show or two on the weekends with them. Maybe not 6pm-Midnight Saturdays and Sundays, as they now get on AM820, but certainly there's an audience, and prospective advertisers, for a bluegrass show or two in central Ohio. And maybe on a nice clean FM signal, for a change. (Tho' I think bluegrass is one of the few music formats that sounds OK on a decent AM signal.)
Too bad there isn't room for an all-jazz FM outlet in Columbus now, as well. It won't probably ever be a "top ten" format, but, then, only ten stations can ever do that, and not everyone listens to the few formats the corporate commercial guys are comfortable offering.
). The station even positions itself as being "anti-corporate" and proud of being homegrown. Vaughan fired up this Grove City class A back in the early 90's, roughly modeled after longtime-success AAA KCBO near Denver -- a station he really admired. 101 just wasn't making it as an AAA, so he took it adult-leaning Alternative, and subsequently more-mainstream Alternative (though still somewhat more eclectic than most). While the local focus is laudable, it's been a very amateurish operation from the start. BTW, I believe Vaughan is an attorney -- not 100% positive.
