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Salem State University has surrendered the license of 91.7 WMWM Salem MA

WMWM was best known here as RaccoonRadio (Bob Nelson)'s longtime home. I didn't realize it had gone silent. Did WMWM get much student participation, or was most of its programming hosted by local volunteers or retired radio professionals?
 
CTListener said:
WMWM was best known here as RaccoonRadio (Bob Nelson)'s longtime home. I didn't realize it had gone silent. Did WMWM get much student participation, or was most of its programming hosted by local volunteers or retired radio professionals?
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This is a schedule from a few years ago, but it doesn't say whether the hosts of the different shows are students or not. They had a lot of different shows though:
wmwmsalem.weebly.com

Schedule

Funky Fridays with Hannah Enjoy Funky Friday's with alternative, classic rock, funk, hip hop and me, Hannah! Underachievers Morning Show Anything goes variety show that plays everything from...
wmwmsalem.weebly.com
 
As has been the case all spring and summer, they are still on with a dead carrier, including RDS showing ID!
 
CTListener said:
So the transmitter still puts out a signal, including RDS? How, exactly, has it "failed"? Could Salem State be in trouble for telling the FCC that it had?
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I wonder if they had the studio in a separate area of the campus and had a STL of some sort to get the programming from the studio to the transmitter. If so, perhaps that STL transmitter failed...
 
CTListener said:
WMWM was best known here as RaccoonRadio (Bob Nelson)'s longtime home. I didn't realize it had gone silent. Did WMWM get much student participation, or was most of its programming hosted by local volunteers or retired radio professionals?
Click to expand...
I believe they threw out the local volunteers (including Bob) who moved to streaming at northofbostonradio.com. Looks like that wasn't a great move by the college, and the loss of those volunteers may have lead to the station's demise.
 
jlehmann said:
I believe they threw out the local volunteers (including Bob) who moved to streaming at northofbostonradio.com. Looks like that wasn't a great move by the college, and the loss of those volunteers may have lead to the station's demise.
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That is exactly what happened.
 
jlehmann said:
The station still remains on the air transmitting dead air and RDS, as it has ever since they filed for being off due to a “failed transmitter.”
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Yes, heard the silent carrier & saw the RDS, just yesterday from Lynn. so sad, my first true "ghost signal".
I remember when WMWM first signed on the air with 10 watts, so this is my first birth to death and beyond station in my now rather long life.
Ths makes me sad especially seeing raccoonradio's (and others) past love for this station. R. I. P.
 
A number of colleges are rethinking the spending of money for radio stations when they don't have a broadcasting major. Salem State has a "Media & Communications" major. Here's how they define the course of study:

The bachelor of science in media and communication combines theory and practice, professional standards and hands-on experience to equip students with the knowledge, skills and experience necessary for professional roles in the digital age. Intensive courses in writing, editing, media production, research, and digital design prepare students to work in a variety of communications fields.
Many students earn internship credit at public relations agencies, advertising firms, television studios, and newspapers. On-campus opportunities include writing for The Log, the student newspaper; participating in the Public Relations Student Society of America; working with the American Advertising Federation; engaging in experiential learning opportunities in the classroom; and our experiencing real-world concept application through our EXPECT program.
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The one word missing from that is radio. Thus, they have no need for the license. At 130 watts, it's likely no one else does either.

It was a useful and perhaps fun activity at one time, but obviously not any more. They still have a campus newspaper however.
 
Stormdesk said:
Imho, it's because the oversight the "new" people who oversee such things had no knowledge of a transmitter thingy on some frequency somewhere was on or off or something.
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You jest, but in my experience there are a lot of people involved with the broader communications business who have absolutely no understanding whatsoever about transmitters, antennas, program feeds, or any technical aspects of the broadcast media. All they know is content creation.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
You jest, but in my experience there are a lot of people involved with the broader communications business who have absolutely no understanding whatsoever about transmitters, antennas, program feeds, or any technical aspects of the broadcast media. All they know is content creation.
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If the transmitter stays on for a long time, (and none of us call them), I believe the xmtr will finally be turned off when remodeling takes place and someone discovers this "thing" is on.
Sad though for this life long radio enthusiast.

I remember an AM TIS station was discovered repeating some long ago past event in the DC area on 1610kHz from like 8 years earlier and was finally turned off.
 
TheBigA said:
They still have a campus newspaper however.
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not really. that morphed into an "online only" version about 8 years back. actual hardcopy newspaper disappeared after 1-2 years of neglect.

are we seeing the same for WM? will continue on as a streaming "station", and terrestrial be damned?
 
After Salem State let all the community volunteer DJ's go a couple of years ago, it was briefly only a few scattered student shows and lots of automated music, followed by a year or so of the transmitter on with a dead carrier.

That was far from "full steam", but if they plan to continue streaming only, I hope they can resurrect it as a valid outlet for the students to do live online radio, more than automated music most of the time.

The school obviously had no intention of allowing the community volunteers to continue a couple of years ago, though many of them were dedicated longtime DJ's, hosts, producers and support staff that kept the station running. I assume Salem State no longer wants any future community involvement at the station, even as streaming only, though I don't know their reasoning for that. Many other volunteer college stations co-exist with a mix of students and community volunteers.

Many of those former WMWM community DJ's formed their own online station North of Boston Radio.
 
I wonder if the most ambitious (imperialistic, in the eyes of some) station of one of Massachusetts' state schools, UMass Boston' WUMB, will be cutting back or even leaving the air in the near future. When I'd visit family in Swampscott years back, I always resented WMWM because its splatter from 91.7 would wipe out WUMB there.
 


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