You've come a long way, baby.
WEMU 89.1 FM, Eastern Michigan University's public radio
station, started in 1965 as a 10-watt radio station
— originally shoehorned in a television production
room in the Quirk Building — that was on the air
only two hours a day. It has evolved into a 16,000-watt,
24-hour jazz station that is a must-listening stop on the
radio dial for a generation of baby boomers in southeastern
Michigan.
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BOARD CONTROL: WEMU radio personality
Linda
Yohn, who hosts "Jazz in the Morning," cues up the
latest jazz tune as
she broadcasts to her listeners.
WEMU 89.1 FM celebrates its 40th anniversary
with
an open house Dec. 8. |
The influential local station, which has become a prime
sponsor of many local music festivals over time, turns
40 this week. To celebrate that auspicious milestone, WEMU
employees will host an open house for faculty and staff
Thursday, Dec. 8. Station tours will be offered every half
hour, beginning at 9 a.m. and running through 4 p.m. in
426 King Hall. Hot dogs, potato chips and soft drinks will
be available 11 a.m.-1 p.m. (while supplies last)
in King Hall's Multicultural Lounge on the second floor.
"Even though we're at EMU and our primary market is Ann
Arbor, Detroit thinks EMU is their jazz station," said
Linda Yohn, an 18-year veteran of WEMU who hosts the "Jazz
in the Morning" program and is the station's program manager/music
director.
"In my association with other (radio station managers)
and what I've heard of other stations around the country,
this is a pretty rare jewel in public radio stations," said
WEMU Station General Manager/Director Art Timko. "The NPR
president has been here a number of times and sees it as
special. Listeners do, too."
"It's important for people on campus to know that our
influence extends beyond the borders of Ypsilanti and that
we're a solid, positive ambassador for Eastern in other
areas," said Molly Motherwell, marketing/development director
at WEMU.
When WEMU started as part of a broadcasting program in
the department of communication and theatre arts, students
played classical music and taped programs from 5-7 p.m.
weekdays within a small studio that was the control room
for the television production. Those hours were available
because that was the only time broadcast majors weren't
using the audiovisual console equipment, Timko said.
Within a year or two, the fledgling station moved to another
wing of the Quirk Building, residing in room 129.
"When I joined in 1967, we were on the air from
3-10:30 p.m. weekdays. We also broadcast EMU football and
men's basketball, which I think is one of the primary reasons
the University wanted a station," Timko said.
By 1969, WEMU applied for a power increase that would
take the station from 10 to 16,000 watts. However, due
to FCC rules and airwave conflicts with the University
of Michigan and local radio and television stations,
WEMU
was not able to amp up until Oct. 16, 1977. The
station was able to do so using a directional signal,
one that would not conflict with the University of Michigan's
station and limited power toward Detroit in an effort
to protect signals from Canadian radio stations, Timko
said.
During 1977, another major milestone occurred: WEMU
became a
member of National Public Radio (NPR).
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REACHING OUT: WEMU's
sponsorship of the Montreux
Detroit Jazz Festival in the
1980s marked the radio
station's initial foray to
becoming a local fixture in
sponsoring or partnering with
local music festivals, art events
and book fairs. |
While waiting for that wattage increase, the station increased
its broadcast hours to 19 a day after it moved to its
permanent King Hall location in fall 1974.
The station's genesis continued, in part, thanks to Congressman
John Dingell (D-Mich.), an ardent supporter of EMU today.
In the late 1970s, Dingell was part of a group of
legislators who established the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting (CPB). The CPB's role was to provide grant
money to university or college radio stations that would
help such stations transform into full-fledged community
radio stations. To qualify for grant funding, these stations
had to meet certain conditions. These included: broadcasting
at least 18 hours per day, seven days a week, 365 days
a year; and having at least five full-time employees.
WEMU qualified. By this time, the station was on the air
from 6 a.m.-1 a.m., or 19 hours per day.
"This was to encourage educational stations to become
real radio stations," Timko said. "Not something that just
operated at the discretion of the University, but something
that could be a real source for the community."
At that
time, WEMU had some full-time employees sprinkled with
student staff. That employee mix remained entering the
1980s. But, with grant funding, EMU, by the end of the
decade, built up a full-time staff, part-time staff and
some supplemental student help.
"We've really grown up. We really took 89.1 FM to
another level in the late 1980s and early 1990s," Yohn
said. "We made sure that people knew this was no longer
a college radio station. We streamlined and restructured
our scheduling to be more in line with the way that we
know people would prefer to listen to the radio."
While it was bolstering its staff and reorganizing its
format, WEMU also was building its reputation as a signature
jazz station. In addition to its various jazz programming
and frequent guest artists, WEMU began to branch out into
the community, sponsoring and broadcasting the Montreux
Detroit Jazz Festival (now the Detroit International Jazz
Festival) and Frog Island Festival (now defunct) as well
as broadcasting live from the annual Ypsilanti Heritage
Festival.
"We worked very hard to let people know who were here," Motherwell
said. "We established media co-partnerships with the arts
and organizations to bring our profile up."
These partnerships extended to WEMU's Mardi Gras celebration,
the Ann Arbor Jazz Festival, the Music Society at the University
of Michigan, and the Ann Arbor and Kerrytown book fests.
"People are very loyal and have pet causes and organizations.
When they see an organization reach out to help their organizations,
it solidifies the loyalty of the listener," Motherwell
said.
And that loyalty has kept WEMU viable. When the state
of Michigan experienced a major economic downturn in the
early 1980s, EMU's administration cut WEMU's operating
budget from $275,000 to approximately $150,000 beginning
with the 1982 budget, Timko said. As a compromise,
the University said it would match whatever WEMU could
raise from pledges to bolster its budget.
"We had a goal to raise $20,000 and we raised $40,000.
It was a nice surprise," Timko said. "The University did
that (match funds) for two years. Then they stopped because
they said we raised too much."
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MUG STATION: WEMU 891. FM, Eastern Michigan
University's public radio station, has had a number
of
signature coffee cups and mugs created through
the
years. Some samples are displayed here.
|
Today, WEMU, which broadcasts 24 hours a day, raises more
than $500,000 annually from its combined pledge drives
to cover operating expenses and consistently receives the
highest amount of funding from EMU's annual faculty/staff
campaign, Motherwell said. Despite that impressive figure,
Motherwell said she does not think the station has begun
to tap its potential donor resources.
"There's no reason we can't be on a par with our counterparts
in that respect. It's just a matter of providing quality," she
said.
A large part of WEMU's quality is its niche coverage,
providing detailed traffic reports and construction hot
spots along major arteries such as I-94, I-23, M-14 and
Washtenaw Avenue. The station also devotes more coverage
than most to local school board, county commission and
local city council meetings.
Still, the station's listeners recognize its musical quality
and have voted WEMU the best radio station for music in
the Ann Arbor News' Readers' Choice Awards for the past
two years.
"That means more than I can say," Yohn said of the awards.
"Very discerning listeners chose this station out
of all of the myriad choices in southeastern Michigan.
A station that is primarily jazz got the nod. That's incredible
and speaks volumes about our listeners."
Some of the prestigious guests that have stopped by the
booth through the years have included Robert F. Kennedy,
Jr., jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Wynton Marsalis, documentarian
Ken Burns and the late Don Canham, a former NCAA high jump
champion, teacher, administrator, businessman and visionary
who helped found the field of sports management. Canham,
while he was the University of Michigan athletic director,
pioneered the movement in intercollegiate sports on the
state and national level.
Many of the guests have lent their time to WEMU's on-air
pledge drives.
"I remember when Don Canham came here to help us with
a pledge drive. He wasn't quite sure what to expect," Timko
recalled. "After a time, he didn't want to leave."
WEMU's evolution also includes advances in technology.
In 1991, WEMU moved its tower from Pierce Hall to a piece
of property north of campus. This move did not increase
the station's power, but increased the height of the tower
from 157 feet to 330 feet, with the result being less interference.
"Before the move, we would get calls from students living
along Perrin who said we (the station broadcast) came into
their stereos and phone conversations," Timko said. "Employees
in Welch said they could hear us on their tape recorders.
It was prudent for us to get off campus."
In 2004, with the aid of a CPB grant, the station was
the first in Michigan to broadcast in high-definition (HD)
radio. HD is new technology that combines analog signal
generation with digital transmission on the same frequency.
In addition to improved sound, listeners with an HD radio
receiver in their car receive data streaming information
— an artist's name, song title, weather and traffic reports.
The standard car radio will deliver only the station's
call letters. Also, the technology will accommodate a service
where listeners can record a program and listen to it later.
"The signal became stronger, but did not go further," Timko
explained. "I had one listener in Hell, Mich., tell me
they could hear us on only one radio in the house before
we went to high definition. Now, they can hear it on every
radio in the house."
Timko expects King Hall will be inevitably torn down one
day and that WEMU will have to relocate on campus. But
he sees the station continuing to be a major contributor
to the community.
"I think it always has to stay connected to the local
community," he said. "Even if (listeners) don't like jazz,
they can be comfortable coming to us to listen to what
happened in the news, at the local school board meeting
and traffic construction updates."
For more information about the open house, call 487-2229.
