SARASOTA — WUSF has purchased Sarasota-based WSMR and will be changing its Christian music format to a 24-hour classical music station while expanding the news and information format of its Tampa-based station.
WUSF Public Media has purchased the radio license of WSMR 89.1 for $1.27 million from Northwestern College in Michigan and plans to make the programming switch Sept. 15. WSMR ended its Christian broadcasting Wednesday at its Washington Avenue studio with a farewell open house.
“LIFE 89.1 has never been able to be fully self-supported in this market. Year after year we have relied upon the help of other Northwestern stations to cover our deficits,” station Manager Douglas Poll said in a letter on the station’s website. “Due to the economic crunch we have lost many major donors and business sponsors.”
WUSF 89.7 will change to all news and information with jazz overnight. Its current news programing will be expanded to include popular National Public Radio programs like “The Diane Rehm Show” and “Talk of the Nation.” Its current classical format with hosts like Russell Gant and Colleen Cook will transfer to WSMR.
Focus groups and online research showed listeners favored having two local stations with separate classical and news content, said JoAnn Urofsky, general manager of WUSF.
“They can tune back and forth with ease,” Urofsky said.
Along with the station purchase and program expansion, WUSF is renovating a building on the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus for WSMR studios that also will be used for live performances by artists in the area.
“They’ve been driving an hour and a half to our studios in Tampa,” she said. “We expect renovations to be completed by October.”
Expanding to an all-classical format is becoming a trend for noncommercial stations in larger markets, Urofsky said.
“It is a business model that works in public broadcasting more than the commercial world,” she said.
The broadcast area of WSMR will cover all of Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, Desoto and Hardee counties as well as parts of Pinellas, Hillsborough, Polk and Lee counties.
WUSF also is working to extend the reach of WSMR’s signal to include northern Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties.
The $1.27 million purchase will be paid for through a loan from the USF Foundation, which will be repaid during the next 10 years. WUSF also will be paying additional programing fees.
The HD radio channel, WUSF 89.72, will simulcast the classical programming on WSMR 89.1.
WMNF 88.5, a community radio station based in Tampa, is waiting to see what impact WUSF’s expanded news programing will have on it.
“We’ll probably drop ‘Fresh Air’ because they’ll be running it twice a day,” said Randy Wynne, station program director.
“We don’t know if it will have a domino effect or what.”
