WMUB, Past and Present
Oxford’s WMUB has been a part of Cincinnati Public Rado for less than a year. But the history of WMUB Radio is one of dynamic change over six decades; a history that shows the shifting influences of generations of Miami University administration, students, Oxford and regional townspeople, faculty, and others. Ultimately the history illustrates trends in academia, the national economy and our rapidly-changing media environment.
The full history of radio at Miami dates back several decades prior to the sign-on of WMUB-FM in 1950. Efforts had been made starting in the 1920’s to harness the power of the new medium that held so much promise. For two decades Miami experimented with producing programs for commercial radio stations, at first on WLW with “All Miami Day,” an idea conceived by President Raymond M. Hughes in 1927. Since WLW was “The Nation’s Station” on its 700 AM clear channel, those efforts may have been the high water mark of all of Miami’s efforts to reach a national audience; however, like other programs broadcast on Hamilton’s WMOH, Middletown’s WPFB and even WSB in Nashville, they were sporadic in nature.
Carrier-current WMUB: a focus on student life
World War II and its aftermath brought significant changes to Oxford and Miami. As part of the war effort the Speech Department participated in technical training experiments in radio. But it was only after the war that radio on campus really began, thanks in large part to ex-military personnel arriving on campus under the GI Bill. On October 6, 1947, a band of students signed on a station utilizing carrier-current technology, meaning that the signal travelled through the electrical wiring of specific buildings (only six at first). This non-broadcast signal was the first to be designated WMUB, and its stated mission was to be “by the students, for the students,” with program titles such as “Morning Thing” and “Campus Currents.”
Students of those times recalled their radio experiences as a mixture of exuberance and frustration over the limited range of the carrier-current signal. At one point an announcer offered five dollars to the first caller, but got no response. Some enterprising student engineers tried to remedy the situation by running a long wire antenna through campus treetops. The resulting power boost brought a swift response from local commercial stations, followed by an admonishment from the FCC. Whether this incident or others sparked Miami’s interest in bringing the student effort under some kind of departmental supervision is unclear from the historical record, but it can be assumed that there must have been struggles and soul-searching. The end result was that WMUB (now designated WRMU) was brought under the aegis of the Speech Department (later reorganized as Communication), and the next era of WMUB was on the way.
The first FM signal: academics move to the forefront
The signal was a meager 10 watts, and the tower was only 20 feet taller than the Old Main roof from which it originated. But that tiny FM signal, which began transmitting on February 1, 1950, marks the true start of WMUB as an FM station at Miami – one of the first institutions of higher education in the nation to receive a noncommercial license. The initial broadcast hours were just three or less per day, and not on weekend or school breaks. In 1955, a gift of a 6,600-watt transmitter from Middletown’s WPFB and a new 155-foot tower allowed a much greater range and a move from 88.1 to the current 88.5.
In 1959, Miami’s broadcast operations and academic media program moved to the newly constructed Williams Hall. Students and a group of broadcast professionals in the Speech Department worked at a station that steadily grew, to the point that by the mid-1980s WMUB was on the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Williams Hall was extensively renovated in the mid-1980s, providing WMUB with a modern broadcast facility that served as a further impetus to growth.
The mission of WMUB in this period evolved along with changes within Miami and in the national media landscape. Unlike carrier-current WRMU, WMUB from the beginning operated under the Speech Department. From the beginning there was a strong emphasis on service to the Miami community, specifically a fundamental instructional imperative for students. Many undergraduate and Master’s students over the years have gone on to key positions in both commercial and public media. Among them are Rick Ludwin, who for decades has been head of late-night programming for NBC, and WVXU’s own Maryanne Zeleznik.
This period also saw the growth of National Public Radio, which had begun broadcasting with the March on the Pentagon in 1971. Its expansion meant that an increasing number of non-Miami listeners in the region were tuning in to WMUB. As the professional staff of the station grew, local and NPR news became a prominent part of the schedule, and WMUB began a long and unbroken tradition of winning multiple awards for its local news programming. Gradually what had been rather eclectic non-news programming moved to a focus on big-band jazz, whose primary ambassador at WMUB was Phyllis Campbell, originally a Graduate School secretary who became legendary on-air as Mama Jazz. A multi-part series on jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke achieved national distribution.
Approaching the millennium: reaching a regional audience
In the mid 1990s, the new Miami administration of President James Garland began to move WMUB in a different direction, one that emphasized positioning Miami as more engaged with the region through a significant presence in news and information. The station was moved from the Communication (formerly Speech) Department, first to the College of Arts and Science and later directly to the President’s Office of Communication. The shift was reflected in a major programming and at times controversial format change that kept evening jazz, but added NPR and local talk programs during daytimes. Student involvement with the station continued, and so did the awards. But the shift in focus to professionally-produced public service programming meant that WMUB would be called on increasingly to supplement its budget with funds raised directly from listeners, most of whom now lived outside Butler County.
For the most part FM technology had not evolved much since the early days of WMUB, but beginning in the 1990s and accelerating swiftly several developments affected WMUB greatly. One of these was automation for some night and weekend shifts, which enabled WMUB to take advantage of new FCC rulings allowing unattended operation. Student and staff resources were thus freed to work on projects such as 2003’s Ohio Bicentennial Minutes, an award-winning series of 262 historical vignettes distributed statewide.
The explosive growth of the Internet and attendant new media meant that WMUB had to find ways of making is programming available on multiple platforms such as web pages, podcasts, mobile devices and more. WMUB was also an early adopter of HD Radio technology, and in fact was the seventh station in the country to air multicast HD streams – the main FM channel, plus a 24-hour jazz and BBC news channels, all run by automation.
Transition to Cincinnati Public Radio
A question that had remained in the air for years became more acute in the 21st century: how to keep WMUB financially viable in the face of both new technological challenges and other demands on Miami’s priorities. Miami’s support had historically been at generous levels compared with national benchmarks for public radio. Substantial growth in local fundraising was coupled with declining Miami support beginning in 2003, but still the amount of the Miami subsidy remained high.
At WMUB’s request new Miami President David Hodge formed a committee of faculty, staff and listeners to explore options for the station. After a year’s work the committee in 2007 issued a report recommending continued growth for the station through dynamic partnerships inside and outside the University. But attempts to generate such partnerships produced few results, and the economic crisis of 2008 forced Miami to make some significant restructuring of its academic and non-academic programs. The Administration searched for a solution that would eliminate the WMUB subsidy but keep the signal within the public radio system.
Fortunately, Cincinnati Public Radio and Miami were able to design an agreement whereby Miami retains ownership of the FCC license but CPR now manages the operation of WMUB as a repeater for WVXU. Virtually all of WMUB’s former NPR programs can still be heard on 88.5, and while WMUB’s former local programs are no more, 88.5 listeners can now enjoy the resources of Cincinnati Public Radio’s service. The resulting change has been one of the more dramatic in WMUB’s 59 years, but listeners can be grateful that public radio still can be heard on 88.5
--Cleve Callison, former General Manager, WMUB. Compiled from material supplied by Dr. Curt Eillison, Professor of History and American Studies, Miami University and editor of Miami University, 1809-2009: Bicentennial Perspectives; Bill Utter, WMUB General Manager Emeritus; Dr. Robert Schmidt, Archivist and Assistant Librarian, Miami University; and Dr. Howard Kleiman, Professor of Communication, Miami University. |
Friday, September 03, 2010 
