WCPN
Encyclopedia
WCPN — branded 90.3 WCPN — is a public radio station
licensed to Cleveland, Ohio
, and serving the serving Greater Cleveland
area.
The station's schedule comprises NPR news and informational programs during daytime hours, jazz in the evenings, and the BBC World Service
in overnight hours. WCPN is owned by ideastream, which also owns Cleveland's Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS) Public television station WVIZ
and classical music station WCLV
.
The station has the distinction as the first non-commercial FM radio station in the country (under the callsign WBOE) and, having fallen silent in the late 1970s, to re-emerge as one of the last full-time NPR affiliates to begin broadcasting in a major market.
s using high-frequency AM
(also referred to as Apex
). Facilities were located in the Lafayette School on Abell Avenue. Two months later, the station moved to the sixth floor of the Board of Education Building on East 6th Street. The studios remained there until 1973-1974.
By 1940 it was joined by a few other educational stations, such as WNYE in New York
, broadcasting in the spectrum of 41-43 MHz using AM, although it was presumed these educational stations would change to FM when such broadcasting became practical.
In September 1940, WBOE requested authority to relinquish its 41.5 MHz AM operation and change to FM operation on 42.5 MHz. In March 1941 WBOE became an FM station, broadcasting with 1,000 watts on 42.5 MHz, the first educational station to convert to FM. At the time FM broadcasting was in its infancy and only about a dozen FM stations were on the air in the entire country, most of them experimental stations.
In 1945 the FCC
decided to shift all FM broadcasting up to the present spectrum of 88-108 MHz, with 88-92 MHz reserved for noncommercial broadcasting. Initially, WBOE changed its frequency to 44.5 FM on May 1, 1947. This change was necessitated by an FCC decision to allocate the 42-45 Megacycle band to non-government fixed and mobile services.
On January 1, 1949, a Modified license authorized WBOE to broadcast solely on 90.3 FM. On December 9, 1959. WBOE increased power to 5,000 watts, with an E.R.P. of 15,000 watts. In 1973-1974 WBOE had new studio facilities built at 10600 Quincy Avenue in the eastern side of Cleveland. In 1975-1976 the station's power was increased to 50,000 watts with the transmitter and tower in Parma, Ohio
, one of the southwestern Cleveland suburbs. http://members.aol.com/jeff560/chronofm.html
Until December 1976, WBOE's programming was limited primarily to instructional programming, mostly intended for Cleveland school classrooms. Generally the station broadcast from 7:55 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on school days; school programming would often end at 3:00 p.m. Light entertainment, public service or educational programs of general interest would conclude the broadcast day.
Under the direction of Dr. William B. Levenson, the station won national recognition for its use of radio broadcasts synchronized with lantern slides and playscripts, speakers on such topics as health and science, and student-produced programs on current events and student etiquette were aired. Cleveland school district teachers and curriculum administrators often hosted the shows.
Series/programs in most curriculum areas were featured. Most programs for in-school use ran for no more than 15 minutes. Until the use of reel-to-reel audio tape in the 1950s, programs were recorded onto 16" Electrical Transcription (E.T.) discs. Upon examination of these discs, it seems that many programs were broadcast live, and recorded simultaneously for repeat later.
For example, in the mid-and-late 1940s, the Social Studies department produced Current Topics, which discussed current events in the news. A duo of children's story-time series were called Once Upon A Time and The Story Lady. A practical science series was titled Electrical Living. Later on, a mathematics competition series, Get The Answer Right!, debuted. During the 1950s through the 1970s, 15-minute segments from the "All City Music Groups" performances were broadcast. Throughout most of its life, WBOE also aired non-commercial and educational programs from other producers and distributors. In the 1940s, these included series produced by other Cleveland radio stations.
) and NAEB (National Association of Educational Broadcasters
) - distributed programs produced by member stations for use on WBOE and other stations. An example of one of the general-interest programs was The Old Record Box, a 15-minute series featuring cylinder records from the turn-of-the-century, produced in the mid-1960s by WFBE, the station owned by the Flint, Michigan
Board of Education. In the 1970s National Public Radio continued to provide this service to educational stations. Examples of educational programs for in-school use included What You See Is What You Get, a social studies/economics program, and the English-language program Fun From The Dictionary. The WBOE-produced series Drama On Stage and Screen was picked up and distributed nationally by NPR. This series featured interviews conducted by WBOE's best known broadcaster, Cecilia Evans. She interviewed people involved in stage, screen and television careers, such as actor Greg Morris
of CBS
-TV's Mission: Impossible
series.
As educational television developed, the effectiveness of educational radio was reduced, and work began in the early 1970s to build WBOE into a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate. Progress was slowed by technical matters, including concern that WBOE's 50,000 watt signal might interfere with the TV audio of WVIZ
/PBS channel 25. It has been estimated by WBOE's station manager of the time that this technical issue stopped the debut of NPR in the Cleveland market by over a year. From December 20, 1976 through December 31, 1976, WBOE increased its broadcast day until 6:30 p.m. for the airing of the popular NPR program All Things Considered
.
On January 1, 1977 WBOE increased to an 18-hour-per-day, 7-day-a-week schedule (6:00 a.m. to Midnight). Programming for in-school use continued on school days from 8:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Adult, NPR, ethnic and other programming consumed the rest of the broadcast day and all day on weekends. Locally produced programming included Yes, You Can!, a weekly feature designed to encourage adults to continue their education; Parenting, a family life series; and Elementary School Highlights.
The technical staff included First Class engineers Bill Nelson, who died in 1976 and was replaced by Ed Shaper, Al Hrivnak and Dennis Batig (who hosted a 1950s and 1960s music show, Let The Good Times Roll). Full-time board operators and production personnel were Ted Mazurowski and Richard Shenker. Part-time personnel included John L. Basalla, Jim Stincic, and Bruce Van Valkenburg. Basalla produced Rock Concepts, and Stincic produced Sessions In Swing, using the air name "Jim Matthews".
The Cleveland school system entered a difficult period in the late 1970s, as it was faced with a massive court-mandated desegregation order. Additionally, an ad hoc community group, believing that the in-school programming should cease in favor of full-time "adult" NPR fare, took steps to take control of the radio station. Due to a teachers' strike, school programming did not resume as scheduled in September 1978. The financially-strapped Board of Education finally took WBOE off the air the next month.
WBOE's final day of broadcasting was October 7, 1978. At the stroke of midnight, the final program was broadcast. Station manager Jay Robert Klein and Cleveland newspaper journalist Dick Feagler provided a pre-recorded eulogy. The 90.3 frequency fell silent until the fall of 1984, save for the sideband broadcast of the Cleveland Radio Reading Service (CRRS). CRRS temporarily ceased broadcasting in May 1982.
could be heard throughout most of the Cleveland area and had been, quite by default, northeastern Ohio's sole NPR station since the network's beginnings in the early 1970s (the station itself dates back to 1953). However, WKSU lacked programming directed specifically to the immediate Cleveland/Cuyahoga County
region; the main city in its service area was Akron
.
In 1979, the Cleveland Public Library
bid $205,000 for WBOE-FM's license, which ended up beating out a $200,000 bid by the Northern Ohio Public Radio group ten days before. An attempt by Cleveland Public Radio to bid $234,360.87 was rejected because the group could not immediately make a minimum $200,000 cash payment. Plans were made for the station to be moved from the old WBOE eastside Cleveland studios to the main library downtown, with a proposed change in call letters to WCPL (Cleveland Public Library).
The effort by the library eventually failed, and the license wound up in the hands of Cleveland Public Radio anyway. By July 6, 1983, Cleveland Public Radio had changed the WBOE callsign to WCPN. WGAR, by then a country music
outlet, donated its entire jazz
record collection to WCPN, in order for the station to begin a jazz format. The side band service for print-impaired people was reactivated in May 1984. So transmission from WCPN began exactly as WBOE's had ended, with no sound on the main carrier, so persons with the special receivers could hear the radio reading service programming. A kick-off party with 1,200 people in attendance, was held for WCPN on August 5, 1984. By that September 8, WCPN officially started broadcasting with a live show featuring vocalist Mel Torme
, and went to 24-hour service on January 1, 1985. A little-remembered side note is that just prior to the live Mel Torme show, WCPN broadcast an album by the Beatles
, possibly for testing purposes and/or to have something on the air for people to hear when they dialed up 90.3 FM.
In 2001, WCPN merged with WVIZ to form ideastream. The stations moved to new facilities in downtown Cleveland
at Playhouse Square in the fall of 2005.
, All Things Considered
and Car Talk
. It also carries popular public radio programs from other sources such as A Prairie Home Companion
, Whad'Ya Know?
, and Marketplace
from American Public Media
. Much of this programming duplicates programming broadcast on WKSU which can also be heard throughout much of the Cleveland market. It also originates local news reports and an hour-long current events talk show at 9 a.m. each morning called The Sound of Ideas (formerly 90.3 @ 9).
In the evenings after 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., programming shifts to jazz, and then shifts to a simulcast of the BBC World Service
from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Friday. (Weekend overnights are filled with jazz music.) Since WKSU concentrates on a classical music format and since WCLV
also broadcasts a classical music format, WCPN's programming in this respect is unique to the Cleveland market.
and WZAK
had abandoned these formats some years earlier.
Airing these shows has not come easy for WCPN; attempts to move these shows to different times (or reduce the number of hours altogether) in order to broaden the scope of the weekend lineup has resulted in significant protests by the communities targeted as audiences. The last attempt to change the lineup occurred in 1996, and resulted in threats by the Ohio State Legislature to cut off funding for WCPN, in response to which the station relented on its plans.
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
licensed to Cleveland, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, and serving the serving Greater Cleveland
Greater Cleveland
Greater Cleveland is a nickname for the metropolitan area surrounding Cleveland, Ohio and is part of what used to be the Connecticut Western Reserve.Northeast Ohio refers to a similar but substantially larger area as described below...
area.
The station's schedule comprises NPR news and informational programs during daytime hours, jazz in the evenings, and the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
in overnight hours. WCPN is owned by ideastream, which also owns Cleveland's Public Broadcasting Service
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(PBS) Public television station WVIZ
WVIZ
WVIZ is a public television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was the 100th public television station to sign on in America. Its founder was Betty Cope, a former producer at Cleveland's ABC affiliate, WEWS, who recognized the value of non-commercial educational television for the schools...
and classical music station WCLV
WCLV
WCLV — branded WCLV 104.9 — is the classical radio station licensed to Lorain, Ohio serving Greater Cleveland and western parts of surrounding Northeast Ohio; WCLV is one of the few remaining classical music stations in the United States....
.
The station has the distinction as the first non-commercial FM radio station in the country (under the callsign WBOE) and, having fallen silent in the late 1970s, to re-emerge as one of the last full-time NPR affiliates to begin broadcasting in a major market.
Origins
WBOE was initially licensed on November 21, 1938 to the Cleveland Board of Education to broadcast on 41.5 MHz with 500 wattWatt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s using high-frequency AM
Amplitude modulation
Amplitude modulation is a technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. AM works by varying the strength of the transmitted signal in relation to the information being sent...
(also referred to as Apex
Apex (radio band)
Apex was an experimental radio broadcasting system introduced in the United States in 1934 that used high frequencies between roughly 25 and 42 MHz and wideband AM modulation to achieve high fidelity sound with less static and distortion than medium wave AM stations in the so-called standard...
). Facilities were located in the Lafayette School on Abell Avenue. Two months later, the station moved to the sixth floor of the Board of Education Building on East 6th Street. The studios remained there until 1973-1974.
By 1940 it was joined by a few other educational stations, such as WNYE in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, broadcasting in the spectrum of 41-43 MHz using AM, although it was presumed these educational stations would change to FM when such broadcasting became practical.
In September 1940, WBOE requested authority to relinquish its 41.5 MHz AM operation and change to FM operation on 42.5 MHz. In March 1941 WBOE became an FM station, broadcasting with 1,000 watts on 42.5 MHz, the first educational station to convert to FM. At the time FM broadcasting was in its infancy and only about a dozen FM stations were on the air in the entire country, most of them experimental stations.
In 1945 the FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
decided to shift all FM broadcasting up to the present spectrum of 88-108 MHz, with 88-92 MHz reserved for noncommercial broadcasting. Initially, WBOE changed its frequency to 44.5 FM on May 1, 1947. This change was necessitated by an FCC decision to allocate the 42-45 Megacycle band to non-government fixed and mobile services.
Emergence
WBOE moved to 90.3 MHz on August 3, 1948, increasing its power to 3,000 watts with an effective radiated power of 10,000 watts. The change to 90.3 FM caused quite a controversy due to the costs schools would incur to buy new radios and the time they needed to budget for it. Subsequently, WBOE requested reauthorization for 44.5 FM "for as long as possible" (original letter to FCC 07/13/1948). From September 1, 1948 to the end of the year, WBOE was licensed to broadcast on both frequencies.On January 1, 1949, a Modified license authorized WBOE to broadcast solely on 90.3 FM. On December 9, 1959. WBOE increased power to 5,000 watts, with an E.R.P. of 15,000 watts. In 1973-1974 WBOE had new studio facilities built at 10600 Quincy Avenue in the eastern side of Cleveland. In 1975-1976 the station's power was increased to 50,000 watts with the transmitter and tower in Parma, Ohio
Parma, Ohio
Parma is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. It is the largest suburb of Cleveland and the seventh largest city in the state of Ohio...
, one of the southwestern Cleveland suburbs. http://members.aol.com/jeff560/chronofm.html
Until December 1976, WBOE's programming was limited primarily to instructional programming, mostly intended for Cleveland school classrooms. Generally the station broadcast from 7:55 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on school days; school programming would often end at 3:00 p.m. Light entertainment, public service or educational programs of general interest would conclude the broadcast day.
Under the direction of Dr. William B. Levenson, the station won national recognition for its use of radio broadcasts synchronized with lantern slides and playscripts, speakers on such topics as health and science, and student-produced programs on current events and student etiquette were aired. Cleveland school district teachers and curriculum administrators often hosted the shows.
Series/programs in most curriculum areas were featured. Most programs for in-school use ran for no more than 15 minutes. Until the use of reel-to-reel audio tape in the 1950s, programs were recorded onto 16" Electrical Transcription (E.T.) discs. Upon examination of these discs, it seems that many programs were broadcast live, and recorded simultaneously for repeat later.
For example, in the mid-and-late 1940s, the Social Studies department produced Current Topics, which discussed current events in the news. A duo of children's story-time series were called Once Upon A Time and The Story Lady. A practical science series was titled Electrical Living. Later on, a mathematics competition series, Get The Answer Right!, debuted. During the 1950s through the 1970s, 15-minute segments from the "All City Music Groups" performances were broadcast. Throughout most of its life, WBOE also aired non-commercial and educational programs from other producers and distributors. In the 1940s, these included series produced by other Cleveland radio stations.
Public Radio Involvement
By the mid-1960s, if not before, the predecessors to National Public Radio - NERN (National Educational Radio NetworkNational Educational Radio Network
The National Educational Radio Network was a means of distributing radio programs in the United States between 1961 and 1970. With funding from the Ford Foundation, the network began broadcasting on six radio stations on April 3, 1961....
) and NAEB (National Association of Educational Broadcasters
National Association of Educational Broadcasters
The National Association of Educational Broadcasters was founded as the Association of College University Broadcasting Stations on November 12, 1925....
) - distributed programs produced by member stations for use on WBOE and other stations. An example of one of the general-interest programs was The Old Record Box, a 15-minute series featuring cylinder records from the turn-of-the-century, produced in the mid-1960s by WFBE, the station owned by the Flint, Michigan
Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
Board of Education. In the 1970s National Public Radio continued to provide this service to educational stations. Examples of educational programs for in-school use included What You See Is What You Get, a social studies/economics program, and the English-language program Fun From The Dictionary. The WBOE-produced series Drama On Stage and Screen was picked up and distributed nationally by NPR. This series featured interviews conducted by WBOE's best known broadcaster, Cecilia Evans. She interviewed people involved in stage, screen and television careers, such as actor Greg Morris
Greg Morris
Francis Gregory Alan "Greg" Morris was an American television and movie actor.Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Morris began his acting career in the 1960s making guest appearances on many TV shows such as The Twilight Zone and Ben Casey...
of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
-TV's Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible is an American television series which was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicled the missions of a team of secret American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force . The leader of the team was Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, except in...
series.
As educational television developed, the effectiveness of educational radio was reduced, and work began in the early 1970s to build WBOE into a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate. Progress was slowed by technical matters, including concern that WBOE's 50,000 watt signal might interfere with the TV audio of WVIZ
WVIZ
WVIZ is a public television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was the 100th public television station to sign on in America. Its founder was Betty Cope, a former producer at Cleveland's ABC affiliate, WEWS, who recognized the value of non-commercial educational television for the schools...
/PBS channel 25. It has been estimated by WBOE's station manager of the time that this technical issue stopped the debut of NPR in the Cleveland market by over a year. From December 20, 1976 through December 31, 1976, WBOE increased its broadcast day until 6:30 p.m. for the airing of the popular NPR program All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
.
On January 1, 1977 WBOE increased to an 18-hour-per-day, 7-day-a-week schedule (6:00 a.m. to Midnight). Programming for in-school use continued on school days from 8:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Adult, NPR, ethnic and other programming consumed the rest of the broadcast day and all day on weekends. Locally produced programming included Yes, You Can!, a weekly feature designed to encourage adults to continue their education; Parenting, a family life series; and Elementary School Highlights.
Death of WBOE
In its final years, WBOE-FM's staff included station manager Jay Robert Klein (whose five-minute weekly feature You and Your Wheels featured up-to-date information about automobiles and discussed issues pertaining to automobile transportation); coordinator Charles Siegel (who produced shows like Cavities Don't Care and The Ins and Outs of Gardening); Karl Johnson, the producer–host of the morning-drive show Thank Goodness, It's (name of day) which aired Monday–Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.; senior high school programmer Cecilia Evans, who was an award-winning Cleveland broadcaster providing theater reviews for WBOE and commercial station WERE-AM; Tom Altenbernd, who was the junior high school programmer; and elementary programmer Ervine Jaworski.The technical staff included First Class engineers Bill Nelson, who died in 1976 and was replaced by Ed Shaper, Al Hrivnak and Dennis Batig (who hosted a 1950s and 1960s music show, Let The Good Times Roll). Full-time board operators and production personnel were Ted Mazurowski and Richard Shenker. Part-time personnel included John L. Basalla, Jim Stincic, and Bruce Van Valkenburg. Basalla produced Rock Concepts, and Stincic produced Sessions In Swing, using the air name "Jim Matthews".
The Cleveland school system entered a difficult period in the late 1970s, as it was faced with a massive court-mandated desegregation order. Additionally, an ad hoc community group, believing that the in-school programming should cease in favor of full-time "adult" NPR fare, took steps to take control of the radio station. Due to a teachers' strike, school programming did not resume as scheduled in September 1978. The financially-strapped Board of Education finally took WBOE off the air the next month.
WBOE's final day of broadcasting was October 7, 1978. At the stroke of midnight, the final program was broadcast. Station manager Jay Robert Klein and Cleveland newspaper journalist Dick Feagler provided a pre-recorded eulogy. The 90.3 frequency fell silent until the fall of 1984, save for the sideband broadcast of the Cleveland Radio Reading Service (CRRS). CRRS temporarily ceased broadcasting in May 1982.
Re-Birth
The non-commercial license was still available, and an effort was organized to re-start a public radio station for Cleveland. WKSU in KentKent, Ohio
Kent is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the largest city in Portage County. It is located along the Cuyahoga River in Northeastern Ohio on the western edge of the county. The population was 27,906 at the 2000 United States Census and 28,904 in the 2010 Census...
could be heard throughout most of the Cleveland area and had been, quite by default, northeastern Ohio's sole NPR station since the network's beginnings in the early 1970s (the station itself dates back to 1953). However, WKSU lacked programming directed specifically to the immediate Cleveland/Cuyahoga County
Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Cuyahoga County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. It is the most populous county in Ohio; as of the 2010 census, the population was 1,280,122. Its county seat is Cleveland. Cuyahoga County is part of Greater Cleveland, a metropolitan area, and Northeast Ohio, a...
region; the main city in its service area was Akron
Akron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
.
In 1979, the Cleveland Public Library
Cleveland Public Library
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869 and is located in Cleveland, Ohio. It operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 28 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and a library for the blind and physically...
bid $205,000 for WBOE-FM's license, which ended up beating out a $200,000 bid by the Northern Ohio Public Radio group ten days before. An attempt by Cleveland Public Radio to bid $234,360.87 was rejected because the group could not immediately make a minimum $200,000 cash payment. Plans were made for the station to be moved from the old WBOE eastside Cleveland studios to the main library downtown, with a proposed change in call letters to WCPL (Cleveland Public Library).
The effort by the library eventually failed, and the license wound up in the hands of Cleveland Public Radio anyway. By July 6, 1983, Cleveland Public Radio had changed the WBOE callsign to WCPN. WGAR, by then a country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
outlet, donated its entire jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
record collection to WCPN, in order for the station to begin a jazz format. The side band service for print-impaired people was reactivated in May 1984. So transmission from WCPN began exactly as WBOE's had ended, with no sound on the main carrier, so persons with the special receivers could hear the radio reading service programming. A kick-off party with 1,200 people in attendance, was held for WCPN on August 5, 1984. By that September 8, WCPN officially started broadcasting with a live show featuring vocalist Mel Torme
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
, and went to 24-hour service on January 1, 1985. A little-remembered side note is that just prior to the live Mel Torme show, WCPN broadcast an album by the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, possibly for testing purposes and/or to have something on the air for people to hear when they dialed up 90.3 FM.
In 2001, WCPN merged with WVIZ to form ideastream. The stations moved to new facilities in downtown Cleveland
Downtown Cleveland
Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of the City of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. Reinvestment in the area in the mid-1990s spurred a rebirth that continues to this day, with over $2 billion in residential and commercial developments slated for the area over the next few years...
at Playhouse Square in the fall of 2005.
Programming
WCPN's daytime program has a heavy emphasis on news and informational programming, most of it originating with NPR, such as Morning EditionMorning Edition
Morning Edition is an American radio news program produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It airs weekday mornings and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 05:00 to 09:00 ET, with feeds and updates as required until noon...
, All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
and Car Talk
Car Talk
Car Talk is a radio talk show broadcast weekly on National Public Radio stations throughout the United States and elsewhere. Its subjects are automobiles and repair, and it often takes humorous turns...
. It also carries popular public radio programs from other sources such as A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...
, Whad'Ya Know?
Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know?
Whad'Ya Know? is an American comedy, interview, and quiz radio show. Hosted by Michael Feldman, it was created in 1985. It is produced by Wisconsin Public Radio and distributed weekly by Public Radio International...
, and Marketplace
Marketplace
A marketplace is the space, actual, virtual or metaphorical, in which a market operates. The term is also used in a trademark law context to denote the actual consumer environment, ie. the 'real world' in which products and services are provided and consumed.-Marketplaces and street markets:A...
from American Public Media
American Public Media
American Public Media is the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States of America after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and operates radio stations in Minnesota, California, and Florida. Its station brands are Minnesota Public Radio,...
. Much of this programming duplicates programming broadcast on WKSU which can also be heard throughout much of the Cleveland market. It also originates local news reports and an hour-long current events talk show at 9 a.m. each morning called The Sound of Ideas (formerly 90.3 @ 9).
In the evenings after 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., programming shifts to jazz, and then shifts to a simulcast of the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Friday. (Weekend overnights are filled with jazz music.) Since WKSU concentrates on a classical music format and since WCLV
WCLV
WCLV — branded WCLV 104.9 — is the classical radio station licensed to Lorain, Ohio serving Greater Cleveland and western parts of surrounding Northeast Ohio; WCLV is one of the few remaining classical music stations in the United States....
also broadcasts a classical music format, WCPN's programming in this respect is unique to the Cleveland market.
Ethnic Shows
On weekends, the evening programming consists almost entirely of nationality programming, with one hour blocks dedicated to programming of nationality-based music and discussion. These shows were added in as a requirement for WCPN to operate before it began operating, mostly because former ethnic stations WXENWHLK
WJQM is a radio station serving Madison, Wisconsin and surrounding areas. The station is owned by Mid-West Family Broadcasting and launched a Rhythmic Contemporary format as "106.7 Jamz" in January 2007 before the move to 93.1 FM in October 2008....
and WZAK
WZAK
WZAK is a commercial FM radio station in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, broadcasting at 93.1 MHz with an Urban Adult Contemporary format. WZAK is Cleveland FM affiliate for Tom Joyner's syndicated morning show and Michael Baisden's Love Lust and Lies afternoon show.WZAK began as an ethnic radio station,...
had abandoned these formats some years earlier.
Airing these shows has not come easy for WCPN; attempts to move these shows to different times (or reduce the number of hours altogether) in order to broaden the scope of the weekend lineup has resulted in significant protests by the communities targeted as audiences. The last attempt to change the lineup occurred in 1996, and resulted in threats by the Ohio State Legislature to cut off funding for WCPN, in response to which the station relented on its plans.