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Writer and editor Home > Blogs > Brain Droppings > Archives > 2008 > April > 08 > Entry
Back in action: Keep WYSO Local
This is interesting… This press release arrived at the newspaper on Tuesday, from the organization that several years ago pulled together to protest what its vocal members deemed to be negative changes in WYSO, the public radio station based at Antioch University.
Keep WYSO Local holds meeting
Keep WYSO Local will hold an organizational meeting on Tuesday, April 15 at 7 PM at the Bryan Center, 100 Dayton Street, Yellow Springs on the second floor in the A/B room. The meeting is open to everyone.
Discussion items will the negotiations between Antioch College and the Antioch University Board of Trustees, the possible sale of the station’s license, and upcoming Keep WYSO Local activities.
For more information, contact Larry Halpern at 328-5282.
For a little context, we haven’t heard a lot from Keep WYSO Local lately, since the controversy at the station died down after a new GM, Paul Maasen, arrived and met the approval of the group and enacted a number of its suggestions… But during the administration of Steve Spencer, the former general manager they disliked, Keep WYSO Local did its fair share of sign-carrying, protesting, letter-writing and speechifying. They had an impact on the situation, no doubt, though Antioch officials always tried to say otherwise.
Now the station seems in jeopardy again, though what may happen to it isn’t clear. Maasen has taken a job in another state, just recently leaving the Yellow Springs station, and how of course Antioch is in the headlines every other week or so as the future of the school (for sale/not for sale/open/not open) is up in the air, to say the least.
To be fair, everything may turn out just fine for the station, which thousands of listeners in the Dayton area tune in to every day.
But with any measure of uncertainty about its future, especially after the station had seemed stable and fresh once again, it’s not surprising that the concerned folks at Keep WYSO Local have decided to start poking around again.
Anybody going to this meeting? And what’s your take on all this?
Are you worried about the future of the station?
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Comments
By Jim, Beavercreek
April 12, 2008 5:08 PM | Link to this
Everything old is new again. The pattern is firmly established - WYSO makes changes, locals protest, Antioch sacrifices a staff member or offers a program at a non-critical time to appease them, locals back off, changes remain, Antioch gets what they want, rinse, lather, repeat. The stakes seem higher now as it’s likely that Antioch University just might sell off the license and get out of the radio business, just like they’re getting out of undergraduate education. Given the mess that Antioch administration has made of WYSO over the years, it may be a blessing in disguise if they were to sell off the license. Now, for the sake of public radio listeners in the area, I hope that doesn’t mean a highest bidder auction to a religious broadcaster. Good luck to them. Given the mess that is Antioch, I’m hard pressed to think of how they could make it worse.By Emmett Thornton Beaver
April 10, 2008 11:54 AM | Link to this
The best thing for everyone to do is support the station with fervor and make sure that one of the only, truly local radio stations in the US remains that way. Losing WYSO will be like the Wright cycle shop being moved to The Ford Museum or the arcade being torn down. That includes you Rollins, get with it.By Publius
April 9, 2008 4:32 PM | Link to this
I’ve given up on WYSO because of the whole “keep it local” debacle. I’m one of those people who’d rather listen to professionally done, interesting shows instead of a bunch of volunteers playing scratchy bluegrass records. I’ve moved on — to WVXU’s improved signal and their lineup of excellent NPR shows. Spencer tried to move WYSO in a viable direction but the “community” wouldn’t have it. So let it die.By Harlan
April 9, 2008 12:21 PM | Link to this
A good size noncommercial signal like WYSO would fetch big bucks from religious broadcasters. K-Love 91.3 anyone? Probably the best thing that could happen to it would be for WDPR to take over and pair it with their station, sort of like the combo of WGUC and WVXU in Cincinnati. The question is, could they assemble the funding to compete with the big bucks bids from religious broadcasters?By Mark Gisleson
April 9, 2008 11:01 AM | Link to this
Wow. This is like hearing that Joe Lieberman is now opposing the war in Iraq. Keep WYSO Local is an organization that died from accommodation. The cozier their leadership got with former station manager Steve Spencer, the less effective the group got. Yes, after years of mismanagement Steve Spencer finally left WYSO, but not because of Keep WYSO Local. Spencer left WYSO because of the accumulated disasters on his watch: perpetual deficit spending, alienated volunteers, a community that felt betrayed, and a long list of Dayton luminaries who came to realize — albeit quite slowly — that there was no walk to back the talk at Steve Spencer’s WYSO. If Keep WYSO Local is as vacillating and accommodating as they were last time around, I’m sure that WYSO’s frequency will end up in the hands of the Christian Broadcasting Network by year’s end. WYSO is damaged goods. The worst of Spencer’s excesses have yet to be undone, WYSO staff are at war with the local community, and station management is still completely subservient to the wishes of the rapacious folks running Antioch who are moving heaven and earth to strip the university of its assets at firesale prices to the well connected few.