WUVA – C-VILLE Weekly

WUVA sale: Video killed the radio station

Folks at WUVA, the university’s student-owned radio station in operation for 70 years, announced January 17 that they were selling their FM radio license to a major radio group in town to endow their online video and news enterprise.

Purchased by Saga Communications for $1.65 million, the license and frequency will be part of the Charlottesville Radio Group, which owns five other radio stations in town, including WINA and 106.1 The Corner. Monticello Media also owns five stations.

In September 2015, WUVA listeners who turned their radios to 92.7 FM, then the only urban station in Charlottesville, were no doubt surprised by the country twang pouring out of their speakers. The station had hired manager David Mitchell to aid in switching to a format that would attract more listeners. The radio station also hired two on-air professionals and a professional sales force.

“It was run primarily by professionals and we began to look at it as a way to finance our digital operations,” says Ed Swindler, a WUVA alumni board member who worked for 32 years as an NBC Universal executive.

“That station sounds very good,” says Swindler. “I think, though, the issue that we have—and it’s the issue in all markets—is that despite what I would call a very successful relaunch, it was still difficult to compete as a standalone station.”

And its new presence as an online video and news source (wuvanews.com) will better prepare students for life after graduation, he says.

“Media is changing so rapidly,” Swindler says. “Digital video and learning to report and edit with video is a really important skill set for people being hired, particularly in journalism and news and the management of news. …Radio is less interesting to students than it was years ago, and we just have to modernize our operations and make sure that we’re forward-looking.”

WUVA President Kailey Leinz, a fourth-year, says students involved with WUVA, which will be keeping its call letters, are excited about the sale.

“The sky’s the limit right now as far as expanding our content goes,” she says, adding that the organization has discussed using the $1.65 million to build a studio for newscasts and to buy things such as high-definition cameras and equipment to record podcasts.

Although Leinz and Swindler agree that journalism is headed in a digital direction, the head of the Charlottesville Radio Group says radio’s still thriving.

“Let me put it this way—I don’t think the owner of the company would have invested more dollars in a radio station if they weren’t pretty happy with the current state of the stations they already own,” says Jim Principi, president and general manager of the Charlottesville Radio Group.

His group will soon initiate a study to evaluate other formats available in the local radio market, but says there’s a chance the new station will stick with country music.

Says Principi, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Switching formats: WVAI picks up where WUVA left off

On September 18, WUVA listeners who tuned in to 92.7 FM, the only urban station in Charlottesville, were surprised by the country twang pouring out of their radios.

“Obviously, the main reason is economic,” station manager David Mitchell says about WUVA’s sudden transition from one genre to another. Over the past few years, Mitchell says 92.7 FM’s 19-year-old urban format has failed to rake in the big bucks in Charlottesville’s competitive radio climate. In fact, it wasn’t making enough money to provide the financial stability the station needs. WUVA receives no money from the university.

“More revenue and success for 92.7 NASH Icon mean more opportunities for students to learn about how commercial broadcasting really works,” Mitchell says. “That includes online services and social media as well as news and public affairs. We think they will find the WUVA experience increasingly attractive and rewarding.”

Along with Mitchell, the station has hired two on-air professionals and a professional salesforce. The station was previously run by volunteers.

Mitchell says country music is one of the most popular radio formats and the feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive,” but some think the station’s switch in genre is just another way to marginalize the local African-American population.

“[The station] became a safe haven for cultural expression in a town that discourages black and brown people from comfortably living out our culture,” Kiara Redd-Martin and Kishara Griffin from Charlottesville’s Operation Social Equality said in a statement to C-VILLE. “To us this abrupt change is not only a direct attack on black and brown culture in this town but also a denial of our existence.”

Operation Social Equality is a grassroots organization, which Redd-Martin and Griffin started to end social inequalities that result from racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism and ethnocentrism.

Pointing out that 92.7 was previously used by many black community leaders, such as City Council candidate Wes Bellamy and local preachers, the women wrote, “They positioned [themselves] as the face to our struggle, they became self-proclaimed voices of the black community, but what they failed to do was appropriately inform us of what was to come.”

Redd-Martin and Griffin say they will no longer listen to 92.7 FM, but are excited about a new 24/7 hip-hop and R&B station called WVAI 101.3 JAMZ.

Damani Harrison, a local musician and partial WVAI owner, is currently focusing on promotions for 101.3 JAMZ and says he found out about WUVA’s new identity the same way everyone else did.

“There were rumors circulating many months ago that a change might be made, but I don’t pay attention to rumors or things out of my control,” he says. “So when I turned on the station last week and it was country, it was new to me.”

Though Harrison is a longtime WUVA fan, he says he is happy that African-Americans will still be represented by his new station and he’s “excited for [the] community to come see what we believe is the future of Charlottesville radio.”

Mitchell says directors and owners of WUVA were aware that 101.3 JAMZ would soon be broadcasting on-air, which made the decision to switch genres easier.