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KUER-FM
KUER-FM (90.1 MHz) is a public radio station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Owned by the University of Utah, its studios are located in the Eccles Broadcast Center on the University of Utah campus, while its main transmitter is located on Farnsworth Peak; an extensive transmitter network rebroadcasts its signal across Utah. KUER-FM features programming from NPR and other public radio distributors as well as local news coverage for Utah.
KUER-FM began broadcasting on June 5, 1960, as an educational station emphasizing classical music. It became a regional service in 1962 when its transmitter was moved to Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains. After two financial crises that almost forced the station off the air, KUER evolved substantially in the 1970s and 1980s with the creation of NPR, a shift to a hybrid format of daytime classical and nighttime jazz music, each featuring long-tenured personalities. In 1993, it moved out of cramped quarters in historic Kingsbury Hall and into the new Eccles Broadcast Center.
Over the course of the 1990s, KUER-FM's program offerings came under threat from new competition: classical music listeners were defecting to KBYU-FM, while the new KCPW provided a challenge to KUER's NPR talk offerings. In response to falling ratings, classical music was removed from the schedule in 2001—triggering listener outcry but not a significant decline in donations. At the same time, the station created RadioWest, a local and regional news discussion program focusing on Utah and the Western United States. The remaining music, nightly jazz, was removed from KUER's lineup in 2015.
The regents of the University of Utah (U of U) approved in November 1959 an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish an FM radio station on the campus. The FCC awarded the construction permit in January 1960.
On June 4, 1960, KUER-FM was authorized to begin program testing. It made its first broadcast the next day, June 5, consisting of a dedication program and the university's commencement ceremonies, simulcast with KUED. The studios in Kingsbury Hall had previously been used to run a carrier current station on the campus. In its initial period of operation, KUER broadcast for six hours a day, five days a week, with classical music and discussion programs as the primary programming. One regular feature was Chapter a Day, in which a chapter of a selected book was read each day; another was music instruction for students. The station made two large leaps in its early years: expanding to an 11-hour weekday program schedule and adding weekend broadcasts in April 1961 and relocating its transmitter from Kingsbury Hall to Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains in 1962, improving reception in Salt Lake City and extending coverage along the Wasatch Front to Ogden and Provo. During this period, KUER was primarily run by students, though it was not targeted at the student audience. The lack of programming for this group led to a push to start a new carrier current outlet, "KUTE", aimed at campus interests. In 1968, The On Campus Show debuted, in part to serve as a vehicle for student action; it was the first such program in KUER's history.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, KUER almost ran out of money twice after the station was removed from the university's uniform school fund. Beginning in the 1967–68 school year, the station was funded by the Intermountain Regional Medical Program, which used KUER to broadcast postgraduate courses in medicine to physicians, but this was supplanted by direct telephone lines to hospitals. The medical program continued to provide $5,000 annually in support to the station through 1972, when it ceased providing money, raising the possibility of the station being shuttered. The station survived with funding from the Associated Students of the University of Utah and, beginning in the 1972–73 school year, became entirely student-operated, with some 70 volunteers and—for the first time—opportunity to earn course credits for working at KUER.
In May 1971, KUER joined the new National Public Radio network and began carrying its first program, All Things Considered. It became a seven-day-a-week operation with Saturday programming beginning in 1972 and began broadcasting at higher power and in stereo in 1974. A 24-hour programming schedule followed in 1984.
During the leadership tenure of Don Smith, KUER's first paid employee (in 1962) and station manager between 1975 and 1985, the station adopted a format of daytime classical music, early evening news and information, and nighttime jazz, responding to research into public radio audiences. The classical and jazz sections each had tenured on-air personalities associated with them. Gene Pack started with KUER when it began in June 1960 and remained for 42 years, spending almost all of that time hosting classical music programming. In 1988, Wes Bowen left KSL to join KUER, where he hosted the nightly Just Jazz; the program remained on air into the 2000s. Another jazz program was hosted by Steve Williams from 1984 to 2015; upon his retirement, Scott Pierce of The Salt Lake Tribune hailed Williams as "the pre-eminent local authority on jazz".
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KUER-FM
KUER-FM (90.1 MHz) is a public radio station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Owned by the University of Utah, its studios are located in the Eccles Broadcast Center on the University of Utah campus, while its main transmitter is located on Farnsworth Peak; an extensive transmitter network rebroadcasts its signal across Utah. KUER-FM features programming from NPR and other public radio distributors as well as local news coverage for Utah.
KUER-FM began broadcasting on June 5, 1960, as an educational station emphasizing classical music. It became a regional service in 1962 when its transmitter was moved to Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains. After two financial crises that almost forced the station off the air, KUER evolved substantially in the 1970s and 1980s with the creation of NPR, a shift to a hybrid format of daytime classical and nighttime jazz music, each featuring long-tenured personalities. In 1993, it moved out of cramped quarters in historic Kingsbury Hall and into the new Eccles Broadcast Center.
Over the course of the 1990s, KUER-FM's program offerings came under threat from new competition: classical music listeners were defecting to KBYU-FM, while the new KCPW provided a challenge to KUER's NPR talk offerings. In response to falling ratings, classical music was removed from the schedule in 2001—triggering listener outcry but not a significant decline in donations. At the same time, the station created RadioWest, a local and regional news discussion program focusing on Utah and the Western United States. The remaining music, nightly jazz, was removed from KUER's lineup in 2015.
The regents of the University of Utah (U of U) approved in November 1959 an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish an FM radio station on the campus. The FCC awarded the construction permit in January 1960.
On June 4, 1960, KUER-FM was authorized to begin program testing. It made its first broadcast the next day, June 5, consisting of a dedication program and the university's commencement ceremonies, simulcast with KUED. The studios in Kingsbury Hall had previously been used to run a carrier current station on the campus. In its initial period of operation, KUER broadcast for six hours a day, five days a week, with classical music and discussion programs as the primary programming. One regular feature was Chapter a Day, in which a chapter of a selected book was read each day; another was music instruction for students. The station made two large leaps in its early years: expanding to an 11-hour weekday program schedule and adding weekend broadcasts in April 1961 and relocating its transmitter from Kingsbury Hall to Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains in 1962, improving reception in Salt Lake City and extending coverage along the Wasatch Front to Ogden and Provo. During this period, KUER was primarily run by students, though it was not targeted at the student audience. The lack of programming for this group led to a push to start a new carrier current outlet, "KUTE", aimed at campus interests. In 1968, The On Campus Show debuted, in part to serve as a vehicle for student action; it was the first such program in KUER's history.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, KUER almost ran out of money twice after the station was removed from the university's uniform school fund. Beginning in the 1967–68 school year, the station was funded by the Intermountain Regional Medical Program, which used KUER to broadcast postgraduate courses in medicine to physicians, but this was supplanted by direct telephone lines to hospitals. The medical program continued to provide $5,000 annually in support to the station through 1972, when it ceased providing money, raising the possibility of the station being shuttered. The station survived with funding from the Associated Students of the University of Utah and, beginning in the 1972–73 school year, became entirely student-operated, with some 70 volunteers and—for the first time—opportunity to earn course credits for working at KUER.
In May 1971, KUER joined the new National Public Radio network and began carrying its first program, All Things Considered. It became a seven-day-a-week operation with Saturday programming beginning in 1972 and began broadcasting at higher power and in stereo in 1974. A 24-hour programming schedule followed in 1984.
During the leadership tenure of Don Smith, KUER's first paid employee (in 1962) and station manager between 1975 and 1985, the station adopted a format of daytime classical music, early evening news and information, and nighttime jazz, responding to research into public radio audiences. The classical and jazz sections each had tenured on-air personalities associated with them. Gene Pack started with KUER when it began in June 1960 and remained for 42 years, spending almost all of that time hosting classical music programming. In 1988, Wes Bowen left KSL to join KUER, where he hosted the nightly Just Jazz; the program remained on air into the 2000s. Another jazz program was hosted by Steve Williams from 1984 to 2015; upon his retirement, Scott Pierce of The Salt Lake Tribune hailed Williams as "the pre-eminent local authority on jazz".