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WCSP-FM
WCSP-FM, also known as C-SPAN Radio, is a radio station owned by the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) in Washington, D.C. The station is licensed to C-SPAN's corporate owner, the National Cable Satellite Corporation, and broadcasts on 90.1 MHz 24 hours a day. Its studios are located near Capitol Hill in C-SPAN’s headquarters. In addition to WCSP-FM, C-SPAN Radio programming is also available online at c-span.org and via satellite radio on SiriusXM channel 455. WCSP-FM broadcasts in the HD (digital) format.
Prior to C-SPAN's acquisition of the 90.1 frequency in 1997, the station operated as WGTB-FM, the student radio station of Georgetown University, from 1960 to 1979. Increasingly contentious relations between students and university administration led Georgetown to sell the license to the University of the District of Columbia, which operated a jazz-format station as WDCU from 1982 to 1997.
On May 25, 1960, Georgetown University received a construction permit to build a new noncommercial radio station which would operate with 771 watts on 90.1 MHz, a move five years in the planning. WGTB had operated since 1946, as a carrier current station, but new buildings on the Georgetown campus were not being equipped to radiate the station. At the time of WGTB's debut on FM, programming included discussions on issues, taped programs from other colleges, Georgetown sports, and "every kind of music with the exception of rock and roll". Like many campus stations of its day, WGTB only broadcast during the school year. Carrier current broadcasts were discontinued in 1963, citing poor performance and high costs. Few people outside the campus listened; a 1968 survey showed that WGTB had the second-lowest FM listenership in Washington, only ahead of WAMU at American University.
Concentration will be on selecting people who are interested in a particular area of music and providing them with complete freedom to express this interest.
As the 1960s became the 1970s, WGTB-FM transformed from a small educational outlet into a much more powerful station with a defined format. The station went to 24-hour broadcasting by February 1970; that June, the Federal Communications Commission approved a major power increase for the station, to 14,720 watts. Both changes in format and technical parameters brought growing pains, however. The station's new progressive rock format, eliminating all block programming, made it a bastion of liberalism on a rather conservative campus. In late 1970, Rev. Francis Heyden, former WGTB faculty moderator, leveled charges at the station that it had failed to conform to its approved format, played "indecent and anti-Semitic" records, and had purchased inferior equipment. Student board members, with the aid of an FCC official, investigated the charges and found them "entirely unfounded". After a brief suspension, WGTB-FM was allowed to return to the air by administration after an arbitration panel was convened to resolve the dispute.
Even then, however, the station faced two new technical setbacks in the span of a month. In February 1971, administration ordered the station to go off air or revert to its former 771-watt status, claiming that the transmitter was disrupting equipment in a science building. A compromise was reached to keep the station off the air during daytime hours so as not to affect the equipment, used in laser research funded by the United States Air Force. While a solution was sought to the interference issue, weather intervened as gusty winds toppled the new tower mounted atop Copley Hall, destroying the antenna.
While WGTB-FM was off the air, administration acted. Led by president Robert J. Henle, a study was conducted in the summer of 1971 which recommended the station be returned to air as soon as possible, that a professional be appointed to manage it, and a move back to a more block format and away from the rock-heavy sound that WGTB had adopted in 1970. Broadcasting resumed at reduced power that fall using a portion of the fallen tower. The ultimate solution to the interference problem was to move the transmitter off the campus: it was relocated to the American University campus in 1973.
The station's rock format also attracted renewed attention over its service to the community versus its responsiveness to the needs of students. Critics inside and outside student government pushed for changes to the format, such as basketball game broadcasts, and noted that just 30 percent of students listened to the station, though this was still a higher share than WMAL, then the city's leading commercial station with 18 percent of the market. President Henle ordered a new reorganization in 1975, which put the station under the control of a six-member review board; in doing so, he warned, "if the station cannot be made to contribute to the educational and religious mission of this University, then after another year, I will recommend to the Board of Directors that we sell the license and close the station".
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WCSP-FM
WCSP-FM, also known as C-SPAN Radio, is a radio station owned by the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) in Washington, D.C. The station is licensed to C-SPAN's corporate owner, the National Cable Satellite Corporation, and broadcasts on 90.1 MHz 24 hours a day. Its studios are located near Capitol Hill in C-SPAN’s headquarters. In addition to WCSP-FM, C-SPAN Radio programming is also available online at c-span.org and via satellite radio on SiriusXM channel 455. WCSP-FM broadcasts in the HD (digital) format.
Prior to C-SPAN's acquisition of the 90.1 frequency in 1997, the station operated as WGTB-FM, the student radio station of Georgetown University, from 1960 to 1979. Increasingly contentious relations between students and university administration led Georgetown to sell the license to the University of the District of Columbia, which operated a jazz-format station as WDCU from 1982 to 1997.
On May 25, 1960, Georgetown University received a construction permit to build a new noncommercial radio station which would operate with 771 watts on 90.1 MHz, a move five years in the planning. WGTB had operated since 1946, as a carrier current station, but new buildings on the Georgetown campus were not being equipped to radiate the station. At the time of WGTB's debut on FM, programming included discussions on issues, taped programs from other colleges, Georgetown sports, and "every kind of music with the exception of rock and roll". Like many campus stations of its day, WGTB only broadcast during the school year. Carrier current broadcasts were discontinued in 1963, citing poor performance and high costs. Few people outside the campus listened; a 1968 survey showed that WGTB had the second-lowest FM listenership in Washington, only ahead of WAMU at American University.
Concentration will be on selecting people who are interested in a particular area of music and providing them with complete freedom to express this interest.
As the 1960s became the 1970s, WGTB-FM transformed from a small educational outlet into a much more powerful station with a defined format. The station went to 24-hour broadcasting by February 1970; that June, the Federal Communications Commission approved a major power increase for the station, to 14,720 watts. Both changes in format and technical parameters brought growing pains, however. The station's new progressive rock format, eliminating all block programming, made it a bastion of liberalism on a rather conservative campus. In late 1970, Rev. Francis Heyden, former WGTB faculty moderator, leveled charges at the station that it had failed to conform to its approved format, played "indecent and anti-Semitic" records, and had purchased inferior equipment. Student board members, with the aid of an FCC official, investigated the charges and found them "entirely unfounded". After a brief suspension, WGTB-FM was allowed to return to the air by administration after an arbitration panel was convened to resolve the dispute.
Even then, however, the station faced two new technical setbacks in the span of a month. In February 1971, administration ordered the station to go off air or revert to its former 771-watt status, claiming that the transmitter was disrupting equipment in a science building. A compromise was reached to keep the station off the air during daytime hours so as not to affect the equipment, used in laser research funded by the United States Air Force. While a solution was sought to the interference issue, weather intervened as gusty winds toppled the new tower mounted atop Copley Hall, destroying the antenna.
While WGTB-FM was off the air, administration acted. Led by president Robert J. Henle, a study was conducted in the summer of 1971 which recommended the station be returned to air as soon as possible, that a professional be appointed to manage it, and a move back to a more block format and away from the rock-heavy sound that WGTB had adopted in 1970. Broadcasting resumed at reduced power that fall using a portion of the fallen tower. The ultimate solution to the interference problem was to move the transmitter off the campus: it was relocated to the American University campus in 1973.
The station's rock format also attracted renewed attention over its service to the community versus its responsiveness to the needs of students. Critics inside and outside student government pushed for changes to the format, such as basketball game broadcasts, and noted that just 30 percent of students listened to the station, though this was still a higher share than WMAL, then the city's leading commercial station with 18 percent of the market. President Henle ordered a new reorganization in 1975, which put the station under the control of a six-member review board; in doing so, he warned, "if the station cannot be made to contribute to the educational and religious mission of this University, then after another year, I will recommend to the Board of Directors that we sell the license and close the station".