The fate of non-commercial radio stations owned by institutions of higher learning has been well covered over the last several years by RBR+TVBR. In December 2019, it was Ohio Northern University. Eight months earlier in April 2019, Bucknell University made a sale for a bargain price.
These deals followed transactions involving Anderson University in Indiana and much-publicized deals that saw Northern Kentucky University and The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth part ways with their respective stations.
Add the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire to the list.
Listener-supported “Converge Radio,” offering an eclectic take on Adult Alternative music much in the same vain as WXPN-FM in Philadelphia or KCPR-FM in San Luis Obispo, Calif., is now poised to lose its broadcast home.
That’s because the university through BluGold Radio LLC is selling WDRK-FM 99.9, licensed to Cornell, Wisc., to The Family Radio Network.
This signals the pending arrival of religious programming on the noncommercial FM.
The station’s sale brings $280,300 to the university, and adds WDRK to a group of stations comprised of four full-power and six FM translator properties across Wisconsin.
WDRK boasts a Class C3 signal that reaches Eau Claire from the north, and stretches to Menomonie to the southwest.
What’s next for “Converge Radio”?
WDRK Sales Manager Dustin Steinbrecher referred RBR+TVBR’s inquiry to UW-Eau Claire administration midday Wednesday; a response was not received by deadline.
