Classical WWED, WWEM to shutter

By
cmarcucci
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2

Educational Media Corporation’s Classical music stations WWED–FM (89.5) Fredericksburg, VA and WWEM-FM (91.7) Lynchburg, VA will go off the air by 8/1.


The nonprofit stations will continue as a webcast on ClassicsRadio.org. GM Pete Stover told the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star that lack of financial support in the Fredericksburg and Lynchburg areas as the reason the shut-down.

Both solicit donations on ClassicsRadio.org and the Classics Radio Facebook page. The monthly operating budget for the 24-hour non-commercial all-classical music format webcast is $10,000, according to the story.

WWED launched in 2005, and tried several different formats, including praise and worship, gospel, bluegrass and contemporary Christian. WWED and WWEM, which are simulcast, switched to a classical music format in February of 2012.

See the Freelance-Star story here.

RBR-TVBR observation: The Fredericksburg market is fairly well served by WETA-FM Washington, DC, which is the most powerful station there. WCVE-FM out of Richmond to the south is also a flamethrower. So perhaps too many choices for that format are to blame there.

Of course, what EMC should do is sell the 89.5 frequency in Fredericksburg to the University of Mary Washington. Its current station, WMWC streams live on the internet, but has no RF signal (we couldn’t get it to stream for us).

 

 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Carl,
    WVTF out of Roanoke will be installing a translator for the “Classical. Jazz. NPR.” format in Spotsylvania County. The 250-watt facility will be fed by WQIQ’s HD-2 feed, which will carry WVTF’s programming from Roanoke.

    I would say that this translator will cover a good portion of WWED’s former area. As of yesterday, WWED and WWEM were carrying praise & worship music.

    Jay

  2. I believe that it was Educational Media Corporation that sold its Dallas station (91.7) because they could not make it work. They moved the format and call letters to a daytime only “AM” station and it failed too. Maybe Educational Media Corporation should close its doors for being incompetent.

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