Michigan Radio - Early Growth and Decline

Early Growth and Decline

WUOM quickly established itself as one of the leading educational broadcasters. Because the station was not affiliated with any of the commercial radio networks, it produced nearly all the programs it broadcast in the early days. The program guide for October, 1949 shows the station on the air from 12:00pm–10:00pm on weekdays (the station had just expanded into evenings), with a few hours of programs on Saturday and Sunday. The programs listed in the 1949 guide include "From the Classrooms," "Songs of France," "Tell Me, Professor," "Especially for Women," "Around the Town," "Record Rarities," "Hymns of Freedom," "Angell Hall Playhouse," and "Tea-Time Tunes." The station also offered live play-by-play of Michigan football games that month, as well as two live concerts from Hill Auditorium - recitals featuring University of Michigan faculty. Some of the programs featured recorded music, but nearly all programs were performed live to air in the first days. By the early 1950s many of these shows were being transcribed and sent to other stations.

In the mid 1960s the station had the largest staff of any FM radio station in the country. WUOM produced programs that were broadcast throughout Michigan on commercial and educational stations, and many of its programs aired around the country. The tapes were "bicycled" from one educational station to another.

WUOM's popularity gradually decreased from the height of the 1960s, though it still retained enough prestige to become a charter member of NPR in 1971. It was one of the approximately 90 stations that aired the inaugural broadcast of All Things Considered. However, by the early 1990s, Michigan Radio (as it has been known since 1989) was seen by some as a neglected backwater. One important cause of the decline was that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, created in 1967, tended to divert funding away from university owned stations to stations in large urban areas. Another cause of WUOM's decline may be that radio listening patterns changed, and listeners had new expectations. WUOM, while making some changes to accommodate the new realities of broadcasting, clung to its previously successful 1960s model for program production, which included primarily music and host presentation.

As a result of reduced popularity, the station faced declining audience and contributions throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1995 the CPB informed the station that its audience was so small that its federal funding was in jeopardy. Around the same time, the University of Michigan commissioned a private study that recommended the university divest itself of the radio stations. The university decided against that plan and instead made one last attempt to resuscitate the station.