WCSP-FM, also known as C-SPAN Radio, is a
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...
station owned by the
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
(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
Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...
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
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sa ...
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
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...
, 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.
History
WGTB at Georgetown University
On May 25, 1960,
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...
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
WAMU (88.5 FM) is a public news/ talk station that services the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by American University, and its studios are located near the campus in northwest Washington. WAMU has been the primary Nati ...
at
American University
The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was cha ...
.
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
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
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
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. I ...
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.
![Copley Hall in Winter](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Copley_Hall_in_Winter.jpg)
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
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Si ...
. 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".
Even as university administration tried to steer its station in a new direction, new controversies arose over its broadcast of public service announcements for the Washington
Free Clinic
A free clinic or walk in clinic is a health care facility in the United States offering services to economically disadvantaged individuals for free or at a nominal cost. The need for such a clinic arises in societies where there is no universal ...
, which distributed information about abortions and birth control, resulting in the firing of general manager Ken Sleeman. The review board seized operational and editorial control of WGTB from the station board, removing records with sensitive language from airplay and leading to a full special edition of student newspaper ''
The Hoya''. Georgetown leadership began to examine its options for the station; while students overwhelmingly sought its continued operation, one administrator fretted that the money needed to make the station "productive to the University" could turn it into a financial liability, and others warned that if GU exited broadcasting by selling WGTB-FM, it would be very difficult to return.
In February 1976, new obscenity complaints emerged, this time about a poetry reading aired at 8 a.m. that had been approved for an 11 p.m. slot. On March 16, 1976, the university ordered the station off air in order to reorganize again and hire a new general manager.
With the station in the middle of a license renewal, potential interest from other groups emerged; one of these, the Committee to Save Alternative Radio (headed by former manager Sleeman
), filed a petition to deny against the renewal in April 1976. Another group, the
Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U.S. ...
, examined entering the fray but opted against it. CSAR members blasted the new WGTB, which returned to the air in June, as "a sterile college radio station" and even picked up former station host and district councilman
John A. Wilson as an ally.
From Georgetown to UDC
WGTB returned to the air, and its license was renewed in November 1977, but the damage had been done. In April 1978, Georgetown president
Timothy S. Healy, describing WGTB as "a great animal in the wrong zoo", announced that the university planned to shutter the station and sell the facility. After approaching
Duke Ellington School of the Arts
The Duke Ellington School of the Arts (established 1974) is a high school located at 35th Street and R Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., and dedicated to arts education. One of the high schools of the District of Columbia Public School syst ...
, which said it was not ready to handle operations, Georgetown opted to transfer the station to the
University of the District of Columbia (UDC) for $1; the
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of ...
was also interested, but Georgetown wanted the new owners to be based in D.C.
If the UDC had turned down the bid, the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington
The Archdiocese of Washington is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the United States. Its territorial remit encompasses the District of Columbia and the counties of Calvert, Charles, Montgomer ...
would have purchased WGTB-FM to operate as a Spanish-language station; Spanish-language
WFAN (1340 AM) closed that same month after a series of indiscretions by ownership led to the revocation of its license.
Station volunteer staff blamed recent troubles facing WGTB-FM on the station manager that been brought on board following the 1976 shutdown.
Despite the formation of an Alliance to Preserve Radio at Georgetown that opposed the UDC sale, WGTB-FM went off the air at 12:34 p.m. on January 31, 1979, as a crowd of 400 people protested in
Healy Circle, with most of them marching to FCC headquarters.
Together with protests about United States involvement in Iran, the WGTB rally marked the most protest activity on the campus since 1971.
![UDC Building 38 (2) by Matthew Bisanz](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/UDC_Building_38_%282%29_by_Matthew_Bisanz.jpg)
On March 12, 1980, the FCC approved the sale of WGTB-FM to UDC; the call letters were changed to WDCU on June 6. However, the 90.1 frequency remained silent for another two years following FCC approval, with the university seeking a move of the studios and transmitter. It was not until March 1982 that the station unveiled its plans for a jazz music station with weekend classical music programming and six hours a week in Spanish, with the station finally signing on May 1.
The University of the District of Columbia constantly struggled to bring in money for the station, which had just three full-time employees and never raised more than $200,000 in any year since its launch. However, the station did win a major power boost in 1994 after ending a six-year fight with television station
WFTY, which broadcast from the
Hughes Memorial Tower
The Hughes Memorial Tower is a radio tower in Washington, D.C., at 6001 Georgia Avenue, near the intersection of 9th Street NW and Peabody Street NW. At , it is the tallest structure of any kind in the district, surpassing the Washington Monument ...
next to the site where WDCU was already broadcasting; the increase to 50,000 watts also filled in reception issues in parts of the District and added some 900,000 people to the station's coverage area.
When the District's financial situation worsened and prompted the creation by Congress of a
District of Columbia Financial Control Board
The District of Columbia Financial Control Board (officially the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority) was a five-member body established by the United States Congress in 1995 to oversee the finances of ...
with the authority to close its financial shortfalls, combined with a $16 million budget deficit at UDC, it became obvious that WDCU was going to be sold. After months of speculation and rumors of interest by
George Washington University
, mottoeng = "God is Our Trust"
, established =
, type = Private federally chartered research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.8 billion (2022)
, presi ...
,
WETA and others, WDCU was put up for sale in May 1997, when the board retained a station brokerage.
In late June 1997, UDC trustees voted to sell WDCU to Community Resource Educational Association, a nonprofit affiliate of Christian religious broadcaster
Salem Communications
Salem Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: SALM; formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an American radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher formerly based in Camarillo, California (moved most operations to Irv ...
, for $13 million; the university retained the station's recording library.
This came after a joint bid by WAMU and WETA to preserve the station as a jazz outlet was priced out by religious bidders. One loud voice protesting the sale made its appeal directly to the Control Board: the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...
, which demanded to be reimbursed for $1 million in federal grants awarded to WDCU since 1991. Other public radio entities announced plans to challenge the sale at the FCC, including formal petitions by
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
and the
Media Access Project.
The opposition prompted Salem to ask C-SPAN, which had previously bid $10.5 million, if it was willing to increase its bid to $13 million and buy out Salem's portion of the contract; the move alleviated some of the pressure on the university,
[ though it still displaced all of WDCU's jazz and specialty shows.
Once the station was purchased, broadcasting of C-SPAN Radio on WCSP-FM began on October 9, 1997.]
As WCSP-FM
C-SPAN Radio expanded its coverage by signing programming agreements in 1998 with the two subscription-only satellite radio
Satellite radio is defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)'s ITU Radio Regulations (RR) as a '' broadcasting-satellite service''. The satellite's signals are broadcast nationwide, across a much wider geographical area than t ...
systems: CD Radio (later renamed Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Holdings.
Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially lau ...
) and General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
' XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio (XM) was one of the three satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM, Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable televisi ...
, bringing the station to a nationwide audience in 2001. Temporarily for a year during the Sirius XM
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...
merger in 2007 and 2008, it was not heard on Sirius, and it is not currently available on radios only compatible with the older Sirius system. The station was added to XM Radio Canada on April 1, 2007. The FM range of the radio station extends as far north as Hanover, Pennsylvania, south around 15 miles beyond Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,982. The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the United States Department of Commerce combines the city of Fredericksburg w ...
, west to 5 miles east of Front Royal, Virginia
Front Royal is the only incorporated town in Warren County, Virginia, United States. The population was 15,011 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Warren County.
History
The entire Shenandoah Valley including the area to become F ...
, and east to Cambridge, Maryland
Cambridge is a city in Dorchester County, Maryland, United States. The population was 13,096 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Dorchester County and the county's largest municipality. Cambridge is the fourth most populous city in Mary ...
. C-SPAN offers three channels of programming for listeners within the FM signal radius with HD radios, using digital technology to multicast
In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused wi ...
all three channels at 90.1 FM. The three channels offer different programming: WCSP-FM's usual programming is broadcast on 90.1 HD1; 90.1 HD2 simulcasts C-SPAN, broadcasting coverage of the House of Representatives plus other C-SPAN programming; 90.1 HD3 simulcasts C-SPAN2, broadcasting coverage of the Senate and audio of Book TV.
, C-SPAN Radio can be accessed via any phone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...
at (202) 626-8888. C-SPAN's mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
on iOS and Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
allows access to all three of WCSP's HD streams (including C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 audio), in addition to C-SPAN3.
Programming
C-SPAN Radio broadcasts public-affairs programming, including some audio simulcasts of C-SPAN's flagship television programs like '' Washington Journal'' and some radio-only programming such as the famous tape-recorded Oval Office
The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C.
The oval-shaped roo ...
conversations from the Johnson
Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
and Nixon administrations, oral histories, and some committee meetings and press conferences not shown on television due to programming commitments. The radio station does not try to duplicate C-SPAN television coverage, and takes a more selective approach to its broadcast content. Regular programs broadcast on the radio station include ''Today in Washington'' and ''Prime Minister's Question Time''. The station also broadcasts full gavel-to-gavel coverage of political convention
The terms party conference (UK English), political convention ( US and Canadian English), and party congress usually refer to a general meeting of a political party. The conference is attended by certain delegates who represent the party membe ...
s in election years.
In the early period of C-SPAN Radio's existence, programming also included coverage of local events and government hearings affecting only the Washington region.[ A unique part of WCSP's programming is its rebroadcast of five ]Sunday morning talk shows
A Sunday morning talk show is a television program with a news/ talk/ public affairs–hybrid format that is broadcast on Sunday mornings. This type of program originated in the United States, and has since been used in other countries.
Overview
T ...
, without commercials, in rapid succession.[ All programs on C-SPAN Radio are broadcast commercial-free.]
WCSP-FM is the first radio station to broadcast audiotape of historical U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments, with announcers explaining the court decision at the end of the recording.[ The broadcasts of the Supreme Court arguments have provided listeners in the U.S. and Canada with the opportunity to hear spoken words during oral arguments for several of the Court's most influential cases, including the '' Texas v. Johnson'' argument over flag-burning in 1989, and the '']Miranda v. Arizona
''Miranda v. Arizona'', 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts prosecutors from using a person's statements made in response to ...
'' argument in 1966. In September 2010 the Supreme Court began releasing audio recordings of the week's oral arguments each Friday, thereby allowing C-SPAN Radio to broadcast a selection of current arguments. Prior to this arrangement, recordings of oral arguments were occasionally made available on a same-day basis, which C-SPAN would request in cases of high public interest. When the court began live telephonic oral arguments during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, C-SPAN Radio began carrying those.
References
External links
C-SPAN Radio Online
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{{Superstations
C-SPAN
XM Satellite Radio channels
CSP-FM
Radio stations established in 1960
Sirius XM Radio channels