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WMOT is a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...
serving the
metropolitan Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...
market. Licensed to
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, it is owned by the
Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU or MT) is a public university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Founded in 1911 as a normal school, the university consists of eight Undergraduate education, undergraduate colleges as well as a college of Postgr ...
, located in nearby
Murfreesboro,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, and it broadcasts an
Americana
Americana may refer to:
*Americana (music), a genre or style of American music
*Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States
Film, radio and television
* ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...
-based format branded as ''Roots Radio.''
Due to its location, WMOT's signal is strongest and clearest in Nashville and surrounding counties.
History
Originally started in April 1969 employing various forms of
pop and
rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
that was aimed at a student listenership, WMOT ran a full-time jazz
music format
An audio format is a medium for sound recording and reproduction. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats of the audio content—in computer science it is often limited to the audio file format, but its ...
between 1982 and 2009, aimed at a somewhat larger, more adult audience. By the late 2000s, WMOT was one of only a handful of U.S.
public radio stations employing a jazz format full-time, without filling much of the broadcast day with news and other genres. At various times in the station's history, it has broadcast MTSU
football and
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
games as well; WMOT has broadcast those athletic contests mainly because of the lack of interest from commercial stations in the immediate Murfreesboro or Nashville markets in doing so.
In 1995, the MTSU student government body started another
college radio station,
WMTS-FM, to serve the campus audience once served by WMOT.
In 2008, WMOT lost its annual grant from 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, ...
(CPB), due to a number of factors. This loss of revenue, along with appropriations cuts by the state of Tennessee, prompted MTSU officials to consider discontinuing the station in early 2009. However, in late 2009, the university decided to instead merge WMOT's operations into a consortium with the other MTSU media (such as WMTS and the student newspaper) titled the Media Convergence Center, with consequent reductions in the station's subsidy, in order to avoid closing it down.
Along with the reorganization, WMOT decided to make radical scheduling changes, notably discontinuing its exclusively jazz format in order to appeal to a wider audience in the Nashville market. In October 2009, WMOT added news and talk programming to the morning and afternoon "drive time" slots between 5 and 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. from the
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...
and
Public Radio International. However, after Nashville public radio outlet
WPLN-FM
WPLN-FM (90.3 FM), is a National Public Radio-affiliated station in Nashville, Tennessee. Since June 2011, the station has employed exclusively a news and talk format; until then, the station carried at least some classical music. The station ma ...
discontinued classical music programming during the daytime on weekdays in 2009, WMOT decided in February 2011 to fill the void by replacing jazz with classical between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., formerly the hours when WPLN broadcast that format, in order to gain listeners seeking that format. WMOT also brought back, after many years' absence,
National Public Radio
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 ...
's flagship program, ''
All Things Considered
''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...
'', although it duplicated the program's carriage by WPLN (as did the NPR hourly news updates). ''ATC'' was dropped after the format change in 2016 (see below).
The situation among public broadcasters in the Nashville market became more complicated later that year when that WPLN's parent organization, Nashville Public Radio, acquired the
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
student-run station
WRVU
WRVU is a student-run college radio station associated with, but not operated by, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. It broadcasts via streaming radio, and from 1973 to 2014, it was also broadcast on licensed radio stations in Nashv ...
in June, converting it into an all-classical format under the
WFCL callsign, while the main WPLN signal became a full-time news-and-talk outlet. In November 2020, WFCL itself changed formats (and callsign to WNXP) to
adult album alternative
Adult album alternative (also triple-A, AAA, or adult alternative) is a radio format. See pages 9 and 10Mills, Joshua. "A New Radio Music Format: Rock for Prosperous Adults" New York Times, Feb 28 1994, p. 2. ProQuest. Web. Accessed September 4, 2 ...
, intended partly to compete against the current WMOT format.
On August 26, 2016, it was announced that WMOT would switch to an
Americana
Americana may refer to:
*Americana (music), a genre or style of American music
*Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States
Film, radio and television
* ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...
-based format on September 2, 2016, in partnership with the syndicated music program ''Music City Roots''. College of Media and Entertainment Dean Ken Paulson explained that the new format was meant to "truly
eflectboth Nashville's musical past and present", adding that they wanted WMOT's content to "become more tightly integrated with our educational opportunities at the college". The program's co-creator John Walker praised the partnership, stating that "We've always dreamed there would be a radio station that would fully embrace the Roots, Americana music going on all over the country, but centered right here in Middle Tennessee." The previous jazz format moved to WMOT-HD2, simulcasting on 92.3 W222BZ in Bluhmtown, and later also 104.9 W285FB in Bellevue.
Programming currently includes the nationally syndicated shows ''Hangin' & Sangin, ''The String'', and ''Bel-Aire Drive''.
Webb Wilder
John Webb McMurry (born May 19, 1954), known as Webb Wilder, is an American country, rock & roll singer, guitarist and actor.
Early life
McMurry was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He started playing guitar at the age of 12 and was playing ...
, a Nashville-based alternative rock artist, serves as an afternoon disc jockey on WMOT as of late 2020.
HD Radio
WMOT carries two
HD Radio subchannels: WMOT-HD2 carried "
old-time radio" programs until September 2, 2016, when it switched to WMOT's former classical and jazz format (now carrying strictly jazz, as noted above), and WMOT-HD3 simulcasts WMTS-FM.
Translators
See also
*
List of Nashville media
Nashville, Tennessee is the 29th largest media market in the United States with roughly 966,000 homes, 0.8% of the country's media market.
Print
Daily newspapers
*''The Tennessean''
Weekly newspapers
*La Campana' - Spanish newspaper
*NashVega ...
References
External links
WMOT official websiteWMOT-HD2 official website*
*
*
{{Coord, 36.085, N, 86.439, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title
Middle Tennessee State University
MOT
Radio stations established in 1969
NPR member stations
1969 establishments in Tennessee