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WUGA NO LONGER LOCAL?
Back during th« Observer TV era. we didn't have much
programming, so to avoid a blank screer most of the time,
we subscribed to a news service that crawled news briefs and
headlines across the screen—a forerunner to what you see at
the bottom of your news screen now. There was no sound or
background music with the news crawl and no NPR in Athens,
so I started scheming about some way to bring in the Atlanta
public radio station WABE 90.1 FM. The signal was so close to
90.5 that the UGA student radio station WUOG drowned it out.
I found out about a device that would gtom onto the WABE
signal and filter out the WUOG interference, and we were in
business. For about a year and a half, if you tuned your TV to
Observer Television Channel 13, you got NPR.
Then, I got out of the TV business, and the university
established WUGA 91.7 FM, and we had our own public radio
station in Athens.
The station belonged to the Georgia Public Broadcasting
network but was very much its own thing, with lots of local
programming in addition to the NPR staples like "All Things
Considered," "Morning Edition," etc. And, of course, a lot of
music, mostly classical. Although GPB owned the broadcast
license, the clout of the
university meant a lot of
independence for WUGA.
Things rocked along
like that for years. In the
flush times, the station
had five or six top-notch
reporters and writers work
ing on original stuff that
constantly won prizes in
the field. As the not-so-flush times came along, that crack
reportorial staff was continually scaled back until now. when
the thinnest of skeleton crews keeps some local programming
going primarily by dint of hard work, dedication, volunteers
and a deep well of experience and expertise that enable the
staff to sound bigger than they are.
The Georgia Public Broadcasting hierarchy never really liked
this arrangement and would have integrated WUGA into confor
mity with the statewide network years ago but for the aegis of
the u^'ersity.
Now, something has happened that brings the status of
WUGA into doubt and raises unanswered questions about its
future role in our community. You may be aware that the uni
versity bought a commercial television station, WNEG, and set
out to integrate it into the Grady College of Journalism and
Mass Communication, spent a lot of money and then threw in
the towel. Somebody convinced Georgia Public Broadcasting to
take the TV station off UGA's hands, so now the university is
touting a brave new future for the station, serving the univer
sity community and the state as a part of GPB.
What also has apparently happened, although the university
hasn't said anything much about it is that WUGA 91.7 FM was
thrown in to sweeten the deal. The university has apparently
reached an agreement with GPB that includes giving them con
trol of WUGA.
Nobody is sure what this means. UGA Vice President for
Communications Tom Jackson says it only means that the radio
station will have more support for more local programming and
that the new arrangement is otherwise no big deal. Jackson
points out that GPB has always owned the broadcast license
for WUGA. He does acknowledge that there is a new operating
agreement that puts control over the station into the hands of
a new manager, who will also n»r. tne TV station and will report
directly to GPB in Atlanta. The former station manager, Steve
Bell, who led WUGA to become a perennial first-place winner
in local ratings, is relieved of responsibility for the station's
operations.
Will WUGA 91.7 FM, under state budget pressures and
Atlanta management, gradually go the way of the other sta
tions in the GPB network and lose its local programming? Will
our station become indistinguishable from the other units in
the system, except for its call letters, and devoid of any pro
gramming relating to Athens? If so, it will still have all the
familiar and popular NPR news, opinion and entertainment
programs—a strong and interesting lineup—^ut we will lose
an independent station with its eye also on Athens.
Pete McCommons editor@flagpQie.com
What also has
apparently happened...
is that WUGA 91.7 FM
was thrown in to
sweeten the deal.
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