In an age of media consolidation and general trends toward privatizing everything from trash pickup to Social Security, it’s refreshing to get news about something that’s actually going into public ownership. This week, the Amherst-based WFCR Foundation fully purchased the 50,000-watt AM station WNNZ from the radio conglomerate Clear Channel, capturing for public broadcasting a slice of the airwaves with wide geographical reception. Found at 640 on the AM dial, WNNZ covers all four Western Massachusetts counties—Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden—as well as areas of eastern New York and northern Connecticut. WFCR paid $600,000 with the aid of a short-term loan from Public Radio Capital that the WFCR Foundation’s capital campaign plans to pay off in the next four years.
WFCR CEO and General Manager Martin Miller described the opportunity to purchase the station as one that “comes along once in a lifetime,” adding that the transfer signaled “a new era for the greater Springfield/Pioneer Valley broadcast landscape.” The purchase comes soon after the similar if smaller acquisition of Deerfield Academy’s WGAJ 91.7 FM (now known as WNNZ 91.7 FM), whose all-news and talk programming will mirror the AM station’s and serve areas of Franklin County that might otherwise be marginally covered.
WNNZ has been programmed by WFCR since 2007, and carries National Public Radio favorites such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Fresh Air, as well as extensive BBC news and several other syndicated NPR shows. It also broadcasts WFCR’s local program Focus: Western New England, which recently hosted all four Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates in call-in programs and continues to offer extensive, in-depth coverage of local and regional elections.
