WYSO

WYSO (91.3 FM) is a radio station in Yellow Springs, Ohio, near Dayton, community owned and operated; formerly licensed and operated by Antioch College. It is the flagship National Public Radio member station for the Miami Valley, including the cities of Dayton and Springfield.
WYSO signed on in 1958 and has the distinction of being located in one of the smallest villages to host an NPR affiliate station. WYSO broadcasts in the HD Radio format.
WYSO was originally on 91.5 MHz. It moved to 91.3 MHz in 1980.
History.
WYSO started in 1958 as a student and faculty station with a 19-watt transmitter located at the student union building of Antioch College, on the air for only 4 hours a day. By the early 1970s, an intermediate power increase to 3000 watts and the introduction of permanent paid staff began a move towards reflecting and serving a larger community. At that time, WYSO was known as a university-based community radio station. Significantly, several Antioch College students and other volunteers took it upon themselves to be involved with an incipient community and public radio movement in the United States. Several of those individuals have occupied key positions since that time—out of proportion to the station's modest size.
Before NPR affiliation, nearly all of the station's programming was locally originated. The station had carried live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts, ad hoc networks set up by anti-Vietnam War activists, and a few recorded syndicated programs. "WYSO People's News" a local news program, was aired in the 1970s and 1980s. The rest of WYSO's program schedule was eclectic and block programming.
As at other community radio stations in the United States, NPR affiliation was viewed with suspicion by some insiders, but the attendant money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting led to a permanent staff and a local fundraising mandate.
WYSO became an NPR member station and started broadcasting "All Things Considered" at the time of the first power increase sometime between 1971 and 1973. The eventual popularity of NPR's news and information programming was not foreseen at the time and there were endless discussions about how the newly energized medium of noncommercial radio would best serve the community. The topic of local versus national origination was an important, but not the only, subject of debate. The decision to replace morning Bluegrass music, local and unique to the region, with network news in the morning was undertaken in the late 1980s. Tom and Jim Duffee and other local bluegrass musicians introduced the genre on WYSO around 1970, and it was embraced by management at the time as a link with the larger Southwest Ohio community.
In the spring of 2002, a group of listeners formed "Keep WYSO Local" in response to cutbacks to local programming. The cutbacks included canceling volunteer-hosted shows like "Alternate Takes" and "Women in Music," which started in 1975 and was one of the country's longest running shows dedicated to women producers and musicians. Listener Joseph Lutz commented that the changes "will soon transform WYSO from the quirky, bohemian station enjoyed by a few thousand listeners to a station that many more will turn on and let play as pleasant background sound that in no way disturbs listeners with unpredictable programming." The moves led to widespread protests in the Yellow Springs community as the group continued to debate the future of the station with the university.
WYSO became independently owned and operated from Antioch College in 2019, for which the college received $3.5 million as compensation. The station continues in collaboration with the college, such as by remaining in the Kettering Building on campus and by working with college students as interns. Meanwhile, Antioch students have revived the low-watt, FCC-licensed radio station on campus — called Anti-Watt — which can be heard at 101.5 FM or streamed online.
As of 2021, WYSO is a 50,000 watt station broadcasting 24/7 and reaching fourteen counties in southwest Ohio with a potential audience of nearly two million. Its staff of fifteen full-time members and dozens of volunteers produce over 40 hours of original local content each week.
Programming.
Locally produced "Rise When The Rooster Crows", once a daily morning feature, now airs traditional Bluegrass music on Sunday mornings. "Morning Edition" has aired in its place since the late 1980s. Bluegrass music is also aired on Saturday evenings with the program "Down Home Bluegrass."
Programming from Public Radio International and BBC World Service is also aired, as well as a segment where William Felker reads his book Poor Will's Almanack.
In early 2021 the station began a massive push to strengthen the music programming at WYSO, to fill the hole created locally with the termination of 89.7 WNKU's signal in 2017. Among the station's 14 music programs are “Excursions” on Monday-Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m, as well as “The Outside,” an experimental and contemporary music show on Sunday nights from 11 p.m.–1 a.m.
Management.
Most local programming, as measured by airtime, is produced by volunteers. Volunteers, listeners and donors to the station have asserted an unofficial role in station governance since the 1970s when the station was managed under Antioch's Community Government.
In December 2008, WYSO announced that Neenah Ellis, a public radio producer and host would be the station's next general manager. She and her husband, NPR host and author Noah Adams, made their home in Yellow Springs. By late 2019, Neenah Ellis was President of WYSO-owner Miami Valley Public Media, Inc., and Luke Dennis, aka Lucas Dennis, was General Manager of the station.