“We are proud of the listener support and growth WYSO has experienced over the past couple of years,” said Antioch University Chancellor Toni Murdock.
WYSO finished its spring fund drive with a record $227,000 in pledges and 450 new members, said Neenah Ellis, general manager. The station has more than 60,000 listeners each week in southwest Ohio.
Federal funding accounts for 12 percent of the public station’s annual $1.3 million budget. The rest comes from underwriting, grants and contributions from its 3,349 members, Ellis said.
The new transmitter was purchased in part with a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with matching funds from the university.
WYSO will move to a newly renovated state-of-the-art broadcast facility in the former Kettering Laboratory building that also houses the university’s central administrative offices.
“We’re pleased that the university is investing in WYSO’s future,” Ellis said. “Our new facilities will allow us to expand our programming capacity significantly.”
The increased coverage area primarily will be in the Interstate 75 corridor between Dayton and Cincinnati. The power increase also will improve WYSO’s HD signal, which currently simulcasts the FM signal but could be expanded in the future to include additional programming.
The Federal Communication Commission has approved the changes, university officials said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2419 or dlarsen@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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