Michigan Radio

Description

Michigan Radio is a service of Michigan Public Media, the public broadcasting company at the University of Michigan. Michigan Radio is:

• WUOM 91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit
• WVGR 104.1 Grand Rapids
• WFUM-FM 91.1 Flint

The stations of Michigan Radio are licensed to the Regents of the University of Michigan.

Radio began at the University of Michigan in the early 1920s, when the University began producing programs for WWJ in Detroit. The University's strategy at the time wasn't to own stations, but to produce programs for other stations throughout the state. By the early 1940s, the University changed direction and tried to apply for an AM frequency. All AM frequencies were unavailable, so in 1944, Michigan applied for a station at 43.1 MHz in the experimental FM band. The Federal Communications Commission eventually granted a license to Michigan for 91.7 in the newly-designated FM band and WUOM began broadcasting from Angell Hall on the Michigan campus in 1948. The station moved into its new home in the LS&A Building in 1949, where it stayed until 2003.

WVGR began broadcasting in December, 1961. WFUM-FM followed in 1985, serving the Flint area. (There was an earlier version of WFUM in Flint for a few years in the 1950's, repeating WUOM from Ann Arbor.)

Michigan Radio was a pioneer in educational broadcasting, producing programs in the 1950s and '60s that were heard throughout the country on educational, and some commercial, stations. The station was a charter member of NPR in 1971.

From its first days on the air, Michigan Radio's program service consisted of music, news, discussion programs, lectures, dramas and documentaries, most of which were produced in the station's four large studios at the LS&A Building. On July 1st, 1996, Michigan Radio inaugurated a new era, entering its second half-century of broadcasting with a news/talk format. Since then, Michigan Radio has grown to become one of the largest public radio stations in the country, with 451,000 weekly listeners to the stations (Fall 2005).