KUHU

KUER-FM (90.1 MHz) is a public radio station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Owned by the University of Utah, its studios are located in the Eccles Broadcast Center on the University of Utah campus, while its main transmitter is located on Farnsworth Peak; an extensive transmitter network rebroadcasts its signal across Utah. KUER-FM features programming from NPR and other public radio distributors as well as local news coverage for Utah.

KUER-FM began broadcasting on June 5, 1960, as an educational station emphasizing classical music. It became a regional service in 1962 when its transmitter was moved to Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains. After two financial crises that almost forced the station off the air, KUER evolved substantially in the 1970s and 1980s with the creation of NPR, a shift to a hybrid format of daytime classical and nighttime jazz music, each featuring long-tenured personalities. In 1993, it moved out of cramped quarters in historic Kingsbury Hall and into the new Eccles Broadcast Center.

Over the course of the 1990s, KUER-FM's program offerings came under threat from new competition: classical music listeners were defecting to KBYU-FM, while the new KCPW provided a challenge to KUER's NPR talk offerings. In response to falling ratings, classical music was removed from the schedule in 2001—triggering listener outcry but not a significant decline in donations. At the same time, the station created ''RadioWest'', a local and regional news discussion program focusing on Utah and the Western United States. The remaining music, nightly jazz, was removed from KUER's lineup in 2015.

History

Early history

The regents of the University of Utah (UofU) approved in November 1959 an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish an FM radio station on the campus. The FCC awarded the construction permit in January 1960.

On June 4, 1960, KUER-FM was authorized to begin program testing. It made its first broadcast the next day, June 5, consisting of a dedication program and the university's commencement ceremonies, simulcast with KUED. The studios in Kingsbury Hall had previously been used to run a carrier current station on the campus. In its initial period of operation, KUER broadcast for six hours a day, five days a week, with classical music and discussion programs as the primary programming. One regular feature was ''Chapter a Day'', in which a chapter of a selected book was read each day; another was music instruction for students. The station made two large leaps in its early years: expanding to an 11-hour weekday program schedule and adding weekend broadcasts in April 1961 and relocating its transmitter from Kingsbury Hall to Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains in 1962, improving reception in Salt Lake City and extending coverage along the Wasatch Front to Ogden and Provo. During this period, KUER was primarily run by students, though it was not targeted at the student audience. The lack of programming for this group led to a push to start a new carrier current outlet, "KUTE", aimed at campus interests. In 1968, ''The On Campus Show'' debuted, in part to serve as a vehicle for student action; it was the first such program in KUER's history.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, KUER almost ran out of money twice after the station was removed from the university's uniform school fund. Beginning in the 1967–68 school year, the station was funded by the Intermountain Regional Medical Program, which used KUER to broadcast postgraduate courses in medicine to physicians, but this was supplanted by direct telephone lines to hospitals. The medical program continued to provide $5,000 annually in support to the station through 1972, when it ceased providing money, raising the possibility of the station being shuttered. The station survived with funding from the Associated Students of the University of Utah and, beginning in the 1972–73 school year, became entirely student-operated, with some 70 volunteers and—for the first time—opportunity to earn course credits for working at KUER.

Going public and going statewide

In May 1971, KUER joined the new National Public Radio network and began carrying its first program, ''All Things Considered''. It became a seven-day-a-week operation with Saturday programming beginning in 1972 and began broadcasting at higher power and in stereo in 1974. A 24-hour programming schedule followed in 1984.

During the leadership tenure of Don Smith, KUER's first paid employee (in 1962) and station manager between 1975 and 1985, the station adopted a format of daytime classical music, early evening news and information, and nighttime jazz, responding to research into public radio audiences. The classical and jazz sections each had tenured on-air personalities associated with them. Gene Pack started with KUER when it began in June 1960 and remained for 42 years, spending almost all of that time hosting classical music programming. In 1988, Wes Bowen left KSL to join KUER, where he hosted the nightly ''Just Jazz''; the program remained on air into the 2000s. Another jazz program was hosted by Steve Williams from 1984 to 2015; upon his retirement, Scott Pierce of ''The Salt Lake Tribune'' hailed Williams as "the pre-eminent local authority on jazz".

In 1982, the station ceased reporting local news in response to NPR budget cuts. This changed four years later when KUER revived a news department, initially using students to gather news. By 1991, student involvement in newsgathering had been reduced again to nothing with the scrapping of a weekly public affairs program, ''Sunday Journal''. In spite of this, many people believed KUER was a student station in its news department.

KUER began laying the groundwork in the late 1970s for a statewide expansion of its programming. In October 1979, it filed for 14 different translators to rebroadcast into communities from Vernal to Washington. The translator network began to roll out in late 1982; there were 19 translators by 1988 and 28 by 1993.

New studios and new competition

During the 1980s, the University of Utah's broadcasting operations were outgrowing their cramped quarters. KUED, which was located separately in the Music Hall, sought new studios as early as 1981, and KUER was similarly facing a lack of space in Kingsbury Hall. After a $5 million gift by Dolores Doré Eccles, ground was broken on the Eccles Broadcast Center in 1989. KUED, KUER-FM, and KULC (channel 9) began broadcasting from the site in 1993.

In November 1992, KUER-FM gained competition for public radio talk listeners in the Salt Lake area. A new station, KCPW (88.3 FM)—an outgrowth of KPCW in Park City—signed on the air, offering what founder Blair Feulner called an "intelligent, all-information format" including such NPR shows as ''Talk of the Nation'' and ''Fresh Air'' as well as the BBC World Service overnights. Though Feulner disclaimed any competition with KUER-FM, KCPW was seen as a competitor to KUER and, in the late 1990s, began to chip away at KUER's listenership. Meanwhile, classical music listeners were slowly switching to the all-classical music station from Brigham Young University, KBYU-FM. In response, Greene proposed a reduction in classical programming, which met with opposition from some listeners. Later that year, KUER reduced its classical programming by an hour on afternoons and added ''The World'' in its place.

The response to proposed classical cuts, as well as the loss of listeners to KCPW for information and KBYU for classical music, informed Greene's decision to move quickly three years later. On March 16, 2001, with little notice, Greene discontinued KUER's daytime classical programming and replaced it with additional NPR talk shows. Greene justified the decision as a bid to shore up continuing listener erosion as classical listeners switched to KBYU and as providing a more distinctive service statewide. KCPW also protested the change, calling it "predatory" and fearing that duplication among the two stations—of six syndicated programs on weekdays—would harm it financially. The format change resulted in a sharp outcry from listeners and a dip in daytime listening figures, reaching as far as protests with the state Information Technology Commission. It did not dent listener contributions for the fiscal year, even though it was more than halfway complete at the time of the switch. In the first fund drive after the switch, donations reached a record high, in part driven by high demand for news in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Pack remained with KUER, producing an arts calendar and engaging in other behind-the-scenes work, before retiring the next year. In 2006, KUER began broadcasting in HD Radio, and the next year, it began multicasting, including a classical music subchannel.

Switch to all-talk and second station acquisition

In 2015, Steve Williams retired, ending his 31-year tenure with KUER. Concurrently, nighttime jazz programming was dropped and replaced with additional talk programming. It was Greene's last major move as the leader of KUER; he retired in 2017 after a 28-year tenure and was replaced with Maria O'Mara, a former KUER reporter and journalist who had been the communications director for the University of Utah. Leadership of KUER and KUED was combined in 2020 when KUED's general manager, James Morgese, retired.

KUER acquired the license and facility of KCPW in 2023, after that station put itself up for auction for financial reasons. KUER began broadcasting Spanish-language Radio Bilingüe—which had already been airing on an HD subchannel—on the frequency, while Utah Public Radio absorbed KCPW's programming. KCPW's call sign was changed to KUUB.

Funding

In fiscal year 2023, KUER-FM had total revenue of $5,997,000. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting contributed a $463,000 Community Service Grant, and the University of Utah contributed $542,000 in funding. The station received $2,018,000 in donations and $1,129,643 in underwriting revenues and had 13,001 members in 2023. A total of 436 major individual donors donated $737,000 in gifts and bequests.

Programming

KUER's programming during the week consists of public radio talk programs from NPR and other distributors, including ''Morning Edition'', ''Fresh Air'', ''The World'', ''Marketplace'', and ''All Things Considered''. A variety of specialty programs are aired on weekends.

Airing two days a week (Wednesday and Thursday) is ''RadioWest'', a newsmagazine focusing on issues of Utah and the West hosted by Doug Fabrizio. RadioWest debuted on February 1, 2000, initially as a twice-weekly program with reports from KUER and other public radio stations in the western United States, emphasizing longform and narrative features. In May 2001, RadioWest became KUER's first daily local news program, shifting to an hour in a midday timeslot and adding call-in segments. It continued airing at 11 a.m. until 2017, when Diane Rehm retired. The show was moved to an earlier time after ''Morning Edition'', which exacerbated Fabrizio's workload and made it harder to attract guests. In 2019, ''RadioWest'' went on hiatus and returned as a weekly program.

Repeaters

KUER-FM is rebroadcast by five full-power FM stations as well as 33 boosters (filling in within the immediate area of the KUER-FM transmitter) and translators throughout Utah.

Two repeaters have histories prior to rebroadcasting KUER-FM. KUEU in Logan went on the air in 2007 as KZCL, repeating Salt Lake City community radio station KRCL to northern Utah. The facility, which had been planned for more than a decade, struggled with engineering issues and the ability to receive a reliable signal of KRCL. It was sold to the UofU in 2011 and became KUEU, rebroadcasting KUER-FM; one local booster of the rebroadcast effort apologized in a letter to the editor for representing KRCL. KUQU, licensed to Enoch and covering St. George and Cedar City, was originally KYLZ, licensed to Parowan. It was silent when the UofU acquired it in 2016 along with its construction permit for the new city of license.

A translator in Pocatello, Idaho, was donated by the University of Utah to Boise State Public Radio in 2022, with the UofU citing difficulty in maintaining a reliable signal from Salt Lake City.

References

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NPR member stations
UER-FM
Mass media in Salt Lake City
University of Utah
1960 establishments in Utah
Radio stations established in 1960