WMOT (89.5
FM) is a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
radio station
Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...
serving the
metropolitan
Metropolitan may refer to:
Areas and governance (secular and ecclesiastical)
* Metropolitan archdiocese, the jurisdiction of a metropolitan archbishop
** Metropolitan bishop or archbishop, leader of an ecclesiastical "mother see"
* Metropolitan ar ...
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...
market. Licensed to
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro is a city in Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Its population was 165,430 according to the 2023 census estimate, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010 United States census, 2010. Murfreesboro i ...
, it is owned by the
Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU or MT) is a Public university, public research university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Founded in 1911 as a normal school, the university consists of eight Undergraduate education, undergraduate colleges as ...
alongside
WMTS-FM (88.3 FM), with studios for both stations located in the College of Media and Entertainment on campus and an East Nashville studio at Riverside Revival on the BOE Foundation campus. WMOT's transmitter is located south of
Gladeville, Tennessee
Gladeville is an unincorporated community in Wilson County, Tennessee. The community is named for the surrounding cedar glades— a unique type of ecosystem that thrives in the thin or barren soil of south Wilson County. Gladeville is locat ...
. It broadcasts an
Americana
Americana may refer to:
*Americana music, a genre or style of American music
* Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States
Film, radio and television
* ''Americana'' (1981 film), an American drama film
* ''Americana'' (20 ...
-based format branded as ''Roots Radio.''
Due to its location, WMOT's signal is strongest and clearest in Nashville and surrounding counties.
History
Originally started in April 1969 employing various forms of
pop
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Pop music, a musical genre
Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop! (British group), a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Album ...
and
rock music
Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...
that was aimed at a student listenership, WMOT ran a full-time jazz
music format
An audio format is a medium for sound recording and reproduction. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats of the audio content—in computer science it is often limited to the audio file format, but its ...
between 1982 and 2009, aimed at a somewhat larger, more adult audience. By the late 2000s, WMOT was one of only a handful of U.S.
public radio
Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...
stations employing a jazz format full-time, without filling much of the broadcast day with news and other genres. At various times in the station's history, it has broadcast MTSU
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
and
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
games as well; WMOT has broadcast those athletic contests mainly because of the lack of interest from commercial stations in the immediate Murfreesboro or Nashville markets in doing so.
In 1995, the MTSU student government body started another
college radio
Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...
station,
WMTS-FM, to serve the campus audience and allow students to program music for their peers.
In 2008, WMOT lost its annual grant from the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB; stylized as cpb) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to ...
(CPB), due to a number of factors. This loss of revenue, along with appropriations cuts by the state of Tennessee, prompted MTSU officials to consider discontinuing the station in early 2009. However, in late 2009, the university decided to instead merge WMOT's operations into a consortium with the other MTSU media (such as WMTS and the student newspaper) titled the Center for Innovation in Media, with consequent reductions in the station's subsidy, in order to avoid closing it down.
Along with the reorganization, WMOT decided to make radical scheduling changes, notably discontinuing its exclusively jazz format in order to appeal to a wider audience in the Nashville market. In October 2009, WMOT added news and talk programming to the morning and afternoon "drive time" slots between 5 and 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. from the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
and
Public Radio International
Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States.
PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...
. However, after Nashville public radio outlet
WPLN-FM
WPLN-FM (90.3 MHz), is a non-commercial public radio station in Nashville, Tennessee. It airs a news, talk and information radio format and is owned by Nashville Public Radio along with sister station WNXP. The station's studios and offices ...
discontinued classical music programming during the daytime on weekdays in 2009, WMOT decided in February 2011 to fill the void by replacing jazz with classical between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., formerly the hours when WPLN broadcast that format, in order to gain listeners seeking that format. WMOT also brought back, after many years' absence,
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
's flagship program, ''
All Things Considered
''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...
'', although it duplicated the program's carriage by WPLN (as did the NPR hourly news updates). ''ATC'' was dropped after the format change in 2016 (see below).
The situation among public broadcasters in the Nashville market became more complicated later that year when that WPLN's parent organization, Nashville Public Radio, acquired the
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...
student-run station
WRVU
WRVU is a student-run college radio station associated with, but not operated by, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. It broadcasts via streaming radio, and from 1973 to 2014, it was also broadcast on licensed radio stations in Nas ...
in June, converting it into an all-classical format under the
WFCL callsign, while the main WPLN signal became a full-time news-and-talk outlet. In November 2020, WFCL itself changed formats (and callsign to WNXP) to
adult album alternative
Adult album alternative (also triple-A, AAA, or adult alternative) is a radio format. See pages 9 and 10Mills, Joshua. "A New Radio Music Format: Rock for Prosperous Adults" New York Times, Feb 28 1994, p. 2. ProQuest. Web. Accessed September 4, ...
, intended partly to compete against the current WMOT format.
On August 26, 2016, it was announced that WMOT would switch to an
Americana
Americana may refer to:
*Americana music, a genre or style of American music
* Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States
Film, radio and television
* ''Americana'' (1981 film), an American drama film
* ''Americana'' (20 ...
-based format on September 2, 2016, in partnership with the syndicated music program ''Music City Roots''. College of Media and Entertainment Dean Ken Paulson explained that the new format was meant to "truly
eflectboth Nashville's musical past and present", adding that they wanted WMOT's content to "become more tightly integrated with our educational opportunities at the college". The previous jazz format moved to WMOT-HD2, simulcasting on 92.3 W222BZ in Bluhmtown, and later also 104.9 W285FB in Bellevue.
Music City Roots ended it's programming in 2017 and it's involvement with WMOT soon after.
WMOT is a nonprofit, public radio station and the largest Americana radio station in the United States. It can be heard regionally in Middle Tennessee on 89.5 FM and globally on WMOT.org or on the WMOT ap
Stream WMOT WMOT promotes Americana music through weekly live showcases at Finally Friday, during AmericanaFest on the AmericanaFest Day Stage presented by WMOT, NPR Music and World Cafe and an annual American Roots music festival, Roots on the Rivers held annually
About WMOT
In August of 2024 WMOT opened a satellite studio in East Nashville on the BOE Foundation campus. The studio serves as a live radio studio, production studio and video production studio. Additionally, WMOT's popular Wired In in-person concert series takes place at Riverside Revival on the BOE campus
WMOT Launches East Nashville Studio
Programming currently includes the nationally syndicated shows ''The List, ''The String'', and ''Bel-Aire Drive''.
Webb Wilder
John Webb McMurry (born May 19, 1954), known as Webb Wilder, is an American country, rock & roll singer, guitarist and actor.
Early life
McMurry was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He started playing guitar at the age of 12 and was playin ...
, a Nashville-based alternative rock artist, serves as an afternoon disc jockey on WMOT as of late 2020.
HD Radio
WMOT carries two
HD Radio
HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...
subchannels: WMOT-HD2 carried "
old-time radio
The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the earl ...
" programs until September 2, 2016, when it switched to WMOT's former classical and jazz format (now carrying strictly jazz, as noted above), and WMOT-HD3 simulcasts WMTS-FM.
Translators
See also
*
List of Nashville media
References
External links
WMOT official website*
*
*
{{Coord, 36.085, N, 86.439, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title
Middle Tennessee State University
MOT
Radio stations established in 1969
NPR member stations
1969 establishments in Tennessee