Published: Monday, February 16, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

Whitworth’s radio station, KWRS 90.3 FM, made its last radio broadcast in December and has moved to an online-only format.

KWRS staff received notification in early December that the plug would be pulled sooner than anticipated.

“We were initially told we would be losing the frequency next September,” said Bud Bareither, general manager of KWRS.

The frequency will be taken over by Spokane Public Radio.

KWRS has been anticipating this change for quite some time. Because KWRS uses a 10-watt transmitter, thus limiting the broadcast range to about three miles, the station has always been a prime target for absorption into a larger station, said Ben Leighton, former general manager of KWRS, in an article in The Whitworthian.

“The FCC really doesn’t pay too much attention to small stations like us,” Leighton said.

However, KWRS will not be closing its doors. The station already broadcasts over the Internet and will broadcast solely online from now on.

The station continues to broadcast at http://www.kwrs.fm.

A major overhaul of the online station is in the works, Bareither said.

“We’re going to add more content and clean up the appearance of the Web site,” he said.

Bareither said the KWRS staff is a little stressed because the transition is happening much faster than originally anticipated.

“It’s tough losing the frequency,” he said. “But we’re pretty excited about the possibilities.”

Although the radio station won’t be under the FCC decency guidelines governing broadcast content, Bareither said the radio station will stay clean. All DJs for the station must sign a contract that states they will not use expletives on the air or play songs with expletives. |

The change is perhaps a good one, said Ginny Whitehouse, associate professor and chair of the communication studies department.

“I am excited to see what the students do to develop Pirate Radio under this new format,” she said. “The students remain committed to producing good programming. The medium is just different now.”