Cleveland State University handed over control of the university’s student-led radio station to Ideastream on Friday, effectively shutting down the 49-year-old WCSB 89.3. CSU announced the move on College Radio Day.

WCSB was replaced by JazzNEO, effective immediately, under Ideastream leadership. As a result, all programming for WSCB was terminated Friday morning.

The shutdown came on the same day the CSU board of trustees and the executive committee of the Ideastream Public Media board of trustees approved what Cleveland State President Laura Bloomberg, Ph.D., called "a promising new partnership" in an email to the community.

“Programming originating from CSU officially ended this morning, and already, the public listenership and Ideastream’s 44,000 members are receiving the broadcast on 89.3 FM and ideastream.org,” Bloomberg wrote. “The station will retain its call letters, and CSU will continue to maintain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license for the station.”

Locks changed, police posted

Student-employees at WCSB were met Friday with changed-locks and a police presence following an 11-minute call the station's leadership had with Bloomberg and Dr. Tachelle Banks, CSU's vice president of Student Belonging and Success.

“The change has been made,” Bloomberg told the students. “I understand – and I’m very aware of the fact that this is abrupt news for some of you, not welcomed news for some of you. I acknowledge that.”

The lack of warning for WCSB staff resulted from a non-disclosure agreement the university signed with Ideastream. Bloomberg welcomed the new partnership in the call. 

“I firmly believe that we are entering into this partnership that advances the vision and mission of CSU going forward,” Bloomberg said, adding that, "as a part of this agreement, we have substantially expanded opportunities for a broader range of students to have internships, we are working on for-credit learning opportunities with Ideastream.”

In the call, Bloomberg made no mention of the end of the 24/7 programming students and the community have produced for decades. In her email, she thanked "the dedicated team of students and volunteers who have programmed and hosted shows on WCSB in recent years," adding that CSU was "grateful for the faculty, staff, alumni and community members who have been involved since the station began nearly 50 years ago in 1976."

At no point in Friday's call did Bloomberg or Banks indicate whether Ideastream would find space for current WCSB staff and its programming, noting that that was up to Ideastream. 

“These things will evolve over the coming weeks and months, just as we will begin hopefully talking with the current student leadership of WCSB to think about what a pivot might be for some of the podcast programming that you have, and how you might want to think about extending it in other ways digitally – through podcasts, through some of the other tools and resources we have on campus,” Bloomberg said. “But as of now, WCSB, the FM station, will be focused on JazzNEO and programming will be the purview of Ideastream Public Media.”

Banks seconded Bloomberg’s comments, adding that the decision to shutter the station's programming was not directed at students.

“The decision though – I do want to be clear – is not as a result of how the station programming was managed at WCSB,” Banks said. “We hope moving forward, again, that we will be able to access these new experiences and engage in this partnership for the betterment of students and for the betterment of our institution and larger community.” 

Regular programming discontinued

WCSB is a hybrid station. Run by CSU students, it provided programming space for students and the community, catering to a wide range of mainstream and alternative genres and providing an invaluable service to Cleveland's Hispanic, German, Hungarian, Polish, Irish, Arabic, Asian and Slovenian-language audiences. It also hosted public affairs programming covering everything from social justice to space exploration. Whether JazzNEO, a dedicated jazz station, will integrate any of this programming is unknown, but appears unlikely.

"Station members are distraught, there was no warning whatsoever," Bob Drake, a community programmer for WCSB and CSU alumnus, told The Land. "Besides the student programming, there were a number of nationality-based shows, some with 40+ years history, displaced and with no chance to transition." 

"This was very abrupt," Drake said. "I've been summarily dismissed more than once, but never this summarily."

When WCSB staff began arriving at the station Friday to host their regularly scheduled shows, instead of going on-air, the staff were met with two police officers who said they had been instructed to clear students out of the facility.

“We are outside the station right now taking anything that we can from the 49 years of history, anything that belongs to us, anything in our in memorial — anything that has been associated with WCSB for the last 49 years, we’re trying to get it out now,” CSU senior Nicole Wloszek and host of WCSB’s “Odd Girl Hour” told The Cleveland Stater. 
 

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One of the officers told Wloszek that they were told by “university leaders” that “there shouldn’t be anybody in this suite.” 

“There are two police upstairs — we’re trying to get back into the station now to get the rest of what we have,” Wloszek said. “They didn’t give a chance to say goodbye, they didn’t give us a chance to end our shows or say anything to our listeners.” 

In what now appears to be a move to prepare for Friday's action, WCSB staff keycards were temporarily disabled on Tuesday, preventing any access to the station for approximately ten minutes. The university told staff the doors were being repaired, although it had not given prior notice of the work. Then, on Friday morning, again without prior notice, the keycards were again disabled. Station staff contacted the CSUPD to gain access to the facility, expecting to put shows to air, but instead learning they had been locked out.

Shut down follows WCSB-led protests at CSU's lack of support for student organizations

Friday's shutdown followed "two weeks of protest, because our student leaders have not gotten the money from the university that they were promised," Wloszek said.

The protests began Sept. 23, and were led by WCSB general manager Alison Bomgardner with the goal of raising awareness of ongoing concerns student organizations have with the Center for Campus Engagement and the lack of promised funding WCSB and other student organizations have experienced. 

“There is no more WCSB, because Cleveland State cares more about promoting non-profit ideals that are corporate and offer internship opportunities rather than facilitating communities to have a place on our campus,” Bomgardner said on Friday. “We will continue to rally, we will get another station. It might not be WCSB but it sure as hell won’t be WCSU.”
 

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“We are going to continue regardless of if they turned off all of our electricity, regardless of if they take all our records – we will survive, we will keep going,” Bomgardner said. 

“I kind of saw it (the closure) coming when we were kept in the dark for so long and not given any answers about what to do,” DJ Schlippy, a host at WCSB, told the Cleveland Stater. “I’m just disappointed and hurt, because this place shaped who I am – it has shaped every member that has ever been here.” 

“To have a community that is so accepting and free, it changes who you are, you become a better person,” Schlippy said. “People need outlets like WCSB, outlets that are accessible to anybody – free, public media that anyone can access.” 

Although WCSB will keep its call letters, the livestream at Ideastream is playing nothing but jazz, and no WCSB programming appears in the lineup. Shortly after the partnership was announced, the WCSB website was shut down.

For its swan song, the station played “My Rules” by Void, and the on-air sign flickered off for the unexpected, but final time. 

*** Editor's note: This story was written in collaboration with The Land.