Delmarva Public Radio was founded a quarter century ago by Salisbury University (Maryland). But there is a very real possibility that the initial 25 years may not be followed by a second quarter century, reports The Salisbury Daily Times. Salisbury University, in its planning for the future, will demolish Caruthers Hall, which has housed 33-kW WSCL-FM (89.5) since its inception. No provisions were made for a new home for the station.
It seems the Salisbury University Foundation, which owns the bandwidth occupied by WSCL and WSDL (an Ocean City, MD repeater on 90.7), is having difficulty justifying the existence of Delmarva Public Radio from a financial standpoint, said the story.
In response, a group of loyal listeners has formed Friends of Delmarva Public Radio and is asking the university to provide funding up front to relocate the station before Caruthers is taken down, an amount totaling between $250,000 and $500,000, which it would work to repay over time. Because of the urgent deadline, there is no time to raise those funds in time to save the station.
SU President Janet Dudley-Eshbach is in a position to do Lower Delmarva a true service by standing up and definitively stating that the university will come through with what is needed in time to relocate WSCL.
See the Salisbury Daily Times story here
RBR-TVBR observation: WSCL is a flamethrower and can be received in the DC suburbs fairly often. The reason, we think, that Salisbury University is questioning keeping the Classical/NPR stations on the air is a) not the only full-power NPR affiliate in the Salisbury-Ocean City market (there is also full-power WESM-FM—University of Maryland Eastern Shore) and b) both WAMU-FM DC and WYPR-FM Baltimore have translators in the market—88.3 and 106.9, respectively. It’s simply “over-NPR’ed” and there aren’t enough donors to go around.
