<< Back 7/31/02 WCU’s Power 90.5 expands services with addition of Met SMN The wait may not quite be over for Western North Carolina opera-lovers singing the blues since the loss of the Metropolitan Opera from the local airwaves several years ago, but the fat lady is warming up her vocal chords. That’s because Western Carolina University’s FM radio station, WWCU-FM (Power 90.5), has joined the prestigious Chevron Texaco Metropolitan Opera International Network for the 2002-03 season. The university’s radio station will carry the entire upcoming 20-production season, beginning Dec. 7 with Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and continuing on successive Saturday afternoons until the season-ending “The Rake’s Progress” by Stravinsky on April 19. A season preview will be broadcast Nov. 30. Other shows on the schedule for 2002-03 include “Carmen,” “Elektra,” “Die Fledermaus,” “Don Giovanni,” “La Boheme,” “La Traviata” and “Faust.” “We had several people ask why the Met wasn’t available anywhere in this area, including people who moved here from other places and who are used to being able to hear the Met wherever they are,” said Don Connelly, assistant professor of communication at Western and faculty adviser to WWCU-FM. The ChevronTexaco Metropolitan Opera broadcast is the longest-running sponsored radio show, and has been on the air for 63 consecutive years, Connelly said. “We began looking into it, and we were surprised to find that no one else in the region was carrying this prestigious broadcast,” he said. “It was our station manager and program director — both are students ” who said, ‘We have to get that here.’ It was our student managers who realized that, by broadcasting the Met, we would be reaching a completely different audience.” The addition of the Metropolitan Opera season is only the latest example of major changes in programming at WWCU-FM. In late 2001, the station became an affiliate of the ABC Direction network, carrying live news at the top of the hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The national network also features Paul Harvey news and commentary. “It’s kind of unusual for a non-commercial station to be granted the privilege of joining the ABC radio network,” Connelly said. “Because we are a non-commercial station, we do not air the advertisements that come with the newscasts; we simply air the news. ABC is allowing us to do this as a professional learning experience for our students and as a service to the community.” By adding such high-profile programming as the Met and ABC news, Western is extending the radio station’s community service and helping open future doors for students who get their early broadcast training at WWCU-FM, he said. The station will be relocating soon from the basement of Moore Hall into a new student media center in the Old Student Union Building, currently undergoing renovation. Also in the works are major technological changes and equipment upgrades that will boost the station’s signal strength to reach listeners farther away from campus. “When our students leave here, they will have had the benefit of working with national broadcasting organizations,” Connelly said. “As we begin to be able to provide service to communities outside of Cullowhee, our students are going to get broader exposure for their work. They are going to get a better learning experience and, with the redesign of our studio, will get to work in a professional-level environment. We want to see our students be able to leave here, walk into any radio station in the country and begin work right away.” WWCU-FM is a broadcast service of Western Carolina University. For more information, call 828.227.7454 or 828.227.3851.