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KUOW-FM

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Coordinates: 47°36′58″N 122°18′32″W / 47.616°N 122.309°W / 47.616; -122.309
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KUOW-FM
Broadcast areaSeattle metropolitan area
Frequency94.9 MHz (HD Radio)
BrandingKUOW 94.9
Programming
FormatFM/HD1: News/Talk
AffiliationsNPR
Ownership
OwnerUniversity of Washington
OperatorKUOW Puget Sound Public Radio
History
First air date
1952
Former frequencies
90.5 MHz (1952–1958)
Call sign meaning
University Of Washington
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID66571
ClassC1
ERP100,000 watts
HAAT224 meters (735 ft)
Translator(s)90.7 K214EW (Bellingham)
Repeater(s)90.3 KQOW (Bellingham)
1340 KUOW (Tumwater)
Links
Public license information
WebcastListen Live
Websitekuow.org

KUOW-FM (94.9 MHz) is a National Public Radio member station in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest of the three full-fledged NPR member stations in the Seattle and Tacoma media market, with two Tacoma-based stations, KNKX and KVTI being the others. It is a service of the University of Washington, but is operated by KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio, a nonprofit community organization. Studios are located on University Way in Seattle's University District, while the transmitter is on Capitol Hill.

History

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KUOW lobby

KUOW went on the air in 1952 on 90.5 FM.[2] Its transmitter was on the University of Washington campus atop the Administration Building, now Gerberding Hall. In 1958, Dorothy Stimson Bullitt moved KING-FM to 98.1 and gifted KING's 94.9 FM transmitter and antenna to the Edison Vocational School. That same year, KUOW started using the 94.9 FM transmitter operated by Edison. KUOW is one of the few public radio (or any non-commercial educational) stations in the United States broadcasting on a frequency outside of the reserved band (88–92 MHz; Seattle is also home to KING-FM on 98.1, which became a non-commercial station in 2010).[3] From its 1954 sign-on until 1987, KUOW was a sister station to educational/NET television outlet (and now PBS member station) KCTS-TV (channel 9); the university spun off KCTS in 1987 and became a community licensee.

In the 1960s, however, KUOW began branching out, adding more news programming. It was a charter member of NPR in 1970. In 1992, it changed format from music to news and information, and in 1999 it moved off campus to its current location on University Way.[4] Also in 1999, UW outsourced the station's operation to Puget Sound Public Radio.

In late March 2020, KUOW "made an editorial decision to stop airing White House briefings on the coronavirus pandemic live on a daily basis."[5] A statement from the station asserted that the decision was not politically based, and their "greater concern was the potential impact of false information on the health and safety of our community."[5]

For several weeks in January and February 2022, a technical glitch with HD Radio caused the infotainment systems of Mazda vehicles made between 2014 and 2017 to only play KUOW's signal and flash repeatedly. Mazda blamed the issue on a missing file extension in KUOW's station logo; KUOW had ruled out a theory that the rollout of 5G networks had interfered with the existing 3G data received by infotainment systems.[6][7]

Audience

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KUOW reported that the station served an average of 413,600 listeners each week in 2019, down from 447,100 in 2018.[8] The station also reported that their on-demand audio and podcasts received 2.9 million downloads total.[8]

KUOW-FM broadcasts in HD.[9] On March 7, 2018, KUOW made the decision to discontinue the HD2, HD3, and HD4 subchannels. "KUOW2" continues to be transmitted on translator K214EW 90.7 and KQOW-HD2 in Bellingham, while KUOW Jazz was discontinued.[10] The main analog signal continues to be simulcast on HD1.

KUOW is also carried on the following satellite and broadcast translator stations to improve reception of the station:

Finances

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For KUOW's fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, the station reported total revenue of $18,732,286 and total expenses of $18,339,864, for a net gain of $392,422.[11] Its sources of revenue were:[8]

Programs

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KUOW broadcast the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library's Evergreen Radio Reading Service to blind and handicapped listeners on its 67kHz subcarrier, until the service's closure on August 15, 2014.[12] KUOW was one of three major FM stations in Washington to do so; KPBX-FM in Spokane and KFAE-FM in Yakima were the others.[13]

Music programming

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  • The Swing Years and Beyond: a program that ran from 1968 to 2017 featuring jazz, swing, and blues music from the early 20th century.[14]

Podcasts

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  • Battle Tactics for Your Sexist Workplace
  • How's Your Day?
  • KUOW Newsroom
  • KUOW Shorts
  • Primed
  • Radioactive
  • Seattle Now
  • Second Wave
  • SoundQs
  • Speakers Forum
  • The Wild With Chris Morgan

How to Be a Girl

[edit]
Main article: How to Be a Girl (podcast)

How to Be a Girl is a parenting podcast hosted by a mother using the pseudonym Marlo Mack to discuss her experiences raising her transgender child.[15] Mack had been recording her child since she was a baby and had recently joined a local radio club when her daughter began expressing that she was not a boy, which lead to the production of the podcast.[16] The podcast has been nominated for a Peabody award and has won both a Webby award for best writing as well as the international award from the British Podcast Awards.[17] Freddie McConnell of The Guardian praised the show calling it a "tender take on an under-represented reality" and Katy Cowan of Creative Boom praised the show saying that it was "a revealing and often emotional podcast."[18][19]

The Record

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The Record is KUOW's flagship local news and interview podcast hosted by Bill Radke that debuted in the fall of 2013 and ended in July 2021.[20][21] After a neo-Nazi was punched for wearing a Nazi band in public, Radke interviewed the neo-Nazi on the show, which was received negatively from the show's audience and led to Radke apologizing for doing the interview.[22][23] Week in Review is the Friday edition of The Record, which won an award in 1996 for the best commentary and analysis from the Society for Professional Journalist.[24][25]

Soundside

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Soundside is a midday news podcast hosted by Libby Denkman that airs on KUOW on Mondays through Thursdays.[26] The show was created after The Record ended.[21]

Terrestrial

[edit]
For Ashley Ahearn's podcast about the greater sage-grouse, see Grouse (podcast).

Terrestrial was an environmental podcast hosted by Ashley Ahearn which ran from April 2017 until December 2017.[27] Ahearn started the podcast because she felt that most environmental journalism is impersonal and she wanted to explore how individuals cope with climate change rather than the discouraging state of the world.[28] The podcast was nominated for Best Green Podcast in 2020 at the iHeartRadio Podcast Awards and was featured on Outside Online as the best environmental podcast of 2017.[29][30] Jillian Capewell of HuffPost praised the show saying that the podcast is an "informative show in a sound-rich and powerful audioscape" and Rowan Slaney of The Guardian praised the show saying that "it absolutely blew me away."[31][32]

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KUOW-FM". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ History Cards for KUOW-FM Archived May 26, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, fcc.gov. Retrieved May 25, 2018.
  3. ^ FM Translators and Boosters Archived December 29, 2017, at the Wayback Machine fcc.gov July 6, 2017
  4. ^ "KUOW History". kuow.org. July 5, 2002. Archived from the original on July 5, 2002. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  5. ^ a b "KUOW Statement on Live White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefings". kuow.org. March 25, 2020. Archived from the original on March 25, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
  6. ^ Lacitis, Eric (February 8, 2022). "Thanks to a Glitch, Some Seattle Mazda Drivers Can't Tune Their Radios Away From KUOW". The Seattle Times. The Seattle Times Company. Archived from the original on February 9, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  7. ^ Martin, Casey (February 8, 2022). "Stuck in KUOW Purgatory: Seattle Mazda Drivers Can't Change the Radio Dial". kuow.org. Archived from the original on February 9, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  8. ^ a b c "To Tell You the Truth—Going Beyond Radio to Give You the Truth: Every Minute, Everywhere. Here's What You Made Possible in 2019". kuow.org. 2019. Archived from the original on March 24, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
  9. ^ "HD Radio Guide for Seattle–Tacoma". hdradio.com. Archived from the original on July 22, 2015. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  10. ^ "KUOW Discontinues Some of Our HD Channels". kuow.org. March 7, 2018. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019. Retrieved April 30, 2019.
  11. ^ "Financials" (PDF). kuow.org. 2020. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 25, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
  12. ^ Cuta, Frank (August 15, 2014). "Evergreen Radio Reading Service Ending". Washington Talking Book & Braille Library. Archived from the original on January 7, 2015. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  13. ^ "How Do I Receive the Evergreen Radio Reading Service?". Washington Talking Book & Braille Library. February 20, 2012. Archived from the original on February 20, 2012. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  14. ^ "The End of an Era: 'The Swing Years and Beyond' and Vinyl Café'". kuow.org. January 27, 2017. Archived from the original on February 11, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  15. ^ Woo, Michelle (June 11, 2018). "I'm Marlo Mack, Creator of the 'How to Be a Girl' Podcast, And This Is How I Parent". Lifehacker. G/O Media. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  16. ^ Anastas, Katie (June 14, 2017). "Are You Listening? Eight Seattle-Area Podcasters Share Origins, Advice". The Seattle Times. The Seattle Times Company. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  17. ^ Ring, Trudy (November 20, 2020). "Mom of Trans Daughter Tells Heartfelt Story in 'How to Be a Girl'". The Advocate. Pride Media. Retrieved May 26, 2022.
  18. ^ McConnell, Freddy (December 21, 2016). "The 50 Best Podcasts of 2016". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved May 26, 2022.
  19. ^ Cowan, Katy (March 5, 2019). "Thirteen Insightful Podcasts on Women, Feminism and Gender Equality". Creative Boom. Retrieved May 26, 2022.
  20. ^ "KUOW Expanding Local Content, Including New Bill Radke Project, New Podcast Pilots, and Reimagining of 'The Record'". kuow.org. June 17, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  21. ^ a b "What You Can Expect From Soundside, KUOW's New Noontime Show". kuow.org. January 11, 2022. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  22. ^ Sweeney, Brendan (October 24, 2018). "Your Feedback on the Record's Interview With a Neo-Nazi". kuow.org. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  23. ^ Rich, Smith (September 22, 2017). "Read Bill Radke's Heartfelt Apology For Interviewing That Nazi Who Got Punched". The Stranger. Index Newspapers. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  24. ^ Keeley, Sean (August 30, 2016). "Five Podcasts Everyone in Seattle Needs on Their Playlist". Curbed. Vox Media. Retrieved May 26, 2022.
  25. ^ "KUOW Wins Awards From Media Groups". The News Tribune. McClatchy. May 30, 1996. p. 46. Retrieved May 26, 2022.
  26. ^ Malcolm, Kim (January 7, 2022). "Meet Libby Denkmann, Host of KUOW's New Show Soundside". kuow.org. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
  27. ^ Hester, Jessica (June 9, 2017). "Does It Matter What We Do? A New Podcast and Documentary Take Stock of Individual Choices Against the Backdrop of Immense, Looming Threats". Bloomberg News. Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  28. ^ Sunu, Sarah (May 2, 2017). "Making Environmental Change Personal With Ashley Ahearn". Compass Science Communication. Archived from the original on June 14, 2021. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  29. ^ Marquina, Sierra (January 18, 2020). "2020 iHeartradio Podcast Awards: Full List of Winners". iHeartRadio. iHeartMedia. Archived from the original on May 17, 2022. Retrieved May 24, 2022.
  30. ^ "The Best New Podcasts of 2017: As Chosen by Our Editors—and You". Outside Online. December 21, 2017. Retrieved May 24, 2022.
  31. ^ Capewell, Jillian (June 23, 2017). "Eleven New Podcasts to Refresh Your Summer Playlist: Philosophy, Travel, Curse Words, Random Bits of Knowledge — It's All Here". HuffPost. BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  32. ^ Slaney, Rowan (June 9, 2017). "This Middle Eastern Life and Eco Anxiety – Podcasts of the Week: A Selection of Podcasts From Around the World, From the Middle East to Mallorca". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
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47°36′58″N 122°18′32″W / 47.616°N 122.309°W / 47.616; -122.309

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