DC Radio: WAMU Puts Bluegress Format On The Block

At 6:30 p.m. on July 2, 1967, the sweet sound of fiddles, banjos and high, lonesome voices emerged from the campus of American University on WAMU 88.5 FM which broadcast its first regular show devoted to bluegrass. The music became a fundamental part of the station’s identity.

“Bluegrass listeners paid for the foundation of WAMU-FM,” Gary Henderson, a longtime bluegrass DJ who engineered that first show, wrote in an email to The Washington Post. “This was a time before NPR’s ‘Morning Edition’ and ‘All Things Considered’ were thought of.”

In recent years, however, bluegrass and WAMU have parted ways. The music, once broadcast for hours each week, was largely exiled to the Internet and WAMU 88.5 HD2 radio in 2007 and, in 2008, found a home at the other end of the dial on a translator at 105.5 FM — a frequency WAMU leases, with much less broadcasting power than 88.5.

Now, to borrow a phrase from one popular tune, the circle may be broken: WAMU has put Bluegrass Country, its bluegrass offshoot, up for sale. If it can’t find a buyer by Dec. 31, the fiddles will fall silent.

“We’ve had to make a difficult business decision,” a statement posted Thursday at the Bluegrass Country website read. “In order to focus our financial resources and creative energy on news and information, we will have to part ways with our bluegrass service.”

The decision to sell Bluegrass Country came after WAMU decided to focus more on news, while a study of Bluegrass Country showed it “could not expect similar growth in listenership and financial support for this service over the next five years,” according to the statement.

Some at WAMU and Bluegrass Country described the move as expected — even inevitable. Yore said Bluegrass Country was running a deficit of between $150,000 and $250,000 per year, and had just 30,000 listeners per week compared with WAMU’s 800,000 per week.

Another discouraging data point for bluegrass fans: WAMU received just more than $187,000 in member donations for Bluegrass Country compared with more than $10 million for 88.5 in the past fiscal year.

Katy Daley, Bluegrass Country’s managing producer and a morning host, said the sale marked a “sad day,” but praised WAMU’s five-decade commitment to bluegrass.