| City of license | Collegedale, Tennessee |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 90.5 (MHz) |
| Format | Classical/Public |
| ERP | 100,000 watts |
| HAAT | 314 meters (1,030 ft) |
| Class | C Non-Commercial |
| Facility ID | 61269 |
| Affiliations | National Public Radio (secondary); Public Radio International; American Public Media |
| Owner | Southern Adventist University |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | wsmc.org |
WSMC-FM (90.5 FM), is the Chattanooga, Tennessee, area's only radio station featuring classical music programming. It is licensed to Southern Adventist University (SAU), a four-year institution located in nearby Collegedale. Its signal reaches parts of the states of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. Its programming can be heard on low-powered repeater W217AW-FM 91.3 in Dalton, Georgia.
Founded in 1961, the station programs classical music (including opera and similar genres) during most of the broadcast day Sundays through Fridays. WSMC has only three full-time employees: the general manager, corporate sales manager, and operations manager. The announcers and production staff consist entirely of SAU students.
The call sign, WSMC, came from an earlier name of Southern Adventist University, Southern Missionary College.
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WSMC had been an early member of NPR. However, because of the religious doctrine of the licensee's church body, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, SAU prohibits WSMC from airing live news programming from sunset on Friday evening until sunset on Saturday evening. In the 1990s, this caused conflict with NPR, which objected to its signature newscast, All Things Considered, being interrupted in progress.
Coinciding with this dispute, several interest groups took exception to WSMC's continued affiliation with NPR, which is in turn funded largely by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, itself subsidized by Federal appropriations. The gist of their arguments was that WSMC aired more religious programming than could be considered a public service. Therefore, the groups complained, it was inappropriate for WSMC to receive federal funding (or programming provided therefrom) due to concerns about separation of church and state. Some individuals also alleged that the religious programming, mandated by the administration of what was then Southern College of Seventh-Day Adventists, amounted to a disregard of the larger public in the Tennessee Valley, in favor of catering to a religious minority. By June 1995, these complaints led NPR officials to inform WSMC that it would begin membership termination proceedings on the grounds that the station preempted NPR programming too often and aired too much religious programming.
Instead of modifying its Friday and Saturday programming practices in response to those complaints, however, college officials and station management decided to take action themselves, discontinuing most NPR programming, news included. This took effect on September 30, 1995. Replacing ATC were Public Radio International's The World and American Public Media's Marketplace, which could air on a delayed basis (or even be preempted), instead of live, as ATC does (the station has since dropped those two shows and discontinued weekday news and public affairs programming). WSMC airs only a few NPR programs now (purchased separately without a network discount); most of the other programs moved to WUTC, which replaced WSMC as the Chattanooga market's flagship NPR station.
Besides airing classical music and some religious programs on Saturdays, WSMC also airs "Cowboy Jubilee," a nostalgic program of Western music. Its format is decidedly less diverse than a typical NPR affiliate, targeting an older, more conservative listenership than public radio normally attracts.
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