Cleveland State University Kills WCSB, Transfers Management of Station to Ideastream to Broadcast Jazz

Over the past 49 years, students at Cleveland State have broadcasted a wide range of opinions and genres over the waves at WCSB, a stalwart of college radio in Northeast Ohio.

That plethora of sound was what followers called “freeform alternative,” a kind of anything-goes, from blues to indie to punk to K-pop and grindcore. And world music. And syndicated opinions on public affairs.

Now, as of Friday morning, WCSB will no longer host its student DJs, help diversify the offerings of FM radio in Cleveland, or act as a symbol for the university’s curious and the colorful.

As of October 3, the station is now just jazz.

More specifically, WCSB is now being managed and programmed by Ideastream, the result of a new operating agreement between the local NPR affiliate and Cleveland State. WCSB is simulcasting JazzNEO, Ideasteam’s station for all things jazz, on 89.3 FM after CSU reached an agreement with Ideastream to take over management of the station. WCSB as we’ve known it for nearly 50 years doesn’t exist anymore.

To add salt to the wound, though the negotiations between the two sides were ongoing for months, the switch was flipped and WCSB put out to pasture on World College Radio Day. A fact neither side was either aware of or gave a shit about.

Both parties framed the rebranding as a win-win opportunity though: Ideastream gets a new analog radio home for its flagship jazz programs; CSU finds a new avenue—like its School of Film & Media Arts—for students itching for broadcast internships and “paid-for” opportunities.

Students and former staff members didn’t see it that way, however.

“Honestly? We’re grieving right now as a station,” Alison Bomgardner, 21, WCSB’s general manager up until Friday, told Scene in a call.

“I think this is all a pivot from the university to go away from community-based opportunities to pre-professional opportunities,” she added. “And I do not think that’s a good thing.”

Bomgardner, a senior international relations major known as DJ Squirrel behind the mic, sounded forlorn as she relayed her version of WCSB’s abrupt closure: no more, Bomgardner said, does CSU have a relaxed outlet for WCSB’s 120 members, its student and long-time DJs, and a music stop “for those who didn’t want to hear stuff on Hot 100 radio.”

It’s no secret that CSU, like many colleges, is battling budget woes forcing admins to cut programs they see as low-hanging fruit. Last year’s news of a budget deficit of $153 million over the next five years led President Laura Bloomberg to announce strategies to cut down costs—from axing the school’s wrestling team, to freezing admissions to 42 academic programs and nudging 54 employees into buyouts.

But is WCSB’s rebranding one of them? Bomgardner said the station she helped run raised tens of thousands of dollars from donors per year, used mostly to pay those behind the scenes a per-semester stipend.

Bloomberg herself denied the move was out of cost-cutting measure.

“The decision to have Ideastream oversee WCSB programming is one step forward in our Cleveland State United vision, the strategic plan for our University launched earlier this year,” Bloomberg said in a press release. “CSU is uniquely embedded within the city of Cleveland, which provides students with opportunities to benefit from strategic partnerships like this one.”

As of Friday, JazzNEO has taken over 89.3 FM, the station WCSB’s used since 1976. This isn’t the first link between Ideastream: WCPN, Ideastream’s main station, was once broadcasted out of CSU’s Joseph E. Cole Center. And CSU had a Tower Music series on WCLV in the 1970s.

And CSU’s School of Film & Media Arts, located floors above Ideastream’s offices in Playhouse Square, has been a training ground for those hoping to find themselves after graduation behind the mic downstairs.

More internships is not a good trade off, in Bomgardner’s mind, for axing WCSB’s original format.

Shutting down the station on the fourth floor of Campus International, for her, reminds of a move along the lines of shutting down CSU’s LGBTQ+ and Women’s center; cutting (then restarting) its U-Pass for RTA riders; and slashing anything DEI.

“I think it shows CSU is not willing to stand for to members and their voices. All this is definitely influenced by politics,” Bomgardner said. “Ideastream is a safer play than having a hundred students with a hundred different opinions.”

“I mean, if we wanted to be a jazz station,” she said, “we would’ve branded as one.”