WCPN

WBOE was initially licensed on November 21, 1938 to the Cleveland Board of Education to broadcast on 41.5 MHz with 500 watts using high-frequency AM (also referred to as Apex). Facilities were located in the Lafayette School on Abell Avenue. Two months later, the station moved to the sixth floor of the Board of Education Building on East 6th Street. The studios remained there until 1973/74.[2]

By 1940 it was joined by a few other educational stations, such as WNYE in New York, broadcasting in the spectrum of 41-43 MHz using AM, although it was presumed these educational stations would change to FM when such broadcasting became practical.

In September 1940, WBOE requested authority to relinquish its 41.5 MHz AM operation and change to FM operation on 42.5 MHz. On February 3, 1941 WBOE became an FM station, broadcasting with 1,000 watts on 42.5 MHz, the first educational station to convert to FM.[3] At the time FM broadcasting was in its infancy and only about a dozen FM stations were on the air in the entire country, most of them experimental stations.

In 1945 the FCC decided to shift all FM broadcasting up to the present spectrum of 88-108 MHz, with 88-92 MHz reserved for noncommercial broadcasting. Initially, WBOE changed its frequency to 44.5 FM on May 1, 1947. This change was necessitated by an FCC decision to allocate the 42-45 Megacycle band to non-government fixed and mobile services.

WBOE moved to 90.3 MHz on August 3, 1948, increasing its power to 3,000 watts with an effective radiated power of 10,000 watts. The change to 90.3 FM caused quite a controversy due to the costs schools would incur to buy new radios and the time they needed to budget for it. Subsequently, WBOE requested reauthorization for 44.5 FM "for as long as possible" (original letter to FCC July 13, 1948). From September 1, 1948 to the end of the year, WBOE was licensed to broadcast on both frequencies.

On January 1, 1949, a Modified license authorized WBOE to broadcast solely on 90.3 FM. On December 9, 1959. WBOE increased power to 5,000 watts, with an E.R.P. of 15,000 watts. In 1973/74, WBOE had new studio facilities built at 10600 Quincy Avenue in the eastern side of Cleveland. In 1975/76 the station's power was increased to 50,000 watts with the transmitter and tower in Parma, Ohio, one of the southwestern Cleveland suburbs.[4]

Until December 1976, WBOE's programming was limited primarily to instructional programming, mostly intended for Cleveland school classrooms. Generally the station broadcast from 7:55 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on school days; school programming would often end at 3:00 p.m. Light entertainment, public service or educational programs of general interest would conclude the broadcast day.

In late January 1958 until March 1958, WBOE-FM broadcast the evening programming of WERE-FM from 7:00 until 10:00, while WERE-FM was rebuilt. A request to do this was approved by the Cleveland Board of Education during the regular Board meeting of January 20, 1958. WERE-FM resumed full-time regular broadcasting by early March 1958. On March 5, 1958, a "sincere thank you" letter for the facilities and "excellent cooperation received by Mr. Leo Battin and his fine staff" at WBOE was sent to the Board of Education by Richard M. Klaus, Vice President and General Manager of radio station WERE. (Proceedings of The Board of Education, Vol. 79).

At the regular Cleveland Board of Education Meeting of March 16, 1959, "the Board authorized WBOE-FM to go ahead in a joint program with WERE-FM, on a non-commercial basis, on two Sunday evenings (April 20 and 27) from 8:00pm until 10:45pm". This was for the broadcast of a "Seven Arts" program as an experiment in stereophonic sound. (Proceedings of the Board of Education, Vol. 80).

On January 18, 1960, the Cleveland Board of Education favored "the use of WBOE to allow for a program for doctors by the Academy of Medicine during evening hours". How long this programming lasted is unknown.

By the mid-1960s, if not before, the predecessors to National Public Radio - NERN (National Educational Radio Network) and NAEB (National Association of Educational Broadcasters) - distributed programs produced by member stations for use on WBOE and other stations. An example of one of the general-interest programs was The Old Record Box, a 15-minute series featuring cylinder records from the turn-of-the-century, produced in the mid-1960s by WFBE, the station owned by the Flint, Michigan Board of Education. In the 1970s National Public Radio continued to provide this service to educational stations. Examples of educational programs for in-school use included What You See Is What You Get, a social studies/economics program, and the English-language program Fun From The Dictionary. The WBOE-produced series Drama On Stage and Screen was picked up and distributed nationally by NPR. This series featured interviews conducted by WBOE's best known broadcaster, Cecilia Evans. She interviewed people involved in stage, screen and television careers, such as actor Greg Morris of CBS-TV's Mission: Impossible series.

As educational television developed, the effectiveness of educational radio was reduced, and work began in the early 1970s to build WBOE into a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate. At the Cleveland Board of Education meeting held on June 28, 1973, the Board "Authorized contracts for furnishings and delivering equipment for expansion and relocation of radio station WBOE", (Proceedings of The Board of Education, Vol. 94). The plan was to move the station from its long-time home in the main Board of Education building in the center of the City of Cleveland to the East side of the city, on Quincy Avenue, near E. 105th street. The move occurred in 1974. Progress on becoming a National Public Radio station was slowed by technical matters, including concern that WBOE's 50,000 watt signal might interfere with the TV audio of WVIZ/PBS channel 25. It has been estimated by WBOE's station manager of the time that this technical issue stopped the debut of NPR in the Cleveland market by over a year. From December 20, 1976 through December 31, 1976, WBOE increased its broadcast day until 6:30 p.m. for the airing of the popular NPR program All Things Considered.

On January 1, 1977 WBOE increased to an 18-hour-per-day, 7-day-a-week schedule (6:00 a.m. to Midnight). Programming for in-school use continued on school days from 8:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Adult, NPR, ethnic and other programming consumed the rest of the broadcast day and all day on weekends. Locally produced programming included Yes, You Can!, a weekly feature designed to encourage adults to continue their education; Parenting, a family life series; and Elementary School Highlights.

In its final years, WBOE-FM's staff included station manager Jay Robert Klein (whose five-minute weekly feature You and Your Wheels featured up-to-date information about automobiles and discussed issues pertaining to automobile transportation); coordinator Charles Siegel (who produced shows like Cavities Don't Care and The Ins and Outs of Gardening); Karl Johnson, the producer–host of the morning-drive show Thank Goodness, It's (name of day) which aired Monday–Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.; senior high school programmer Cecilia Evans, who was an award-winning Cleveland broadcaster providing theater reviews for WBOE and commercial station WERE (AM); Tom Altenbernd, who was the junior high school programmer; and elementary programmer Ervine Jaworski.

The technical staff included First Class engineers Bill Nelson, who died in 1976 and was replaced by Ed Shaper, Al Hrivnak and Dennis Batig (who hosted a 1950s and 1960s music show, Let The Good Times Roll). Full-time board operators and production personnel were Ted Mazurowski and Richard Shenker. Part-time personnel included John L. Basalla, Jim Stincic, and Bruce Van Valkenburg. Basalla produced Rock Concepts, and Stincic produced Sessions In Swing, using the air name "Jim Matthews".

The Cleveland school system entered a difficult period in the late 1970s, as it was faced with a massive court-mandated desegregation order.[5] Additionally, an ad hoc community group, believing that the in-school programming should cease in favor of full-time "adult" NPR fare, took steps to take control of the radio station. Due to a teachers' strike, school programming did not resume as scheduled in September 1978. The financially strapped Board of Education finally took WBOE off the air the next month.

WBOE's final day of broadcasting was October 7, 1978. At the stroke of midnight, the final program was broadcast. Station manager Jay Robert Klein and Cleveland newspaper journalist Dick Feagler provided a pre-recorded eulogy. The 90.3 frequency fell silent until the fall of 1984, save for the sideband broadcast of the Cleveland Radio Reading Service (CRRS). CRRS temporarily ceased broadcasting in May 1982.

The non-commercial license was still available, and an effort was organized to restart a public radio station for Cleveland. Kent State University's station, WKSU-FM, had been the sole full NPR member in Northeast Ohio since 1974 (the station itself dates back to 1950). WKSU provides a strong signal to most of the Cleveland area (with Cleveland itself getting a city-grade signal), and to this day claims Cleveland as part of its primary coverage area. However, WKSU-FM lacked programming directed specifically to the immediate Cleveland/Cuyahoga County region; the main city in its service area was Akron.

In 1979, the Cleveland Public Library bid $205,000 for WBOE-FM's license, which ended up beating out a $200,000 bid by the Northern Ohio Public Radio group ten days before. An attempt by Cleveland Public Radio to bid $234,360.87 was rejected because the group could not immediately make a minimum $200,000 cash payment. Plans were made for the station to be moved from the old WBOE eastside Cleveland studios to the main library downtown, with a proposed change in call letters to WCPL (Cleveland Public Library).

The effort by the library eventually failed, and the license wound up in the hands of Cleveland Public Radio anyway. On September 9, 1982 the Cleveland Board of Education had before it a Resolution, numbered 371-82 entitled "Facilities Agreement With Cleveland Public Radio and Cuyahoga Community College". By July 6, 1983, Cleveland Public Radio had changed the WBOE callsign to WCPN. WGAR (AM), by then a country music outlet, donated its entire jazz record collection to WCPN, in order for the station to begin a jazz format. The side band service for print-impaired people was reactivated in May 1984. So transmission from WCPN began exactly as WBOE's had ended, with no sound on the main carrier, so persons with the special receivers could hear the radio reading service programming. A kick-off party with 1,200 people in attendance, was held for WCPN on August 5, 1984. By that September 8, WCPN officially started broadcasting with a live show featuring vocalist Mel Torme, and went to 24-hour service on January 1, 1985. A little-remembered side note is that just prior to the live Mel Torme show, WCPN broadcast an album by the Beatles, possibly for testing purposes and/or to have something on the air for people to hear when they dialed up 90.3 FM.

In 2001, WCPN merged with WVIZ to form Ideastream.[6] The stations moved to new facilities in downtown Cleveland at Playhouse Square in the fall of 2005.

On weekends, programming from 6pm to 11pm consists almost entirely of hour-long blocks with music and discussion related to a specific ethnic group or culture - British and Irish, German, Latin, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian, and Ukrainian. These shows were added in as a requirement for WCPN to operate before it began operating, mostly because former ethnic stations WXEN and WZAK had abandoned these formats some years earlier.[8]

Airing these shows has not come easy for WCPN; attempts to move these shows to different times (or reduce the number of hours altogether) in order to broaden the scope of the weekend lineup has resulted in significant protests by the communities targeted as audiences. The last attempt to change the lineup occurred in 1996, and resulted in threats by the Ohio State Legislature to cut off funding for WCPN, in response to which the station relented on its plans.[9]