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Essential Public Media completes WDUQ sale
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Essential Public Media completed its purchase Thursday of public radio station WDUQ, 90.5 on the FM dial. The call letters will soon change to WESA-FM for the city's only independent public radio news and information station.
Essential Public Radio continues to broadcast from studios on the campus of Duquesne University, which sold the station. Employees will move to the WYEP Community Broadcast Center on the South Side in November.
Under terms of the deal, Duquesne is to receive $4,004,500 in cash. The university provided seller financing in the form of a $500,000 note.
Other deal terms call for Essential Public Media to provide $1 million in underwriting, a form of on-air advertising, to the university for the next 10 years. Essential Public Media must also provide more than $500,000 worth of internships to Duquesne students over the next decade. If EPM cannot secure funding for paid internships, the jobs will be unpaid, according to the agreement.
A pledge drive will be held Oct. 13-22. Bob De Witt, a spokesman for the radio station, said that historically one in 10 listeners becomes a member of a public radio station and that the new station will focus on recruiting members.
First Published September 16, 2011 12:00 am
