To Our Valued Community:
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Kailey Leinz, and along with being a fourth year in the College, I have the honor of serving you as President of WUVA, Inc. I want to take a moment to personally inform you of some exciting, though bittersweet, news here at WUVA.
After 70 years on the air, the leadership of WUVA, Inc. has made the decision to sell our commercial FM radio station, WUVA 92.7 FM. The station has served both the University and Charlottesville communities since its launch in 1947, and we are feeling nostalgic as we say goodbye to the FM airwaves. However, we are energized about the opportunities that this sale offers our organization- allowing us to move forward and become a digital-first news organization.
WUVA’s mission has always been to train University of Virginia students in the art of commercial media- giving them hands-on experience in media management and journalism, and preparing them for amazing opportunities to work in media and communications after leaving Grounds. This remains our primary mission today, as we seek to evolve as an organization and adapt to an increasingly diversified digital media landscape in order to better meet the needs of our students and our UVA and Charlottesville audiences.
We plan to use the proceeds from the sale to grow our digital and video journalism platform, wuvanews.com, and help build a modern, cutting-edge media and journalism operation fit for the 21st century. WUVA will remain both editorially and financially independent of the University, so this endowment will help us make much-needed investments in the future of WUVA’s mission and operations.
We are very fortunate that Saga Communications, which already has close ties to the University of Virginia and Charlottesville communities, will become the steward of our cherished radio station in the years to come. Additionally, we want to extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who helped make our decades in radio such a success.
On behalf of everyone at WUVA – our student leadership, alumni board of directors, and WUVA student members past and present -we are excited for this new chapter in our history, and hope you’ll join us as we seek to cut through today’s fragmented media environment and bring you the highest-quality journalism and video content online.
You can find the press release on today’s announcement, here.
Best,
Kailey Leinz
President, WUVA, Inc.
CLAS 2017
It’s hard to see how a full-power wireless operator license is not a relevant platform. Isn’t every streaming on wireless these days? It seems like this is a pretty valuable asset to give away forever. If funds are needed, can’t they share the frequency or license it?