Community radio station at crossroads

By Fred Sowder, WGOT Financial Director

WGOT has been broadcasting part time at 94.7FM on Gainesville’s radio dial for 81/2 years. We’ve brought the community great local programming such as Counterpoise Reviews, featuring some of the great recordings of speakers from the CMC’s audio library and elsewhere.

Amazingly, Gainesville is also a college town without a college radio station and we endeavor to fill that gap with great local and independent music on long-running shows such as the Red Pony Music Hour and Things Be Blowin’ Around — the latter which had a long run on GROW Radio. These shows are hosted by local artists H.R. Gertner and Bill Perry, respectively. Other show hosts have also generously brought their former GROW Radio programs along to WGOT, further diversifying our music selection.

We also carry quality national, award-winning programs including Writer’s Voice and the iconic Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.

Such thought-provoking, progressive programming wouldn’t be possible without our friends and sponsors we’ve had throughout the years, many of whom are local musicians who play our benefit shows. The venues who have hosted our shows throughout the years — far too many to mention — as well as other local businesses including Wild Iris Books and First Magnitude Brewing Company, have been pivotal to our success.

Even with all of this support, community members are still learning about us.

We can become a more visible part of the community by making the move to a 24-hour broadcast schedule on 100.1 FM, which the Federal Communications Commission granted us permission to do almost 3 years ago. We can only do that with increased funding, but our deadline is only a few months away.

If you have a local business, please consider being an underwriting sponsor, where for as little as $80 per month, you can have targeted sponsorship announcements during some of our most popular programs. It’s also a creative way to make a special announcement celebrating a special occasion.

The many possibilities spell out a big win for YOUR community radio station. Email me at financial@wgot.org for more information.

We’re also in dire need of volunteers to help with the day-to-day operations. Our monthly meetings are in the Foundation Room of the Downtown Public Library on the 4th Wednesday of each month at 7pm and we’d be honored if you could join us to find out more.

We’re always in need of initiative-taking citizens with broadcasting experience, but experience in IT, marketing, coding, web design, and other fields are also important to our long-term survival. Our station manager, Lynne Loewenthal, can fill you in on more at info@wgot.org.

We hope to see you soon. Without WGOT, there would be no independent community radio in Gainesville and without supporters of community radio, there can be no WGOT. D

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