Radio pirates

Since WJHU was the precursor to WYPR and this is WYPR’s 20th anniversary year, indulge us as we focus on the station’s early years in this episode of Wavelength: Baltimore's Public Radio Journey. A lot went on…

Production and support for this podcast was brought to you in part by PNC Bank.

Transcript

MUSIC: "Dire Ghost" by Blue Dot Sessions.

Marc Steiner: It was 2001 and there was a general manager search going on, and there were three final candidates. And just as the staff was about to interview the candidates, we got a notice that the search had been called off–postponing it is what they said. So I knew something weird was going on. And so I called one of the vice presidents at Hopkins and said–who was overseeing the station–and I said ‘so you gotta tell me what's happening. This either means you're selling this station, or you're closing the station. So what's going on?’ He said, ‘it's not for publication, but we're selling the station.’

Maria Broom: This is Wavelength: Baltimore’s Public Radio Journey from Your Public Studios, a monthly podcast series made possible by PNC Bank. I’m your host Maria Broom.

You just heard the voice of former WJHU, WYPR, and WEAA talk show host Marc Steiner reflecting on Johns Hopkins University’s decision to sell WJHU.

Since WJHU was the precursor to WYPR and this is WYPR’s 20th anniversary year, indulge us as we focus on the station’s early years in this episode. A lot went on…

So, as Marc Steiner was saying, in 2001 WJHU was up for sale. Former WJHU jazz host Andy Bienstock and others pick up the story.

Andy Bienstock: Johns Hopkins had decided that we were not part of the university's mission and that it would be better to sell us to someone who did have a mission for public radio. We had other public stations come and look at us. I was on the transition committee at the time. And we were visited by WBUR in Boston, by WETA in Washington. I think from WAMU in Washington. We also knew that Maryland Public Television was interested in acquiring us. And of course there were lots of religious groups that wanted–that would have paid a lot of money to have us become a religious station. And to give the university credit, they made it clear that was not what they wanted to do. They wanted to keep it as an NPR station or as a public radio station. So as all this was going on, Marc Steiner was our talk show host at the time, and Marc started putting together a group to try and buy it and keep it as an independent radio station.

Marc Steiner: The only staff member that really joined the effort was a woman named Martha Ruski, who was then the marketing director for WJHU. And she and I formed the Maryland Public Radio Corporation, that was incorporated as a nonprofit. We knew we had to raise $5 million dollars and how we were going to do that was the question.

[“Hash Out” by Sunday at Slims begins.] Song courtesy of Blue Dot Sessions.

Marc Steiner: Hopkins would not let us use the membership list to raise money to buy the station so I had a list of 500, 700 odd people who I had been in touch with over the years who were listeners, maybe more even and I had that list of names and so I put that in our database and started writing everybody. So we–well the first people– two people who came in first: one was Bill Clark, the other was the Daniels family, and then was the folks at Town Creek Foundation. They supported it too. So we had this initial burst of serious contributions. And then we went after other contributions from, from listeners. And so we ended up with three quarters of a million dollars, which was not enough to buy the station. But it was a significant down payment. (laughs.)

Andy Bienstock: So Marc was put in touch with Tony Brandon, who was living in Baltimore and Tony had a string of commercial stations.

Tony Brandon: I’m Tony Brandon. I was the general manager of WYPR from 2002 to 2019. I had been in the radio business for probably at that time, 30 years. We had a family company that I was president of called American General Media, which owned 45 or 50 radio stations. I went to the president of the bank and told him of our intentions to attempt to acquire this station. He said he understood that it wasn’t part of our American General Media acquisitions, that it was totally independent and it was separate from that. But the bank would require personal guarantees to make the loan to a non-profit that was not to be owned by broadcasters who were seeking to make a profit. And we gathered together eight people.

Gary Levine: Bill Clark, of course Tony, Barb Bozzuto, Darielle Linehan, John Melnick, Charlie Salisbury and Albert Williams. I’m Gary Levine. I’ve been associated with WYPR from its inception.

Tony Brandon: And the 8 of us guaranteed $500,000 each. And the bank proceeded to make the loan for $5 million required to purchase the station.

Maria Broom: But on September 11, 2001, radio acquisitions, entertainment, travel, everything…stopped.

[Clip of Morning Edition] Bob Edwards: Good morning, you’re listening to special coverage of tragic events that have occurred today in New York City and in Washington D.C.

Maria Broom: That morning Andy Bienstock woke up and walked into his kitchen. Morning Edition was playing on the radio.

Andy Bienstock: Bob Edwards was the host back then, and he was talking about fire, a fire at the World Trade Center or an explosion at the World Trade Center. And, of course, there had been a terrorist attack there in the early 90s. And I thought for some reason, they were doing the story about that attack, and replaying it. But as I listened some more I realized oh no, this was today.

Bob Edwards: I’m going to go through just a timeline of today’s events as compiled by the Associated Press. Plane crashes into tower of World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan shortly before 9 AM eastern time. And then shortly after 9 AM eastern time, a second plane crashed into the second tower of the World Trade Center. President Bush, in Sarasota, Florida, earlier this morning, called the crash–crashes an apparent terrorist attack and a national tragedy.

Andy Bienstock: So I abandoned my radio and went to the television, and just sort of watched in horror for the rest of the day. Now, I grew up in New York, in Manhattan, so I knew people involved. My father who was elderly at that point, lived not far away. And my uncle was actually working at a place that wasn't too far from the World Trade Center. So it took a while, you know, on the phone with my father and making sure he was OK. And that was also Election Day in Annapolis, I guess it was our primary election here in Annapolis. I guess it was a mayoral election. And I remember going to the polls, and it was just quiet. Everyone, no one talking about anything. Everyone just in shock. No one talking about what happened because nobody wanted to talk about what happened or even understood it.

Maria Broom: This is Wavelength. We’ll be back in a minute.

Maria Broom: This is Wavelength: Baltimore’s Public Radio Journey. I’m your host Maria Broom. On today’s episode of the podcast, we’re talking about the transition of WJHU to WYPR, which officially started on February 1, 2002.

Marc Steiner was one of the founders of WYPR and became the Vice President for Broadcast and Production when the station began.

He explains what WYPR stands for and how it was actually his second choice for call letters.

Marc Steiner: I said, ‘Well, we're the Maryland Radio Corporation. So we can just be like Maryland Radio Corporation, that'd be the WMRC.’ And I stopped and it was this dead silence and Martha stopped and looked at me and went ‘Marc.’

Valerie Williams: I said that.

Marc Steiner: Oh you said it, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. My wife just reminded me she's the one who said it. She is right. I get times mixed up. I always do. Thanks, Valerie. (laughs.)

Valerie Williams: You came home all excited.

Marc Steiner: I came home all excited, saying, ‘we came up with the call letters WMRC.’ And she looked at me and went ‘Marc, how do you spell your name?’ And I said ‘Oh, shit!’

Valerie Williams: No, you said ‘Mar-shit.’

Marc Steiner Mar-shit. (laughs) So then a little brainstorming session we just came up with, you know, the whole line we're giving people was that this was gonna be a community owned station, and it belonged to the people of our listening area. So we came up with it's your station, isn't it? Right? It's your public radio station. So why YPR. So that was how YPR came about instead of naming it after myself. (Laughs.)

Aaron Henkin: My name is Aaron Henkin. I'm a producer here at WYPR, and I've been here since 2001. When we switched from the call letters WJHU to WYPR, I remember our morning announcer at the time. Great guy, Tom Olsen. And we had a–we took a pool, I think, here at the office for how long it would be that first day when we were supposed to be WYPR for him to