WMUB, the NPR radio station based at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, has announced that due to funding issues, the station will likely soon be operated by Cincinnati Public Radio.  (Thanks to RNR listener Thomas Kemp for pointing us to the news.)  The changes are detailed in a news release by Miami, and described on the WMUB website, where they note that WMUB Forum on Friday, January 23rd will be devoted to this topic (live at 9 AM, recording repeated at 7 PM).  This comes only 7 months after they announced significant programming changes to be more competitive and to increase their strategic partnerships, but it sounds like the numbers still don't work.  Miami President David Hodge is quoted as saying that "the financial obligation of WMUB can no longer be borne by the university with the economic challenges we face."

It will be interesting to see what it means to have WMUB operated by CPR.  It could be a way for them to continue some or all of their programming with a new source of funding and other resources, or it could mean that 88.5 becomes a "repeater" for CPR content, and that the Oxford-based station ceases most operations as we've known them.

There are two pieces in today's Palladium-Item where its staff reflect on various changes taking place at the daily paper.

The first, on the closing of the locally-housed print press (announced in November), is a nice piece by Bill Engle that includes interviews and retrospective on the history of the press, and the implications of the change.

The second by executive editor Mickey Johnson is a detailed inventory of other changes to the paper's format, content and production schedule. These include rearranging and combining the paper's main sections, leaving out the "Viewpoints" page on Wednesdays, plans to have "a bigger Sports section and create a Local Life section that's exclusively local" on Sunday, and various new web-based features including a new "behind the scenes" blog by Jason Truitt.

Both articles are nice bits of transparency, and genuine acknowledgements of the realities of a changing industry.

Hi there and happy new year! If you haven't already noticed, the Richmond News Review hasn't seen a new episode for a while. We've talked in the past about why that might be, but it still seems polite to keep our regular listeners updated. So: for now, the RNR is on a bit of a hiatus (hahy-ey-tuhs, –noun, "a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc"), with no current plans for a new episode. If you would like to be a part of our future efforts, or have a particular topic or segment we should take on, please contact us. Otherwise, please check back later, enjoy the show archive, and take care.