WCSP-FM
Encyclopedia
WCSP-FM, also known as C-SPAN Radio, is a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 station licensed to the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 The station broadcasts on 90.1 MHz and is on-air 24 hours a day. Its studios are located near Capitol Hill in C-SPAN’s headquarters. In addition to WCSP-FM, C-SPAN Radio programming is also available online at c-span.org and via satellite radio on XM
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...

 119 (previously 132).

As WGTB and WDCU

The station was originally licensed to Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

 under the callsign WGTB, and was programmed by Georgetown students with a progressive rock
Progressive rock (radio format)
Progressive rock is a radio station programming format that prospered in the late 1960s and 1970s, in which the disc jockeys are given wide latitude in what they may play, similar to the freeform format but with the proviso that some kind of rock music is almost always what is played...

 format. In 1979, the Georgetown administration decided that the station did not fit with the public image they desired for the university, and sold the station to the University of the District of Columbia
University of the District of Columbia
The University of the District of Columbia is a historically black, public university located in Washington, D.C. UDC is one of only a few urban land-grant universities in the country and a member of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...

 for US$1. UDC took ownership officially on March 12, 1980, and WGTB became WDCU, with a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 format. During a budgetary crisis in mid-1997, the school sold WDCU for $13 million to C-SPAN, a non-profit funded by the cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 industry. UDC had planned to sell the station to Salem Communications
Salem Communications
Salem Communications is a U.S. radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher specializing in evangelical Christian and conservative political talk radio. It owns 99 commercial radio stations, 65 of which are in the top 25 markets. Salem is the fifth largest U.S....

 (a Christian broadcast network), however this deal was unsuccessful, leading to C-SPAN’s offer to buy the WDCU. Once the station was purchased, broadcasting of C-SPAN Radio WCSP began on October 9, 1997.

As WCSP

C-SPAN Radio expanded its coverage by signing programming agreements in 1998 with two subscription-only satellite radio
Satellite radio
Satellite radio is an analogue or digital radio signal that is relayed through one or more satellites and thus can be received in a much wider geographical area than terrestrial FM radio stations...

 systems: CD Radio (later re-named Sirius
Sirius
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek: Seirios . The star has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris...

) and General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

' XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...

, bringing the station to a nationwide audience in 2001. , Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...

 no longer carries WCSP-FM. The station was added to XM Radio Canada
XM Radio Canada
XM Radio Canada was the operating name of Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. , a Canadian communications and media company, which was incorporated in 2002 to broadcast satellite radio in Canada...

 on April 1, 2007. The FM range of the radio station extends as far North as Hanover, Pennsylvania
Hanover, Pennsylvania
Hanover is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, southwest of York and north-northwest of Baltimore, Maryland.The town is situated in a productive agricultural region. The population was 15,289 at the 2010 census. The borough is served by a 717 area code and the Zip Codes of 17331-34...

, South around 15 miles beyond Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia located south of Washington, D.C., and north of Richmond. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 24,286...

, West to 5 miles East of Front Royal, Virginia
Front Royal, Virginia
Front Royal is a town in Warren County, Virginia, United States. The population was 13,589 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Warren County.-Geography:Front Royal is roughly west of Washington, D.C....

 and East to Cambridge, Maryland
Cambridge, Maryland
Cambridge is a city in Dorchester County, Maryland, United States. The population was 12,326 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Dorchester County and the county's largest municipality...

. C-SPAN offers three channels of programming for listeners within the FM signal radius with HD
HD Radio
HD Radio, which originally stood for "Hybrid Digital", is the trademark for iBiquity's in-band on-channel digital radio technology used by AM and FM radio stations to transmit audio and data via a digital signal in conjunction with their analog signals...

 radios, using digital technology to multicast
Multicast
In computer networking, multicast is the delivery of a message or information to a group of destination computers simultaneously in a single transmission from the source creating copies automatically in other network elements, such as routers, only when the topology of the network requires...

 all three channels at 90.1 FM. The three channels offer different programming: WCSP-FM's usual programming is broadcast on 90.1 HD-1; 90.1 HD-2 simulcasts C-SPAN, broadcasting coverage of the House of Representatives plus other C-SPAN programming; 90.1 HD-3 simulcasts C-SPAN2, broadcasting coverage of the Senate and audio of Book TV.

, C-SPAN Radio can be accessed via any phone
Phone
Within phonetics, a phone is:* a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the phonology of a language* a speech segment that possesses distinct physical or perceptual properties...

, thanks to a partnership with AudioNow. In addition to this service, a C-SPAN Radio application
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

 allows users to listen to the station via their iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

.

Programming

C-SPAN Radio broadcasts public-affairs programming, including some audio simulcasts of C-SPAN's flagship television programs like Washington Journal
Washington Journal
Washington Journal is an American television series on the C-SPAN network in the format of a political call-in and interview program. The program features elected officials, government administrators and journalists as guests, answering questions from the hosts and from members of the general...

and some radio-only programming such as the famous tape-recorded Oval Office
Oval Office
The Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end...

 conversations from the Johnson and Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 administrations, oral histories, and some committee meetings and press conferences not shown on television due to programming commitments. The radio station does not try to duplicate C-SPAN television coverage, and takes a more selective approach to its broadcast content. Regular programs broadcast on the radio station include Today in Washington and Prime Minister's Question Time.

In the early period of C-SPAN Radio's existence, programming also included coverage of local events and government hearings affecting only the Washington region. A unique part of WCSP's programming is its rebroadcast of five Sunday morning talk shows, without commercials, in rapid succession. All programs on C-SPAN Radio are broadcast commercial-free.

WCSP is the first radio station to broadcast audiotape of historical U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments, with announcers explaining the court decision at the end of the recording. The broadcasts of the Supreme Court arguments have provided listeners in the U.S. and Canada with the opportunity to hear spoken during oral arguments for several of the Court's most influential cases, including the Texas v. Johnson
Texas v. Johnson
Texas v. Johnson, , was an important decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated prohibitions on desecrating the American flag enforced in 48 of the 50 states. Justice William Brennan wrote for a five-justice majority in holding that the defendant's act of flag burning was...

argument over flag-burning in 1989, and the Miranda v. Arizona
Miranda v. Arizona
Miranda v. Arizona, , was a landmark 5–4 decision of the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that both inculpatory and exculpatory statements made in response to interrogation by a defendant in police custody will be admissible at trial only if the prosecution can show that the defendant...

argument in 1966. In September, 2010 the Supreme Court began releasing audio recordings of the week's oral arguments each Friday, thereby allowing C-SPAN Radio to broadcast a selection of current arguments. Prior to this arrangement, recordings of oral arguments were occasionally made available on a same-day basis, which C-SPAN would request in cases of high public interest.

External links

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