Inside WNKU's Million Listener Expansion

WNKU-FM, based in Highland Heights, was once notorious for its "twilight zones," listening dead spaces where static garbled up the station's always-eclectic mix of rock'n'roll, blues, folk and alternative music and news. In the weeks leading up to the college radio station's signal expansion beginning Feb. 1, listeners might have heard an in-house ad like this:

"Right now you may be driving through one of those places where WNKU (89.7) just kind of fades away. Or maybe that's what happens at your home or office. Well, take heart fellow traveler, when you reach one of those radio 'twilight zones, all you have to do is switch to 105.9 or 104.1 FM et voilà! WNKU will be there, too."

For 25 years since its founding, WNKU-FM was handicapped by a single radio tower that could barely penetrate nearby downtown Cincinnati and parts of Ohio and Kentucky. Now the station's signal reaches as far north as Dayton, Ohio, and all the way out east to Huntington, West Virginia, providing it the sonic muscles to match some of the area's big commercial competition and better serve downtown Cincinnati listeners.  The new WNKU could serve upwards of 2.2 million new listeners, including some as close as downtown Cincinnati. 

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