Local Content and Services Report
2019- WNCW's license holder is Isothermal Community College and the station functions as a department of the college. WNCW furthers the educational mission of the college as a full service public radio station that provides news, information, and music programming to the region served by our signal. Our region is made up of a diverse and varied culture. WNCW strives to provide programming and support that will stimulate innovation, economic development, lifelong learning, the arts, and the musical and cultural heritage that is so revered in Western NC and the region covered by our large broadcast coverage area. We make a concerted effort to identify issues of concern and importance to our audience and engage with partners in the region to provide our support and produce programming that addresses those areas of concern. WNCW provides our audience with news from the local, regional, and national level. We include longer form feature stories on important issues and provide multiple in depth interviews each week that deal with important issues to our region. We produce much of this programming in house, especially on matters at the local and regional level, and include nationally syndicated programming like Morning Edition, NPR News each hour, 51%, Making Contact, and other syndicated programming that provides education and knowledge on important issues to our audience. Much of our news and information programming produced in house serves to highlight the work and efforts of the many various local, state, and national agencies, non-profits, community groups, arts organizations, health agencies, environmental groups, and educational institutions, and the many other entities that we work with, across our region. All these entities share the common goal of improving the lives of area residents. We also air several short form, locally produced, educational pieces on a weekly basis. Programs like "History Dibs and Dabs", produced in Association with the Old Fort Historical Society, "The Southern Appalachian Creature Feature", produced in association with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails", produced in association with the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, and many others. Our signal covers Western North Carolina and beyond, reaching portions of five states. Our broadcast range covers an area that has a rich and very diverse musical culture. We strive to preserve and highlight that musical culture that is so beloved by our region. A day of the musical programming on WNCW will include old time, bluegrass, classic country, blues, soul, folk, americana, jazz, and many more genres. Allo these genres have roots that can be traced back tot he mountains of NC, to SC, to TN, and GA. All of these area areas that we reach with our broadcast signal, so we strive to highlight and preserve this musical history. Our night and weekend programming features several shows of block programming regarding several of the genres so prevalent in our area: Goin' Across the Mountain - featuring all traditional bluegrass music, The Saturday Night House Party - highlighting the blues music that originated in upstate SC, The Gospel Truth - focusing on the Bluegrass Gospel and Southern Gospel music rooted in our region, Local Color - shining a light on the local and regional artists that make up the region's thriving local music scene, and many others. As a part of Isothermal Community College, we also value the importance of sharing the knowledge of our industry. We work in conjunction with the college's Broadcasting and Production Technology curriculum to offer students the opportunity for real life experience. Students produce programming for our "ARC Overnight" program that airs on WNCW each week. In the last year, we have also started a program with the BPT curriculum that gives students the opportunity to shoot video of our live music sessions with artists from our Studio B each week. Students run camera, direct, produce, and edit the videos of these sessions which air live on our social media platforms and are then edited and loaded to our website, or WNCW- Studio B YouTube Channel. We also offer internships that provide students real work experience in the various departments of the radio station. Interns spend time in the programming, business, and membership departments of WNCW, gaining "hands on" experience that prepares them for a career in broadcasting. BPT Students leave the program with invaluable "real world" experience to include on their resumes and videos and recordings for their portfolios to highlight their skills. We truly value and respect the "public service" portion of our mission as public broadcasters and strive to honor that mission. Our efforts have made WNCW a highly respected public radio station, on the local, regional, and national level.