No, you’re spot on. I like WABE and think they have a great mix of local and national NPR/PRI programming (that’s the other public radio station). Plus, we have an even more independent public radio station, WRFG, which plays some more radical programming. So, no, we really didn’t need GPB broadcasting. We lost something incredibly valuable when Album 88 went off the airwaves from 5 to 7 every single day. And then, to add insult to injury, I listen to WRAS on Tune-in on my phone and a couple of weeks ago, I turn it on only to hear GPB! turns out they took that over too (though there is another channel on Tune-in for WRAS, which I switched to but it happened with no forewarning and I was pissed).
From what I understand, GPB’s ratings have been pretty low since they took over the airwaves - I guess they expected the listeners to just accept that their programming radically changed. We really didn’t need GPB in the city on the radio, but they’ve been looking to break into Atlanta for a while. They tried this with GA Tech’s radio station, but their university backed the station up when they said no - our students got no such opportunity, as the deal was essentially made in secret. I’d suspect that the demographics of the two schools played a role in all this - GSU is definitely blacker and more working class than Tech.
Honestly, I think that if they had worked with the students from day one, something could have been worked out on this. But the students who run the station learned a day before the rest of us did. But she’s right in that President Becker bears much of the responsibility for this. He sees the station as his own property, I guess, to do with as he wills, since the university owns the broadcasting license. It’s my hunch that by bringing more public broadcasting options to the city, he imagined that the liberal establishment would just line up behind him, and see him as a hero. But he ignores how many of the people in Atlanta love music…