WCPN is combining with WKSU (Kent State University Public Radio).  The combined station will broadcast from KSU on 89.7FM - a 7,500 watt station.  90.3FM will now host WCLV - a classical music station - broadcasting at 50,000 watts!

Now, they are trying to spin this as a win but, get real.  WCPN / NPR, while always to the left, has gone off the deep end the past few years and I think they really dug a grave for themselves.  To put it kindly, the people they were making their programs for were not the ones paying the bills.

Oh well...

I used to like some of their weekend programing but I have to say that I haven't listened in years.  The "news" shows during the week were a bit much.

Sam Sanders is done at "It's Been a Minute."

https://current.org/2022/03/sam-sanders-signs-off-from-nprs-its-been-a-minute/

Something's Going on at NPR - I think the WCPN thing is just a symptom of something bigger.

NPR = Not Paying for Radio.

Especially when it's that left-leaning. They can go find other jobs that aren't focused on broadcasting leftist propaganda to Americans. We have enough of that on our major news networks.

It appears that WCPN, WKSU, WVIZ and WCLV are all a part of Ideastream.  Ideastream is Public Television and Radio.

WCPN and WCLV swapping radio stations looks like internal restructuring.  Don't celebrate their demise just yet.

IIRC Ideastream was created because the individual companies were not sufficiently financially sound enough to exist independently.
It will be nice when the classical station has a better signal.
My pet theory about public radio is that a big chunk of listeners are car commuters. When the country switched to working from home those listeners disappeared and are not coming back.

My theory is they aimed their programming at a demographic that doesn't listen to public radio.