WETS-FM’s new Web site went online Jan. 9 and has seen a dramatic increase in traffic.
“We’ve been getting comments from San Diego, song requests from Michigan, contributions from Texas and compliments from England,” said Station Manager Wayne Winkler.
The new Web site, www.wets.org, features program and schedule information, local and regional news and weather, an interactive calendar of community events, and links to program Web sites and other handy addresses.
WETS-FM, licensed to East Tennessee State University, is a non-commercial public radio station featuring classical, Americana and news programming. The on-air signal is heard at 89.5 megahertz in a 120-mile radius from Johnson City. The station has had a Web page for a couple of years, but the traffic has recently increased from 100 hits each week to over 13,000 with the launching of the new site.
The surge in traffic is the result of two innovative partnerships undertaken by WETS. The first was with ZFx Inc., a Web design and hosting company in Kingsport. ZFx specializes in user-friendly Web software, which allows customers to take charge of their own Web pages. “The flexibility this affords us allows us to continually update information without having to go through a webmaster,” Winkler said.
The second partnership was with the Kingsport Times-News. The Times-News created a link from their online operations to put continually updated news on the site. It is becoming more important for stations like WETS to include regional news, Winkler said. “There are plenty of sites for national news, we wanted to emphasize local and regional news.”
During the first week of operation under ZFx, www.wets.org drew 4,015 visits to the Web site. Of those, 755 were new visits. The following week, 13,555 people visited the site, 10,554 of them visiting for the first time.
As a public radio station, WETS-FM cannot carry advertising. The same legal restrictions do not apply to the site, but Winkler doesn’t foresee cluttering the page with banner ads.
“We’re looking for partners to help provide further public services on the site,” he said. “By combining our resources, we can make www.wets.org a real public resource for this region.”
Contact Winkler at (423) 439-6441 or through www.wets.org for more information about partnership opportunities.

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