You can listen to the local radio station repeats only so many times before you want to throw yourself off a cliff.
Wayne Winkler, ETSU’s WETS-FM radio station station manager, has tried to solve this problem.
WETS tries to broadcast something different for people who have gotten tired of everything else out there, he said.
“We try to offer a variety of programs of news, music and information that’s not generally available to the public,” Winkler said.
Operating 24 hours a day at 89.5 MHz the station is now heard everywhere on the Internet and provides high-quality cultural programming for the region it serves.
“WETS serves as a cultural outlet for our region, presenting news, music, and information that is unavailable on other broadcast outlets,” Winkler said.
WETS’s news programming consists of National Public Radio that runs from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
“NPR is news like everywhere else but a little more in depth,” Winkler said. “When you don’t have pictures you have to go into a little more detail.”
The music WETS offers ranges from classical to Americana. Americana is a blend of traditional American styles that incorporates country, folk, blues, jazz, bluegrass, Celtic, rock and other elements.
WETS has had many traditional Americana artists perform live in their studios over the years including: Doc Watson, Byron Berline, Ralph Stanley, John Cephas, Phil Wiggins and Jean Ritchie.
Winkler said the information that WETS broadcasts is a source of information on different programs that ETSU.
“The type of public information we have here is generated differently,” he said.
WETS is not just for the university and ETSU students, it uses its 120-mile broadcast radius to inform people in the surrounding area of different events at the school and reflect the concern and interest of its listeners who are not served by commercial broadcast media.
“Our main focus is not the campus but the area the university serves,” Winkler said. “It’s kind of a public relations for the campus. We try to put the university’s name out there.

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