WCLV

WCLV (104.9 FM) — branded WCLV 104.9 — is the classical radio station licensed to Lorain, Ohio serving Greater Cleveland and western parts of surrounding Northeast Ohio; WCLV is one of the few remaining classical music stations in the United States.
As of 2011, the station has been owned by Ideastream (the non-profit parent organization of WCPN public radio and WVIZ public television). WCLV itself continues to operate as a commercial radio station with paid advertising, however "excess profits" are shared with five local cultural institutions: the Cleveland Orchestra; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Cleveland Institute of Music; the Cleveland Play House; and the Cleveland Foundation.
During the week of December 6, 2010, the WCLV studios relocated to Idea Center in Playhouse Square — the home of Ideastream stations WCPN and WVIZ.
* The WCLV transmitter remains in the Cleveland suburb of Avon.
==Early years==
WCLV began in 1961 at 95.5 MHz as WDGO-FM, deriving its call letters from its principal owner: Douglas G. Oviatt. The correct call sign for the station caused confusion among some listeners since the station used a Scotty dog as a logo, causing the letters sometimes to be transposed as WDOG.
The station was purchased in 1962 by C.K. "Pat" Patrick and Robert Conrad as an outlet for classical music. At the time, most large American cities had at least one commercial radio station that devoted either a large part or all of its broadcast day to classical programming; most non-commercial classical stations were operated by colleges and universities, established years before the advent of the National Public Radio network. 
Patrick and Conrad formed Radio Seaway, Inc., taking its name from the St. Lawrence Seaway, which had opened in 1959 and had made Cleveland an ocean port. The new owners wanted to shed the "WDOG" image and wanted a new callsign that would reflect their orientation toward community service to the greater Cleveland area. The initial choice was WCLE, as "CLE" was the International Air Transport Association airport code for Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Those call signs also had a previous history in the market, as they were used on a daytime-only station owned by United Broadcasting, a company organized by the The Plain Dealer's parent company, Forest City Publishing, in the 1930s. At the same time, United Broadcasting also owned WHK, which now broadcasted on a full-time basis. Due to new regulations enacted that prohibited duopolies in a single market, WCLE was relocated to Akron, Ohio as station WHKK, which today broadcasts as WHLO.
However, the WCLE calls had already been taken by a station in Cleveland, Tennessee, and the WCLD calls were in use by a station in Cleveland, Mississippi. As a result, Patrick and Conrad opted for the call letters WCLV, and christened the station WCLV 95/5 on November 1, 1962. (During WCLV's years on 95.5 FM, the forward slash was always used in print instead of a point on the frequency number in station promotions and identification.) 
The station immediately launched an impressive, for its day, line-up of classical music programming. FM stereo broadcasts were begun on February 4, 1963, just three months after the debut. Two hour-long evening programming blocks also were unveiled within months of each other: first, the Symphony at Seven sponsored by Cleveland Trust on October 5, 1964, and the Heinen's Concert Hall on February 1, 1965. Concert Hall ended its run in 2003, while Symphony at Seven continues to this very day, its sponsorship carried over by Cleveland Trust's successors (Ameritrust, Society Bank and KeyBank).
One of WCLV's booth announcers, Martin Perlich, debuted the Perlich Project in late 1966 - a mixture of classical music with the early selections of progressive rock along with Perlich's own personal comments and editorials on events of the day. His show would gain renown as one of the earliest such shows on commercial radio, and as a model for the progressive rock medium itself.
In 1965, the station began broadcasting concerts of the Cleveland Orchestra on Sunday afternoons at 4:00 p.m. That time slot has remained virtually unchanged since. WCLV eventually started national distribution of the Orchestras' broadcasts to stations throughout the country, through its subsidiary syndication arm Seaway Productions. WCLV and Seaway also started to syndicate other programs, including Karl Haas' Adventures in Good Music (which ran from 1970 until 2007), and concert broadcasts of the Detroit Symphony, the Royal Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony.
Studios were moved from the original location in the Eastgate Shopping Center in Mayfield Heights to downtown Cleveland's Terminal Tower in 1968 , to Warrensville Heights in 1986, and finally to the current location in the Idea Center at Playhouse Square in Downtown Cleveland (as of December 2010).
The station did continue one traditional program from the old WDGO days. On Saturday night, WCLV broke away from its usual classical music programming to present an eclectic program of folk and novelty music and comedy called WCLV Saturday Night; the program was rebroadcast on Wednesday afternoon under the title WCLV Saturday Night on Wednesday Afternoon. The program also initiated some friendly feuding with rival classical music station WCRB in Boston. Hosted by WCLV President and longtime Cleveland Orchestra commentator Robert Conrad, WCLV Saturday Night spawned an hourlong syndicated version in 1982 titled Weekend Radio; it is still heard on numerous NPR-affiliated stations elsewhere in the U.S. By 1990, Conrad decided to retire the full three or so live hours on WCLV in favor of the hourlong version. At about the same time, he reformatted the show, substituting light classical pieces for the folk and novelty songs of past years.
Since 1970, the station has pre-empted regular programming for a week in September to broadcast requested concert recordings of the Cleveland Orchestra as a fund-raiser for the Orchestra. The event is known as the "Cleveland Orchestra Marathon."
==2001 frequency swap==
On July 3, 2001, a seven-way frequency swap occurred involving four FM and three AM stations in Cleveland, precipitated by the establishment of the WCLV Foundation (see below). WCLV moved from 95.5 MHz in Cleveland to 104.9 MHz in Lorain. Clear Channel's WAKS moved from 104.9 in Lorain to 96.5 in Akron, Clear Channel's WKDD moved from 96.5 in Akron to 98.1 in Canton, and Salem Communications' WHK-FM moved from 98.1 in Canton to 95.5 in Cleveland and became WFHM.
At the same time on the AM portion of the dial, Salem moved the WHK calls and religious format from 1420 to 1220, the WKNR calls and sports talk format were moved from 1220 to 850, and Radio Seaway took over the 1420 frequency from Salem and renamed it WCLV (whereas the 104.9 frequency had to officially take the WCLV-FM callsign). Radio Seaway initially intended to program the AM station as a direct simulcast of 104.9 FM (hence the WCLV calls), but instead wound up acquiring the intellectual property of WRMR, a big band and standards station that Salem gave up for WKNR's move to 850 AM.
While the calls for 1420 AM were first WCLV-AM (branding "WCLV Classic Pops 1420 AM"), Radio Seaway changed the callsign back to WRMR (branding "The Songs You Love") on January 1, 2003, with WCLV-FM dropping the "-FM" suffix that same day. By July 2004, it became apparent that the standards format was not working (probably due to an older demographic base, something largely unattractive to advertisers), and Salem reacquired the AM station, changing the format to syndicated talk under the original WHK calls.
===WCLV Foundation===
On November 1, 2001, Radio Seaway donated WCLV to the non-profit WCLV Foundation. In large measure, Robert Conrad and partner Rich Marschner (Patrick had retired nine years earlier) arranged the transaction in response to what they and others felt was a disturbing trend in major markets toward corporate buyouts of historically classical-formatted commercial stations, with the new owners invariably discontinuing the format.
In addition to assuring the station would maintain its classical music format, WCLV's move to non-profit status has provided funding for local arts organizations. Portions of the station's profits have been donated to The Cleveland Orchestra, The Cleveland Institute of Music, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Playhouse and The Cleveland Foundation. Conrad kept his involvement with the station intact through the change, continuing his duties as before, although he has reduced his day-to-day workload in recent years.
==Recent years==
Since the frequency change, WCLV has struggled with the coverage provided by its west side transmitter in Avon, Ohio, which provides poorer reception to the extreme eastern parts of the Cleveland area, particularly in Lake County. From 2001 to 2006, WCLV tried to remedy the problem by having an AM station located in nearby Painesville, WBKC 1460 AM, broadcast most of WCLV's schedule, but when its owners sold another AM station they owned in the market and moved that station's format to WBKC, the arrangement ended.
Since 1996, the station's programs have also been webcast on wclv.com (see link at bottom of page), one of the first stations in the market to have done so. On August 4, 2003, the station began HD Radio broadcasts of its signal on 104.9, second only to Elyria-licensed WNWV.
On June 29, 2007, WCLV broadcast the final Adventures in Good Music episode. The program, which had been airing at 8 p.m. weeknights, had actually discontinued production some four years earlier, two years before the death of host Karl Haas, who began the show on a Detroit radio station in 1959. Syndication of the show to other (mostly NPR-affiliated) classical-format stations was ended at that time as well. Essential Classics, another program of recorded music, replaced Adventures on the WCLV schedule.
On August 10, 2010, WCLV announced it would move from its long-time "Radio Ranch" studios in Warrensville Heights to the "ideastream" headquarters of public broadcasters WVIZ channel 25 (PBS) and WCPN FM 90.3 (NPR) at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland. The station's transmitter site will remain in Avon. The move occurred in December 2010. 
==Ideastream==
On May 4, 2011, it was announced that WCLV would be donated to ideastream, making it a sister station to both WCPN and WVIZ.
==References==
==External links==
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*Cleveland Broadcast Radio Archives: WCLV timeline
CLV
Category:Classical music radio stations in the United States