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I am writing today as a concerned Ward 11 Edgewater constituent on behalf of the emergency resolution for vote on Monday, October 20, 2025, in support of WCSB being rightfully restored to the CSU students, that for over the last 49 years has cultivated, showcased, and contributed to the cultural vibrance of Cleveland. The former WCSB has existed as a beacon of diversity, culture, art, and community within Cleveland, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and ages for decades, while creating life-changing student experiences and opportunities. And at low cost to CSU, as a large portion of its annual budget relies upon community contributions. As well, its staff typically consists of student DJs, who are largely unpaid except for a few paid intern positions, I believe, and its community members, who are unpaid volunteers, many of whom have contributed for years via weekly shows, events, and fundraising radiothons.
The most recent surreptitious and disheartening corporate acquisition of WCSB's airwaves by Ideastream, with the full embrace of CSU's president Laura Bloomberg (who will now serve as a board member on Ideastream), is an attack on Cleveland's rich cultural community and very local and real public media service, a student-run community radio station which creates programming by and for Cleveland area community members.
Like so many of us, I am sad, disgusted, and frankly outraged by the audacity and serious lack of transparency on the part of Ideastream and CSU's president Laura Bloomberg, as well as what they have further illustrated through their ongoing actions and words -- a complete lack of consideration, humility, and will to understand or cultivate a true community radio within the existing framework student-run WCSB. On its face, this acquisition has serious corporate takeover vibes. Ideastream, equally enabled by CSU president Laura Bloomberg, has appeared to have high-jacked a vital and beloved community entity, only to seemingly offer limited or no real student and community voices or input into its programming. They have instead shuttered the real local community voices and energy that WCSB students and community members have offered for generations. Ideastream’s actions (along with CSU’s leadership) have directly contradicted the professed mission statement of public media to be one of service and accountability to local communities and stakeholders, which was so recently expressed at the October 17, 2025, forum on the future of public media at the City Club of Cleveland, of which Ideastream President and CEO Kevin Martin was a speaker.
Currently, neither Ideastream, nor CSU leadership have considered the possible and probable impacts to CSU and the Cleveland community in their dismantlement of a true student and community member partnership public radio station. Nor have they appeared to show a genuine interest in forging any real working partnership with the previous existing structure or student and community member programming and programmers; instead both parties' actions and words have unfortunately illustrated to the public their collaborative effort in completely absconding a college's and local community's public media without consideration or recourse to the actual community it serves.
I am writing to you today because I love and cherish student-run WCSB. It is true community radio. I have had the opportunity to hear and be introduced to music that you would rarely hear elsewhere on the radio, if it weren't for college and community radio, and best of all, I have meet so many great people in our expansive Cleveland community and cultivated friendships because of WSCB.
I ask you to please consider voting for the proposed resolution to restore WCSB to the students. We need real community radio, not more "community radio" that is created and produced by corporate public media gatekeepers who reside in California or elsewhere. Let us show Ideastream and CSU leadership how to be accountable to a community and truly serve it. Thank you for your consideration.
Thank you, kindly.
Libby Burnette
Cleveland State University's decision to hand over programming control of WCSB to Ideastream is a profound loss for both the university and the city of Cleveland. For almost 50 years, WCSB has served as a vital platform for student expression, cultural diversity, and community engagement—values that lie at the heart of any public university’s mission. The abruptness of the transition, without consultation or transparency, undermines trust and disregards the contributions of generations of students and volunteers who built the station into a beloved institution. The lack of guaranteed student opportunities and the silencing of grassroots voices is of much concern as it is a shift from inclusive education toward corporate branding, in my opinion. Reversing this decision, or at minimum renegotiating the agreement to restore student and community programming to XCSB would not only honor CSU’s legacy but reaffirm its commitment to democratic media, experiential learning, and civic responsibility. Please help us bring back WCSB!
At WCSB, students learned real-life practical lessons in all areas of building and running an entertainment business. They independently made and implemented decisions. They built firsthand experience in engineering, human resources, programming, finance, marketing, management, communication, and more. And they got jobs from working there.
As of the October 3rd long-term transfer of programming at WCSB, I am concerned about losses of opportunity for current and future students; lessening of varied voices by the community; dismissal of genuine Cleveland history; and a lack of transparency and consideration of the broader impact due to the surprise agreement between two public organizations.
Please help bring additional voices to the table to consider how WCSB moves forward in a way that continues to fulfill its best purpose.
Students don’t need banal corporate internships (there are plenty to find if they do), they need the opportunity to create their own workplace relationships, develop their own aesthetics (so valuable, so underrated, takes time), and be trusted with a complex operation that belongs to them. Freedom of expression is a powerful education, one that WCSB’s listenership benefited from. We should not be replacing students’ creativity, grassroots collaborations, messiness, coolness, and love with jazz algorithms and internships in a field they were previously the innovators in.
I would be overjoyed by the reversal of this decision on the basis of community feedback and am hopeful to see a demonstration of the university listening to the city they serve. Thank you to the Cleveland City Council for taking up this important cause.
It needs to be returned to those who enjoyed it and poured their hearts into it since 1976!
The creativity of programming and music rarely heard elsewhere is a hallmark of college radio. It creates connections between people who may not have otherwise met. It is a frequency to tune into to discover that others share non-mainstream artistry and ideas.
That the closure of WCSB was done with no transparency or prior notice to the staff and volunteers was a shock. I expect integrity from public radio and feel that Ideastream has not lived up to this.
Those who give their time, hearts, and money to WCSB deserve better. Our community deserves better.
I encourage you to stand with this important asset to Cleveland and help this organization (now XCSB) find a way to continue and thrive.
Thank you.