WMOT Roots Radio marks ten years as an Americana music station

WMOT Roots Radio 89.5 FM turns ten as an Americana station this September, and the anniversary is a bigger deal than a format change usually is. The 100,000-watt signal is an NPR affiliate operated by Middle Tennessee State University, and MusicRow's Lorie Hollabaugh reported on August 27 that its online and app audience now sits at roughly a million people.

The station is much older than the format. WMOT first went on air in 1969 and became a charter NPR member in 1970. It spent three decades as a jazz station, drifted through a period of mixed programming, and then got rebuilt. Ken Paulson, then dean of media and entertainment at MTSU, proposed an all-Americana signal built on what Nashville was actually writing and recording. Executive Director Val Hoeppner backed it, the station partnered with the syndicated Music City Roots, and the veteran programmer Jessie Scott came in as program director.

The new format launched on September 2, 2016 with a live broadcast from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, with Jim Lauderdale, Suzy Bogguss, Mike Farris, Will Hoge and a cast of bluegrass players on the bill. In the decade since, the station has been an early supporter of Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, Sierra Ferrell, The War And Treaty and Allison Russell.

Hoeppner puts the difference down to who the station answers to. A public station follows its listeners rather than shareholders, she told MusicRow, and against algorithmic programming the pitch is human: "we employ human hosts that handcraft playlists for exploration and music discovery."

Around the broadcast sits a small ecosystem. Finally Friday presents three artists live each week from Nashville's 3rd & Lindsley. Wired In brings Americana acts into small rooms for sustaining members. The Local Brew gives emerging Nashville artists a slot of their own. Specialty programming runs through bluegrass, old-time, gospel and the outer edges of roots music, and the station has produced the AmericanaFest Day Stage with NPR Music and World Cafe every year since 2017. Its YouTube channel has passed a million cumulative views.

The birthday itself is being spent in two Nashville rooms on September 2. Lunch starts at 11:30am at Brown's Diner with Roderick August, followed by Lucciana Costa at 12:15pm, and the party moves to Robert's Western World from 4:30pm to 6:30pm with Paul Kramer and Kelley's Heroes. That second venue is expanding into Nashville's new stadium, and the wider Americana calendar runs through AmericanaFest, which has set its keynote and showcase plans. The format's biggest name was honoured this year when Dolly Parton took the Americana Music Association's lifetime achievement award, and more sits on the country hub.