WNMU Studios: Real Students, Real Stories - Northern Magazine

Far beneath the Lydia Olson Library renovations taking place in Harden Hall, below the Central U.P and NMU Archives office, the Help Desk and Fiera’s, below the original location of the first Starbucks on a college campus, lie the production studios of WNMU Public Media, which consists of WNMUTV and WNMU-FM Public Radio 90, the only Public Broadcasting TV and radio stations located in the Upper Peninsula. While the staff there do not see the light of day through office windows, they do shed light on local and world events, wide-ranging topics with local experts, and music and culture near and wide, old and sparkling new.

If you enter the building from the back door, along the wide sidewalk near the Quad and The Woods you will descend down the stairs to discover two impressive broadcasting and recording studios, a large sound stage where High School Bowl has been filmed for nearly 50 years, and a recently updated state-of-the-art TV production set and control room where hundreds of students have learned the art of newscasting, interviewing, camera operating, directing and sound mixing.

The stations’ signals reach around 12,000 square miles—about 75% of the Upper Peninsula—and 200,000 residents. Add to that around 1,200 online radio listeners per week. Yet, for this vibrant community of communicators, it’s been a surprising and challenging year.

A federal rescission act that passed in July stripped Congressionally approved funds for both WNMU-TV and radio stations for the fiscal years 2026 and 2027. That equates to $1.1 million each year.

“We get about a third of our support from the university, about a third from our viewers and listeners, and about third from federal funding, what we call the three-legged stool,” said Pat Lakenen ’96 BS, ’14 MS, director of broadcast and AV services and general manager of WNMU Public Media. 

“We always said, if one of those legs (of funding) goes away, we're going to have concerns. Well, one of those legs went away.”

“This feels similar to the pandemic. We started doing things nobody ever would have thought possible, with classes online, everybody using Zoom, people working from home… We had to do it because we had to figure out a way through it, and we're kind of in a similar situation now,” Lakenen said. “We feel confident that we'll find a way through this with the generous support we've seen from our listeners and viewers, corporate sponsors, and national foundations and grants. 

“Public Radio 90 is a community service as much as it is a media organization,” added Kurt Hauswirth ’09 BME, classical music producer, host, and announcer. “We have local news coverage with depth, accuracy, and neutrality. We highlight stories of rural issues, tribal voices, environmental coverage, arts, education, and other cultural programming and entertainment, including my programs like Classiclectic, Peninsula Performances and The Shuffle, along with live performances, and interviews with U.P. artists, storytellers and authors.

Radio is emotional, with companionship, trust, and routine. The difference between your local public radio station and national podcasts, Spotify, etc., is that we’re rooted here, we report about things going on here, and we talk with folks from the area. The rest of the world doesn’t give you that. Amplifying stories from people in the community is an honor and a privilege.

"We also play an important emergency and civic role with storm coverage, election reporting, wildfire and school closure alerts.” In fact, WNMU-FM is the hub that accepts all national, state and local emergency alerts and is tasked with distributing those to all the other broadcast entities, 36, in the central U.P.

“This is critical in our region, where there’s still broadband and cellular issues. Anybody that drives through the Seney Stretch knows that there's no guarantee you're going to get a text message on your phone,” said Lakenen.  Another crucial service, central to the purpose of NMU, is the studios’ role as classroom/ internship for students from all walks of life, getting real newsroom and production experience, writing copy, speaking live on the air, dealing with deadlines and producing live broadcasting, for instance on the totally student-produced Public Eye News. “The students show up because they love to do this,” said Hauswirth.

“When you also consider all the sports broadcasting for the university that we do—there will be two staff members and seven or eight students doing replay and audio and cameras and everything else...” added Lakenen, 

“there are about 60 to 80 students per semester that have some tie specifically to WNMU-TV and radio—that’s about one in every 100 students, which means we have impacted nearly 1,000 students over the past 10 years alone. That's amazing.”

Watch anytime at wnmutv.nmu.edu / PBS app. Stream anytime at wnmufm.org / PR90 app or on the NPR app and put WNMU-FM as your local station

Your support matters. Even a gift of $5 can make a meaningful impact: nmu.edu/give