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Fiscal year 2000-01 was outstanding for WVTF Public Radio in many areas of its operation. Fundraising set another record as "listener sensitive" revenue reached a high of nearly $1.5 million. These donations, tied directly to radio listening, included individual gifts from the audience, corporate underwriting, and matching gifts. Listener donations were up 10 percent to $989,338, nearly reaching the $1 million mark for the first time ever. Corporate underwriting was up 8 percent to a record $479,570.
The new studio project began with the purchase of a two-acre parcel of land on Duke of Gloucester Street in South Roanoke. In order to finance the project, $2.55 million was raised as a part of the foundation's municipal bond offering. Construction is slated to begin this fall with occupancy scheduled near the end of 2002.
During the year, WVTF's news department received two major awards: The Clarion Award (national) for our outstanding locally produced mid-day 15-minute newscasts, and an Edward R. Murrow Award (regional) for feature sound reporting. Every year for over a decade, WVTF has received local, regional, state, and national awards in recognition of its high-quality news reporting and production.
WVTF is also responsible for the programming of Virginia Tech's AM radio station, WWVT (1260 AM). During fiscal 2001, WVTF began all-day programming of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) world radio service along with local inserts of one-minute features about Virginia Tech that air at the top of each hour. WWVT was donated to the foundation in 1998 and serves the New River Valley from a transmitter in Christiansburg.
WVTF became an international source of radio programming this past year as the station began streaming our audio over the Internet from our web site at http://www.wvtf.org.
This past year was exciting for the radio station and its listeners as WVTF marked the initiation of a renewed dedication to support Virginia Tech through the station's public service mission of offering the highest quality communications service possible to residents in an area covering half the commonwealth and parts of West Virginia and North Carolina.