CSU shut down WCSB — so the students launched XCSB and signed a 5-year studio lease

NewsHow students built a new radio station from scratch after CSU gave away WCSBProtestors rally outside Cleveland’s City Club during a lunch forum with Ideastream Public Media, October 17, 2025. The protestors gathered in opposition to Cleveland State University handing the operations of its student radio station, WCSB 89.3, to Ideastream without receiving any compensation. Under CSU, WCSB 89.3 was a student- and community-run station, featuring diverse genres of music and talk.John Kuntz, cleveland.comBy Today in Ohiocleveland.comThe students and alumni behind the former WCSB campus radio station at Cleveland State University are back behind the microphone but still fighting with the school, and Today in Ohio hosts suggested a peaceful resolution Thursday.The backstory: WCSB, the beloved community radio station that had long operated out of CSU, saw its FM signal transferred to Ideastream in the fall of 2024. The move was met with protests and outrage from students and community members who saw it as the erasure of a rare, student-driven independent radio outlet. The signal now carries Jazz Neo on Ideastream. But the story didn’t end there.As co-host Lisa Garvin explained: “Students at CSU who worked at WCSB, the campus station before it was transferred to Ideastream, have launched a streaming radio station. It’s called XCSB Alternative Media.”XCSB Alternative Media launched streaming in March and, as of this week, can now be found at xcsb.org, in the Apple and Google Play app stores, and can be pulled up through Alexa and other voice assistants. The station has signed a five-year lease on a space next to the Beachland Ballroom in the Waterloo Arts District and is currently soundproofing the new studio. When finished, the space will include a picture window so passersby can watch DJs at work and a live music venue — a physical home for an independent community radio operation.Former XCSB president Keith Newman acknowledged the loss of the FM signal while highlighting what the new freedom makes possible: without an FCC license to worry about, the station isn’t subject to the same regulatory constraints that shaped the old WCSB. And in a meaningful expansion of the community mission, staff no longer has to be current CSU students — the old requirement that broadcasters be enrolled or former students of the station has been dropped entirely.But not everything about this situation is celebratory. There’s still a legal fight underway. A group called Friends of XCSB — not directly affiliated with the station — is suing CSU and its president over the transfer of the signal, demanding public records, access to the campus studio, and the return of personal items that staffers say have been locked away since they were shut out last fall. CSU has asked for the suit to be dismissed and wants to block discovery in the meantime.And then there’s the equipment. Thousands of CDs, hundreds of Hungarian music albums, a chief engineer’s tools, personal belongings — all of it reportedly sitting in a locked room, unused. Host Chris Quinn had a pointed suggestion for CSU: Hand it over.“Make a deal. Show some generosity. CSU doesn’t need that stuff. It’s all sitting in a room unused.”Quinn acknowledged that the lawsuit itself probably won’t succeed — the university has the legal authority to do what it did. But legality and decency are different standards. His argument was simple: CSU is now out of the radio business. Ideastream has the signal. The equipment serves no purpose sitting in a locked room. Handing it over to the students who built and ran the station for years would cost the university nothing and mean everything to the people trying to keep independent radio alive in Cleveland.Garvin agreed that the leap to streaming is a smart move, while noting the real challenge ahead — building an audience without a terrestrial signal requires a serious investment in social media and digital promotion. That’s a different skill set than traditional radio.There’s also a second student radio effort worth watching: Viking Freeform Radio, a separate group that launched this spring at CSU and is currently in discussions with the university about using the on-campus studio space. Whether one or both of these efforts take root, the spirit driving them is the same — a refusal to let institutional decisions silence community voices.Listen to the discussion here.What happened when everyday Ohioans were challenged to think like a newspaper editorial boardA federal judge nominee refused to say Biden won — then the Senate confirmed him anyway7,000 Ohioans spoke up, and they changed how data centers can use Ohio’s waterListen to full “Today in Ohio” episodes where Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Editorial Board member Lisa Garvin, Impact Editor Leila Atassi and Content Director Laura Johnston.