Dignitaries will flip the switch on a vintage on-air light in grand opening ceremonies September 20 to officially mark the beginning of live broadcasts from the KOSU studios in downtown Oklahoma City’s historic Film Row.
KOSU serves Oklahoma as one of the nation’s leading National Public Radio (NPR) stations, winning more than 300 awards for broadcast journalism excellence. The station has broadcast news and entertainment programming from the OSU campus in Stillwater for nearly 60 years.
“Hearing KOSU live from Historic Film Row is the culmination of more than two years of planning, construction and audio engineering,” said Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis. “The expansion of KOSU into downtown Oklahoma City serves a dual role as an academic extension of the broadcast programs on the OSU campus and as a public service outreach for the university and the arts community in Oklahoma.”
The $400,000, 4,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility is located in the newly-restored Hart Building in the Film Row District. KOSU Film Row features new performance and production studios and an expanded and technically enhanced collaborative newsroom that will double the station’s capacity to produce local news and music and serve as a hub for content collaborations with the state’s other public media organizations. New satellite receivers and other technology will allow KOSU to upload and download NPR data and audio interviews faster and with greater clarity.
“KOSU is now positioned as an anchor institution for Film Row. Our mission has always been to serve as a conduit of fresh ideas and thinking to contemporary audiences and our new studios are ideally located to further that goal,” said Kelly Burley, KOSU Director. “KOSU is a radio station on the rise with significant growth in listeners, as well as community and business supporters. The OKC studios complete our triangle of influence connecting our base studios in Stillwater and our satellite studio at OETA’s OSU-Tulsa campus location.”
KOSU’s expansion into Film Row is also featured in a new permanent exhibit in the lobby of NPR’s new headquarters in Washington DC. KOSU was one of three stations selected for the exhibit by NPR for their rich histories and strong reputations in the public broadcast community. The exhibit takes KOSU from its earliest beginnings on the Oklahoma A&M campus in 1955 to its new broadcast home in Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma City’s Film Row District dates back to 1907, when entrepreneurs of the District sold equipment and supplies to theater owners and offered spaces in which films were screened before being shown to the public. Film Row was largely abandoned from the 1960s through 1980s, but has seen a resurgence as KOSU and other arts organizations and businesses have flocked to the area.
Film Row will celebrate the KOSU grand opening with events throughout the day as part of its monthly art walk called Premiere. Besides the sign-on ceremony, the station will hold an open house to showcase the creativity of those who participated in its Art on the Record project with Individual Artists of Oklahoma. The station will also partner with The Spy to host a street concert featuring local musicians Ali Harter, Beau Jennings and the Tigers and the Feel Spectres.
