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Noon show no longer all ag

by Amy Beth Graves

In October 1947, a 5000-watt radio station in Delaware County went on the air to tell the farmer's story.

Started by Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF), WRFD-AM featured news that was important to Ohio's agriculture community and was "blared out in farm homes, in automobiles and even in the barns," according to "Ohio Farm Bureau Story 1919-1979."

Salem Communications Corp., a radio broadcaster that focuses on Christian and family-oriented issues, now owns WRFD and is making changes to its programming, which will affect the ag listener. Starting Oct. 3, the station, which bills itself as "Ohio's longest running farm program", will change the format of its noon show. Currently, the program features four 15-minute blocks of information Monday through Friday that are of interest to the agriculture community, including ag news, markets and weather.

The noon show will still have weather and market updates but will feature two syndicated ministers, said Dan Craig, the station's general manager. He noted that WRFD has been a Christian station since 1982 and that the program change better fits Salem's goals.

"Our audience desires daily, biblical teaching. This (change) keeps us in line with our strategic mission – to provide the best caliber of Christian teaching to our audience," he said.

Craig said that while WRFD, found on 880 AM in more than 70 counties, is cutting back on its farm programming, it is not eliminating information for the ag and rural communities. He said listeners can find weather and market updates not only during the noon program but throughout the day.

"Many radio stations have cut back their allotment of time for farm or gotten out of it all together. We have a rich history of providing news and information to the farmers and hope to continue that," he said.

Ohio's farmers will lose "a good information resource" with the change in the farm program, said Joe Cornely, OFBF's director of corporate communications and former farm director for WRFD. He said many farmers were tuning into the noon program because it was a solid hour of ag-related news.

OFBF hasn't had a financial stake in a radio station since 1981 when it sold WRFD to Salem, which agreed at the time to continue a strong segment of farm programming, according to "Ohio Farm Bureau Story."

Over the years, WRFD has passed in and out of Ohio Farm Bureau's hands. In 1949, ownership was transferred to a subsidiary of Nationwide Insurance and the station moved into a colonial style building just north of Columbus in 1952. In 1974, OFBF reacquired the station after Nationwide determined it no longer fit in its plans. Ohio Farm Bureau sold WRFD seven years later to Salem after the organization found other ways to communicate with farmers, including a pre-Internet computer service that delivered market, weather and agriculture news.

Ohio Farm Bureau is currently looking at the radio needs of members and whether it needs to help fill the void, Cornely said.

"An icon is disappearing. We're exploring what type of news the ag and rural communities want to hear on the radio," he said.