WNYC-FM

Not to be confused with WYNC, a Gospel music format radio station in North Carolina.
WNYC-FM
City New York City
Branding WNYC 93.9 FM
Frequency 93.9 MHz
(also on HD Radio)
93.9-2 FM: WQXR-FM simulcast
93.9-3 FM: WNYC (AM) simulcast
First air date March 13, 1943 (1943-03-13)
Format Public radio
Language(s) English
ERP 5,200 watts
HAAT 415 meters (1,362 ft)
Class B
Facility ID 73355
Transmitter coordinates 40°44′55″N 73°59′08″W / 40.74861°N 73.98558°W / 40.74861; -73.98558
Callsign meaning W New York City
Affiliations NPR
Owner New York Public Radio
Sister stations WNYC (AM), WQXR-FM, WQXW, New Jersey Public Radio
Webcast WNYC-FM Webcast
Website www.wnyc.org

WNYC-FM (93.9 MHz) is a non-profit, noncommercial, public radio station located in New York City. It is owned by New York Public Radio which also owns WNYC (AM), WQXR-FM, New Jersey Public Radio, and the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. Combined, New York Public Radio owns WNYC, WNYC-FM, WQXR-FM, WQXW, WNJT-FM, WNJP, WNJY, and WNJO.[1][2] New York Public Radio is a not-for-profit corporation, incroporated in 1979, and is a publicly supported organization.[3]

WNYC-AM-FM, along with Newark, New Jersey-licensed classical music outlet WQXR-FM (105.9 MHz), broadcast from studios and offices in the Hudson Square section of Manhattan. WNYC-FM's transmitter is located on the Empire State Building in New York City.[4]

History

Early years

WNYC-FM began regularly scheduled broadcasts on the FM band on March 13, 1943 at 43.9 MHz as the sister station to WNYC. Known originally as W39NY, the FM outlet adopted its present WNYC-FM identity and its present frequency of 93.9 MHz within a few years. In 1961 the pair were joined by a television operation, as WUHF (channel 31) took to the air in an experimental format. The following year the station was renamed WNYC-TV.

The Municipal Broadcasting System (which was renamed the WNYC Communications Group in 1989) helped to form National Public Radio in 1971, and the WNYC stations were among the 90 stations that carried the inaugural broadcast of All Things Considered later that year.

The station's ownership by the City meant that it was occasionally subject to the whims of various mayors. As part of a crackdown on prostitution in 1979, then-Mayor Ed Koch tried to use WNYC to broadcast the names of "johns" arrested for soliciting. Announcers threatened a walkout and station management refused to comply with the idea; after one broadcast the idea was abandoned. See John Hour.

Independence from the City

Shortly after assuming the mayoralty in 1994, Rudolph W. Giuliani announced he was considering selling WNYC-AM-FM. Giuliani believed that broadcasting was no longer essential as a municipal service, and that the financial compensation from selling the stations could be used to help the City cover budget shortfalls.[5] The final decision was made in March 1995: while the City opted to divest WNYC-TV (now WPXN-TV) through a blind auction to commercial buyers, WNYC-AM-FM was sold to the WNYC Foundation for $20 million over a six-year period, far less than what the stations could have been sold for if they were placed on the open market.[6] While the sale put an end to the occasional political intrusions of the past, it required the WNYC Foundation to embark on a major appeal towards listeners, other foundations, and private benefactors. The station's audience and budget have continued to grow since the split from the City.

Manhattan Municipal Building, WNYC's home from 1922 to 2008

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 destroyed WNYC-FM's transmitter atop the World Trade Center. WNYC-AM-FM's studios, in the nearby Manhattan Municipal Building, had to be evacuated and station staff was unable to return to its offices for three weeks. The FM signal was knocked off the air for a time. WNYC-FM temporarily moved to studios at National Public Radio's New York bureau in midtown Manhattan, where it broadcast on its still operating AM signal transmitting from towers in Kearny, New Jersey and by a live Internet stream. The stations eventually returned to the Municipal Building.

Move to new studios

On June 16, 2008 NYPR moved from its 51,400 square feet (4,780 m2) of rent-free space scattered on eight floors of the Manhattan Municipal Building to a new location on Varick Street, near the Holland Tunnel. The station now occupies three and a half floors of a 12-story former printing building. The new offices have 12-foot (4 m) ceilings and 71,900 square feet (6,680 m2) of space. The number of recording studios and booths has doubled, to 31. There is a new 140-seat, street-level studio for live broadcasts, concerts and public forums and an expansion of the newsroom of over 60 journalists.

Renovation, construction, rent and operating costs for the new Varick Street location amounted to $45 million. In addition to raising these funds, NYPR raised money for a one-time fund of $12.5 million to cover the cost of creating 40 more hours of new programming and three new shows. The total cost of $57.5 million for both the move and programming is nearly three times the $20 million the station had to raise over seven years to buy its licenses from the City in 1997.[7]

Acquisition of WQXR

On October 8, 2009 WNYC took control of classical music station WQXR-FM, then at 96.3. WQXR's intellectual property (call letters and format) was acquired from the New York Times Company as part of a three-way transaction with Univision Radio.[8] WNYC also purchased the 105.9 FM frequency of Univision's WCAA (now WXNY-FM). WQXR-FM's classical format moved to 105.9 and WXNY's Spanish Tropical format debuted at 96.3. The deal resulted in WQXR becoming a non-commercial station. With WQXR as a co-owned 24-hour classical station, WNYC-FM dropped its remaining classical music programming to become a full-time news/talk station.

Past personalities

Past WNYC radio personalities include H. V. Kaltenborn, who hosted radio's first quiz program on WNYC in 1926, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Current Events Bee, a forerunner to shows like National Public Radio's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! In its early years the station lacked funds for a record library and would borrow albums from record stores around the Manhattan Municipal Building, where its studios were located. Legend has it, a listener began lending classical records to the station and in 1929, WNYC began broadcast of Masterwork Hour, radio's first program of recorded classical music.

Following the U.S. entry into World War II, then-mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia made use of the station every Sunday in his Talk to the People program. During a lengthy newspaper workers strike, La Guardia also used the WNYC airwaves to read the latest comic strips to local youngsters while they were not available in New York.

Margaret Juntwait, an announcer and classical music host at WNYC for 15 years, left for the Metropolitan Opera in September 2006. Prior to her death in 2015, Juntwait served as announcer for the Met's Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts, the first woman to hold the position and only the third regular announcer of the long-standing broadcast series, which was launched in 1931. John Schaefer, a music show host at WNYC for 20 years, has written liner notes for more than 100 albums, for everyone from Yo-Yo Ma to Terry Riley and was named a "New York influential" by New York Magazine.

Programming

WNYC produces 100 hours a week of its own programming, including nationally syndicated shows such as Studio 360, On the Media, Selected Shorts and Radiolab, as well as local news and interview shows that include The Leonard Lopate Show, Soundcheck and The Brian Lehrer Show. The entire schedule is streamed live over the internet and several shows also air over Sirius and XM Satellite Radio. As a result, the station receives listener calls from far-flung states and even has international listeners.

WNYC-AM-FM has a local news team of 18 journalists, as well as dozens of producers and other broadcasting professionals.

Studio 360 is a weekly one-hour program about arts and culture hosted by Kurt Andersen, the former editor of Spy Magazine. Taking current issues and trends as jumping-off points, the show explores a broad range of cultural ideas. Each program begins with a topical section of stories about the arts and culture from around the United States and around the world. It won a Peabody Award in 2004 for its episode American Icons: Melville's Moby-Dick.[9]

On the Media is a nationally syndicated, weekly one-hour program hosted by Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield, formerly of Advertising Age, covering the media and its effect on American culture and society. Many stories investigate how events of the past week were covered by the press. Stories also regularly cover such topics as video news releases, net neutrality, media consolidation, censorship, freedom of the press, spin, and how the media is changing with technology. It won a Peabody Award in 2004.[10]

The Brian Lehrer Show is a two-hour weekday talk show covering local and national current events and social issues hosted by Brian Lehrer, a former anchor and reporter for NBC Radio Network. It won a Peabody Award in 2007 "for facilitating reasoned conversation about critical issues and opening it up to everyone within earshot."[11]

The Leonard Lopate Show, originally "New York & Company," is a two-hour weekday talk show hosted by Leonard Lopate, a painter who studied with Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko and the brother of writer Phillip Lopate. The show covers a broad range of topics including current events, literature, theater, science and history. It won a Peabody Award in 2012 "for considering all things New York in lively broadcasts that, like the host, value light more than heat."[12]

Soundcheck is a one-hour weekday talk and music show hosted by John Schaefer. The program looks at music and the arts, featuring interviews with musicians, critics, journalists, authors and others. It sometimes has live musical performances in mix of genres, including indie rock, jazz, classical, and world music.

WNYC-FM broadcasts the major daily news programs produced by NPR, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as well as the BBC World Service and selected programs from Public Radio International including This American Life and A Prairie Home Companion.

In 2006 the station began wnyc2 (lower case letters), an all-classical music channel broadcast on HD Radio and on the Internet. The slogan is, "Five hundred years of new music", and most of the playlist comes from the 20th and 21st centuries. This channel became part of WQXR as Q2 when WNYC's parent company acquired WQXR.

In 2013 WNYC launched The Jonathan Channel, a 24-hour streaming Internet radio station programmed by Jonathan Schwartz and dedicated to popular standards from the "Great American Song Book." The channel also features live programming hosted by Schwartz, including a simulcast of his Sunday WNYC-FM show.

Listenership and new media

WNYC has been an early adopter of new technologies including HD radio, live audio streaming, and podcasting. RSS feeds and email newsletters link to archived audio of individual program segments. WNYC also makes some of its programming available on Sirius XM satellite radio.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "2013 Income Tax Returns" (PDF).
  2. ↑ "New York Public Radio".
  3. ↑ "New York Public Radio Financial Statements and Supplemental Schedule" (PDF).
  4. ↑ "Transmitter information for WNYC 93.9 FM". Radio Locator.
  5. ↑ "Opinion: Don't sell out WNYC." The New York Times, February 28, 1994. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  6. ↑ Myers, Steven Lee (March 22, 1995). "New York, signing off, to sell its radio and TV stations.". The New York Times. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
  7. ↑ Collins, Glenn (July 17, 2006). "WNYC's Planned Move Will Finish Its Breakup With the City". The New York Times. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
  8. ↑ Perez-Pena, Richard (July 17, 2009). "Times Co. agrees to sell WQXR Radio". The New York Times. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
  9. ↑ 64th Annual Peabody Awards, May 2005.
  10. ↑ 64th Annual Peabody Awards, May 2005.
  11. ↑ 67th Annual Peabody Awards, May 2008.
  12. ↑ 72nd Annual Peabody Awards, May 2013.

WNYC-FM

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