WNYC

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WNYC

Ownership
Sister stations	WNYC (AM), WNYC-FM, WQXR-FM, WQXW, WNJT-FM, WNJP, WNJY, WNJO
Links
Webcast	WNYC Listen Live WNYC-FM Listen Live WQXR-FM Listen Live New Sounds Listen Live

WNYC is the trademark and a set of

As of 2018, WNYC also owns and operates the website Gothamist.^[4]

History

Early years

WNYC began as WNYC (AM), one of the oldest radio stations in New York. Funds for the establishment of the station were approved on June 2, 1922, by the New York City Board of Estimate and Apportionment. WNYC made its first official broadcast two years later on July 8, 1924, at 570 AM with a second-hand transmitter shipped from Brazil. With the commencement of WNYC's operations, the City of New York became one of the first American municipalities to be directly involved in broadcasting. Studios and transmitter were at The Municipal Building, 1 Centre Street. Herman Neuman was the station's first music director, and oversaw the music department for over 40 years until his retirement in 1967.^[5]

In 1928 WNYC was forced into a time-sharing arrangement on 570 AM with

WNYC's transmitter was moved in 1937 from the Municipal Building to city-owned land at 10 Kent Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as part of a Works Progress Administration project. In 1938 the Municipal Broadcasting System was established by the City of New York to run the station. For its first 14 years, WNYC had been run by the New York City Commissioner for Bridges, Plant and Structures. Now, under an agency devoted singularly to its function and with the leadership of new director Morris S. Novik, appointed by Mayor LaGuardia, WNYC became a model public broadcaster. Among its many landmark programs was the annual American Music Festival.

In 1941 the

In 1979, several Tri-State residents formed the WNYC Foundation as the stations' fundraising arm.[8]

In 1990, as a result of continued interference with WCCO (and a court ruling in WCCO's favor rescinding the WWII-era approval for nighttime operation by WNYC),^[9] WNYC moved from 830 kHz to 820 kHz, commenced around-the-clock operations and increased its daytime power to 10,000 watts, while maintaining 1,000 watts at night, to protect WBAP in Fort Worth, Texas; WBAP is also a clear-channel 50,000-watt station but is farther from New York City than Minneapolis. The AM transmitter was moved to Belleville Turnpike in Kearny, New Jersey, sharing three towers with WMCA its former shared-time partner.^[2] The Brooklyn transmitter site was decommissioned and is now WNYC Transmitter Park.

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" and "janes" 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,

On June 16, 2008, WNYC 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 at 160 Varick Street, near the Holland Tunnel. The station now occupies 31⁄2 floors of a 12-story former printing building in Hudson Square.

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, WNYC 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.^[15]

Acquisition of WQXR

On October 8, 2009, WNYC took control of classical music station

On June 6, 2011, the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority agreed to sell four FM stations in northern New Jersey to New York Public Radio. The transaction was announced by Governor Chris Christie, as part of his long-term goal to end State-subsidized public broadcasting. The four stations were previously the northern half of New Jersey Network's statewide radio service, with the stations in southern New Jersey going to Philadelphia public radio station WHYY-FM. Upon taking control of the four stations on July 1, 2011, they were rebranded as New Jersey Public Radio.^[17]

Gothamist acquisition

In late 2017, the website network including Gothamist, LAist, and DCist ceased operations. Three months later, in February 2018, anonymous donors funded a joint purchase of the properties by radio stations KPCC, WAMU, and WNYC, which would each operate the publication relevant to their broadcast region.^[18][19]

Past personalities

Past WNYC radio personalities include H. V. Kaltenborn, who hosted radio's first quiz program on WNYC in 1926, the Brooklyn 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 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.

WNYC produces and broadcasts programming for a local audience, including news and interview shows The Brian Lehrer Show and All of It with Alison Stewart, along with a roster of nationally syndicated WNYC Studios produced including Radiolab, On the Media, and The New Yorker Radio Hour. WNYC is a leading member station of NPR, broadcasting NPR's major daily news programs including Morning Edition and All Things Considered. WNYC also broadcasts programs from the BBC World Service and selected programs from other producers including This American Life, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, and Fresh Air. The broadcasts airs on WNYC 93.9 FM and AM 820 in New York City, and also streams live over the internet. As a result, the station reaches listeners from across the country and around the globe. WNYC-AM-FM has a local news team of approximately 60 journalists, producers, editors, and other broadcasting professionals.

WNYC and WNYC Studios programs and podcasts include:

• The
  Peabody Award in 2007 "for facilitating reasoned conversation about critical issues and opening it up to everyone within earshot."^[24] In 2014, the show won first place in the Garden State Journalists Association Awards.^[25]
• All of It with Alison Stewart covers culture in the broadest sense – religion, food, language, music etc.[26] In October 2019 the show launched the monthly book club Get Lit with All of It. In April 2020, as New York City neared the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the show partnered with the New York Public Library to shift the book club to a virtual monthly event.^[27]
• Gracie Award for Outstanding Host.^[29] The episode "Bench Press", which looked at the Supreme Court and its relationship with the media, won both a New York Press Club Award and the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award in 2016.^[30][31] Bob Garfield co-hosted the program until 2021, when he was fired from WNYC for violating its anti-bullying policies.^[32]
• New Sounds – Since 1982, founder and host John Schaefer has devoted the program to present new and eclectic music. The New York Times hailed the program as "a genre-defying radio program that has played an outsize role in [New York City's] new music scene for nearly four decades." In early 2018, the 24-hour streaming music site NewSounds.org was launched.
• Radio Rookies – provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world. The show won a
  Peabody Award in 2005 for "teaching teens the fundamentals of radio reporting and giving listeners unvarnished insights into worlds ignored and disregarded," with the awarding body calling the show "ingenious."^[33] In 2017 the story "Gentrification: Feeling Like an Outsider in Your Own Neighborhood" won a National Edward R. Murrow Award.^[34] One of the stories from a rookie reporter, "Trying to Graduate from High School at 21", won both a Regional and National Edward R. Murrow Award in 2019.^[35][36]
• Trump, Inc., hosted by
  Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, the medallion for Radio Features News in the Excellence in Journalism Award Competition conducted by the Society of the Silurians, and Apple named it as one of the most popular podcasts launched that year.^[37][38][39]
• Fishko Files – Sara Fishko produces sound-rich essays on art, culture, music and media. The feature "Realism and Rebellion" won a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award in 2019.[40]
• The Takeaway – a weekday one-hour news show, hosted by Melissa Harris-Perry, co-produced with Public Radio Exchange.^[41]
• Death, Sex & Money – Host Anna Sale talks to celebrities and regular people about relationships, money, family, work and making it all count.
• Radiolab – two-time Peabody Award-winning podcast attempts to approach broad, difficult topics such as "time" and "morality" in an accessible and light-hearted manner and with a distinctive audio production style. Hosted by Jad Abumrad, Lulu Miller, and Latif Nasser.
• BIPOC actors, including André Holland, Phylicia Rashad, and Lupita Nyong'o.^[44] The New York Times said the cast "delivered electric performances, spotlighting the aural delights of Shakespeare's language."^[45]