Broadcast area Delaware Valley HAAT 280 meters Frequency 90.9 MHz Owner WHYY, INC. Branding WHYY 91 FM or 91 FM | ERP 13,500 watts Class B City of license Philadelphia Area Delaware Valley | |
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Repeater(s) See § New Jersey expansion and controversy First air date December 14, 1954 (1954-12-14) Format Talk radio, All-news radio, Public affairs Slogan Radio That's Worth Your Time Profiles | ||
WHYY-FM (90.9 FM; "91 FM") is the flagship National Public Radio station serving Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley. Its broadcast tower is located in the city's Roxborough neighborhood at (40°02′30.9″N 75°14′21.9″W), while its studios are located on Independence Mall in Center City, Philadelphia.
Contents
History
WHYY signed on for the first time on December 14, 1954. It was the first station in Philadelphia devoted solely to education. After sister television station WHYY-TV moved to the Channel 12 license from Wilmington, Delaware in 1963, FCC regulations forced the radio station to change its calls to WUHY. It regained its original calls in 1983.
The station was a charter member of NPR in 1970, and was one of the 90 stations that carried the initial broadcast of All Things Considered.
Programs produced
Format change
Until a 1990 format change, WHYY served the region as a non-commercial station with a format that featured jazz, folk, and classical music, with the latter predominating. The management decision to establish a talk-radio format departed from the pattern established by most public radio affiliates nationwide. Its implementation resulted in sustained protests from the station's traditional listening audience who were formerly WHYY's major contributors.
CEO controversy
Controversy erupted in the summer of 2007 when station CEO Bill Marrazzo was cited by the watchdog group Charity Navigator as the highest paid CEO in all of public broadcasting.
Popular Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Karen Heller called for a boycott of WHYY in an August 2007 column and in September 2007 an anonymous group of WHYY employees sent an open letter to Marrazzo, the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia magazine, accusing him of "a serious lack of understanding when it comes to creating ... a healthy workplace" and assailing his salary as "excessive and inappropriate." The five-page letter concluded with a call for Marrazzo to resign.
New Jersey expansion and controversy
On June 6, 2011, the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority agreed to sell five FM stations in southern New Jersey to WHYY. The purchase was made through an anonymous one-million dollar grant and a non-cash agreement that included scholarships for students and teachers. The five stations were previously the southern portion of New Jersey Network's statewide radio service.
The transaction was announced by Governor Chris Christie, as part of his long-term goal to end State-subsidized public broadcasting. The Governor's critics maintained that scrapping New Jersey Network effectively ended all non-commercial statewide news coverage. It was also noted that the sale eliminated a source of legislative oversight frequently critical of the Christie administration.
WHYY assumed control of the stations through a management agreement on July 1, 2011, pending Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for the acquisition. At that point, the stations began to simulcast WHYY-FM programming. The five stations are:
The stations all operate at relatively modest power due to the crowded state of the FM dial in the northeastern United States. However, their combined footprint gives WHYY-FM listeners coverage from Berks County to the Jersey Shore.