Branding Live inspired City of license Harrisburg Owner WITF, Inc_ Call sign meaning Where It's Top Flight | Frequency 89.5 MHz Format Classical music Area Susquehanna River | |
 | ||
Broadcast area South Central Pennsylvania Translator(s) See § Simulcast and translator Repeater(s) See § Simulcast and translator First air date April 1, 1971 (1971-04-01) | ||
Witf fm promo for the goon show
WITF-FM (89.5 FM) is a non-commercial, public FM radio station licensed to serve Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The station is owned by WITF, Inc., and broadcasts NPR talk and news programming. It is a sister station to the area's PBS member station, WITF-TV. Both stations are based at the Public Media Center in Swatara Township (with a Harrisburg mailing address), and broadcast from a shared tower located on Blue Mountain in Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County.
Contents
History
WITF-FM signed on for the first time on April 1, 1971, becoming the first station in central Pennsylvania to broadcast a classical music format.
The station originally broadcast from studios at Hershey Middle School, moving to Locust Lane in Harrisburg in 1982. On July 22, 2005, WITF began construction on its 75,000 square foot Public Media Center in Swatara Township. Staff would begin moving into the facility on November 27, 2006.
After airing a mix of classical music and NPR programming for much of its history, the station dropped all classical music programming on June 25, 2012, replacing it with a news and information format consisting of syndicated programs from NPR and other providers, along with local news and cultural arts reporting by WITF staff. WITF has its own Multimedia News Department, which provides local and regional news coverage.
The station began simulcasting its programming on 93.3 WYPM on January 9, 2009. WITF programming was now available on a local FM station to listeners in the Chambersburg, Pennsylvania area.
On December 19, 2012, NPR announced that StateImpact Pennsylvania, won one of three 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Awards (essentially the Pulitzer Prize of broadcast and digital journalism) for its outstanding reporting on energy issues for focusing on the fiscal, environmental and social issues of gas drilling on Pennsylvania's economy. WITF reporter Scott Detrow contributed to the report.
On April 19, 2016, WITF's reporting was honored with six regional Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association for excellence in broadcast and online journalism.
Simulcast and translator
One full-power station is licensed to simulcast the programming of WITF-FM full-time:
WITF-FM programming is broadcast on the following translator: