City Bethany, West Virginia First air date 1967 (as WVBC) ERP 1,100 watts | Frequency 88.1 MHz Format NPR, Jazz | |
Branding The Pittsburgh Jazz Channel | ||
WZUM-FM (88.1 FM) is a radio station licensed to Bethany, West Virginia, USA, and serving the greater Pittsburgh area. The station is owned by Pittsburgh Public Media. WZUM-FM is run by former staff members of the former WDUQ (which was sold in 2011 by Duquesne University and is now WESA, broadcasting a mostly NPR news/talk format with a small portion of jazz remaining), and broadcasts a jazz format. The station previously operated under the callsign WVBC and was a service of Bethany College, a private liberal arts college in the town of Bethany.
WVBC relaunched as WYZR on September 1, 2013, as a result of a November 2012 announcement by Pittsburgh Public Media (a group who unsuccessfully bid on WDUQ with the intent to retain its news-jazz-NPR format as is) to purchase the license of WVBC as a pretext to returning jazz to Pittsburgh airwaves in partnership with the Pittsburgh Jazz Channel, an online jazz radio station founded by the former WDUQ staffers shortly after the WDUQ sale and format change. The WVBC sale finalized in May 2013.
The station changed its call sign to the current WZUM-FM on May 12, 2016.