WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit,
publicPublic broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...
radio stationRadio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
s located in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
WNYC (AM) broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs. The stations are known for its nationally-syndicated news and culture programming and its
Internet radioInternet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
broadcasts. WNYC reaches more than one million listeners each week and has the largest public radio audience in the United States.
The WNYC stations are co-owned with
Newark, New JerseyNewark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
-licensed
classical musicClassical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
outlet
WQXR-FMWQXR-FM is an American classical radio station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, and serving the New York City metropolitan area. It is the most-listened-to classical-music station in the United States, with an average quarter-hour audience of 63,000...
(105.9 MHz.), and all three broadcast from studios and offices in the TriBeCa section of
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. WNYC's AM transmitter is located in
Kearny, New JerseyKearny is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. It was named after Civil War general Philip Kearny. As of the United States 2010 Census, the town population was 40,684. The town is a suburb of the nearby city of Newark....
, and WNYC-FM's transmitter is located on the
Empire State BuildingThe Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
in New York City.
WNYC also owns and operates
New Jersey Public RadioNew Jersey Public Radio is an NPR member network serving portions of northern New Jersey. It is owned by New York Public Radio , which also owns WNYC and WQXR-FM in New York City. The network comprises the four northernmost radio stations of the former New Jersey Network...
, a group of four northern
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
noncommercial FM stations acquired by WNYC from the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority on July 1, 2011.
Early years
WNYC is one of the oldest radio stations in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Funds for the establishment of the station were approved on June 2, 1922 by the
New York City Board of EstimateThe New York City Board of Estimate was a governmental body in New York City, responsible for budget and land-use decisions. Under the charter of the newly amalgamated City of Greater New York the Board of Estimate and Apportionment was composed of eight ex officio members: the Mayor of New York...
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
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. 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.
In 1928 WNYC was forced into a time-sharing arrangement on 570 AM with
WMCAWMCA, 570 AM, is a radio station in New York City, most known for its "Good Guys" Top 40 era in the 1960s. It is currently owned by Salem Communications and plays a Christian radio format...
, another pioneering New York radio outlet. This situation lasted until 1931, when the
Federal Radio CommissionThe Federal Radio Commission was a government body that regulated radio use in the United States from its creation in 1926 until its replacement by the Federal Communications Commission in 1934...
(a forerunner to today's
FCCThe Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
) moved WNYC to 810 AM. The frequency move did not help WNYC from an operational standpoint as it now shared its frequency with the more-powerful WCCO in
MinneapolisMinneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
, over 1,200 miles to the west. WNYC was now limited to daytime-only operations, broadcasting from sunrise to sunset.
Great Depression and World War II
WNYC's transmitter was moved in 1937 from the top of the Municipal Building to City-owned land in
Greenpoint, BrooklynGreenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at the Bushwick inlet, on the southeast by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg, on the north by Newtown Creek and Long Island City, Queens at the...
, as part of a
Works Progress AdministrationThe Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
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. NovikMorris S. Novik , an early pioneer in radio, is credited with being one of the first people to understand the potential that radio had for public service and education, especially with regard to the emerging labor movement throughout the U.S...
, appointed by Mayor LaGuardia, WNYC became a model public broadcaster. Among its many landmark programs was the annual American Music Festival.
In 1941 the
North American Radio Broadcasting AgreementThe North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement, usually referred to as NARBA, is a treaty that took effect in March 1941 and set out the bandplan and interference rules for mediumwave AM broadcasting in North America. Although mostly replaced by other agreements in the 1980s, the basic bandplan...
shifted WNYC's dial position a second time, to 830 kHz. WCCO was moved to 830 as well, and was given clear-channel authority. WNYC would remain a 1,000-watt, daytime-only outlet for the next 48 years. Later that year, on December 7, WNYC was the first radio station in the United States to announce the Japanese
attack on Pearl HarborThe attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
.
WNYC began regularly scheduled broadcasts on the FM band March 13, 1943 at 43.9 megacycles. Known originally as W39NY, the FM outlet adopted its present WNYC-FM identity and its present dial position at 93.9 within a few years.
In 1989 WNYC (AM) 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. The Brooklyn transmitters ceased operation, and the AM side moved to Belleville Turnpike in
Kearny, New JerseyKearny is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. It was named after Civil War general Philip Kearny. As of the United States 2010 Census, the town population was 40,684. The town is a suburb of the nearby city of Newark....
, sharing space on three towers of WMCA.
http://www.nyradioguide.com/cgi-bin/infoam.cgi/WNYC-AM
Past WNYC radio personalities include H. V. Kaltenborn, who hosted radio's first quiz program on WNYC in 1926, the Brooklyn Daily Eagles "Current Events Bee", a forerunner to shows like National Public Radio's
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is an hour-long weekly radio news panel game show produced by Chicago Public Radio and National Public Radio. It is distributed by NPR in the United States, internationally on NPR Worldwide and on the Internet via podcast, and typically broadcast on weekends by member...
In its early years the station lacked funds for a record library and would borrow albums from record stores around the
Manhattan Municipal BuildingThe Manhattan Municipal Building, at 1 Centre Street in New York City, is a 40-story building built to accommodate increased governmental space demands after the 1898 consolidation of the city's five boroughs. Construction began in 1907 and ended in 1914, marking the end of the City Beautiful...
, where its studios were located. Legend has it, a listener began loaning 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 IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, New York mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia made use of the station every Sunday in his Talk to the People program.
Margaret JuntwaitMargaret Juntwait is an American radio broadcaster who is the voice of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. She debuted in this position on December 11, 2004, replacing Peter Allen upon his retirement after twenty-nine years.-Life and career:...
, an announcer and classical music host at WNYC for 15 years who left for the
Metropolitan OperaThe Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in September 2006, is now the announcer for the Met's Saturday Afternoon Radio Broadcasts and is only the third regular announcer of the long-standing broadcast series launched in 1931, and is also the first woman to hold the position. 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 MaYo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
to
Terry RileyTerrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
and was named a "New York influential" by New York Magazine.
Independence from the City
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 KochEdward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
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 HourThe John Hour refers to the public naming of "johns" .In October 1979, New York City mayor Ed Koch instructed WNYC, the city's public radio station, to read the names of convicted "johns". Koch intended to use this public shaming, swiftly dubbed "The John Hour", as a tool to reduce prostitution.An...
.
In 1995, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani split WNYC Radio from its sister
television stationWPXN-TV, which broadcasts on channel 31 in New York City, is the flagship station of the Ion Television network, formerly known as Pax TV and i.-Municipal ownership:...
, and a risk arose that the radio stations would be sold off to corporate interests. In 1997 the station was saved by its sale to the nonprofit WNYC Foundation. This put an end to the occasional political intrusions of the past. The station's listenership and budget have continued to grow rapidly in recent years.
The
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
destroyed WNYC's FM transmitter atop the
World Trade CenterThe original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
. The station's studios, in the nearby 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 temporarily moved its offices to the 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 station eventually returned to the Municipal Building.
Move to new studios
On June 16, 2008 WNYC moved from its 51400 square feet (4,775.2 m²) of rent-free space scattered on eight floors of the
Manhattan Municipal BuildingThe Manhattan Municipal Building, at 1 Centre Street in New York City, is a 40-story building built to accommodate increased governmental space demands after the 1898 consolidation of the city's five boroughs. Construction began in 1907 and ended in 1914, marking the end of the City Beautiful...
to a new location at 160 Varick Street (aka 10 Hudson Square) near the
Holland TunnelThe Holland Tunnel is a highway tunnel under the Hudson River connecting the island of Manhattan in New York City with Jersey City, New Jersey at Interstate 78 on the mainland. Unusual for an American public works project, it is not named for a government official, politician, or local hero or...
. The station now occupies two and a half floors of a 12-story former printing building.
The new offices have 12 feet (4 m) ceilings and 71900 square feet (6,679.7 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 for a capacity of up to 40 journalists. In the Municipal Building, the journalists were not in a centralized newsroom, but scattered over many offices throughout the building.
Renovation, construction, rent and operating costs for the new Varick Street location amounted to $45 million. In addition to raising these funds, WNYC has been raising 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.
Acquisition of WQXR
On October 8, 2009 WNYC took control of classical music station
WQXR-FMWQXR-FM is an American classical radio station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, and serving the New York City metropolitan area. It is the most-listened-to classical-music station in the United States, with an average quarter-hour audience of 63,000...
. WQXR's
intellectual propertyIntellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
(call letters and format) was acquired from the New York Times Company as part of a three-way transaction with
Univision RadioUnivision Radio is the radio division of media giant Univision Communications, Inc., which also ownsthe Univision television network. The company was formerly known as Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation. It is the eighth largest radio company in the United States, and the largest Hispanic radio...
. WNYC also purchased the 105.9 FM frequency of Univision's WCAA (now WXNY-FM), and moved WQXR-FM there. The deal resulted in WQXR becoming a
non-commercial educationalThe term non-commercial educational applies to a radio station or TV station that does not accept on air advertisements , as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission . NCE stations do not pay broadcast license fees for their non-profit uses of the radio spectrum...
station, and WNYC-FM dropped its remaining classical music programming to become a full-time news/talk station.
New Jersey expansion
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
GovernorThe Office of the Governor of New Jersey is the executive branch for the U.S. state of New Jersey. The office of Governor is an elected position, for which elected officials serve four year terms. While individual politicians may serve as many terms as they can be elected to, Governors cannot be...
Chris Christie, as part of his long-term goal to end State-subsidized public broadcasting. The four stations previously belonged to
New Jersey NetworkThe New Jersey Network, or NJN, was a network of public television and radio stations serving the U.S. state of New Jersey. NJN was a member of the Public Broadcasting Service for television and the National Public Radio for radio, broadcasting their programming as well as producing and...
's statewide radio service. Upon taking control of the four stations on July 1, 2011, they were rebranded as
New Jersey Public RadioNew Jersey Public Radio is an NPR member network serving portions of northern New Jersey. It is owned by New York Public Radio , which also owns WNYC and WQXR-FM in New York City. The network comprises the four northernmost radio stations of the former New Jersey Network...
.
Programming
WNYC produces 100 hours a week of its own programming, including nationally-syndicated shows like
Studio 360Studio 360 is an American weekly public radio program about media, the arts and culture hosted by novelist Kurt Andersen and produced by PRI Public Radio International and WNYC in New York City. The program's stated goal is to "Get inside the creative mind" and uses arts and culture as a lens to...
,
On the MediaOn the Media is an hour-long weekly radio program, hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, covering journalism, technology, and First Amendment issues. It is produced by WNYC in New York City...
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
XM Satellite RadioXM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
); as a result the station receives listener calls from far-flung states and even has international listeners.
WNYC-FM offers a diverse format of NPR news and cultural programs, while WNYC-AM focuses mostly on news programming.
WNYC has a local news team of 18 journalists.
Studio 360Studio 360 is an American weekly public radio program about media, the arts and culture hosted by novelist Kurt Andersen and produced by PRI Public Radio International and WNYC in New York City. The program's stated goal is to "Get inside the creative mind" and uses arts and culture as a lens to...
is a weekly one-hour program about arts and culture hosted by
Kurt AndersenKurt Andersen is an American novelist who is also host of the Peabody-winning public radio program Studio 360, a co-production between Public Radio International and WNYC. In 1986 with E. Graydon Carter he co-founded Spy magazine, which they sold in 1991; it continued publishing until 1998...
, 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.
On the MediaOn the Media is an hour-long weekly radio program, hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, covering journalism, technology, and First Amendment issues. It is produced by WNYC in New York City...
is a weekly nationally-syndicated one-hour program hosted by
Brooke GladstoneBrooke Gladstone is an American journalist and media analyst. She is host and managing editor of the National Public Radio newsmagazine, On the Media, and has been a contributor to The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Observer, and Slate...
and
Bob GarfieldBob Garfield writes the "Ad Review" TV-commercial criticism feature in Advertising Age. He is also the co-host of the On the Media show on National Public Radio. Before that, he was a frequent contributor to All Things Considered. He is the advertising analyst for ABC News...
of
Advertising AgeAdvertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
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.
The
Brian LehrerBrian Lehrer is a radio talk show host on New York City's public radio station WNYC. His daily two-hour 2007 Peabody Award-winning program, The Brian Lehrer Show, features interviews with newsmakers and experts about current events and social issues...
Show is a two-hour weekday talk show covering local and national current events and social issues hosted by
Brian LehrerBrian Lehrer is a radio talk show host on New York City's public radio station WNYC. His daily two-hour 2007 Peabody Award-winning program, The Brian Lehrer Show, features interviews with newsmakers and experts about current events and social issues...
, a former anchor and reporter for NBC Radio Network.
The Leonard Lopate Show is a two-hour weekday talk show hosted by
Leonard LopateLeonard Lopate is host of the public radio talk show The Leonard Lopate Show, broadcast on WNYC. He first broadcast on WKCR, the college radio station of Columbia University—where his brother Phillip was a student—then later at WBAI, before ultimately moving to WNYC. -Biography:Lopate came to...
, a painter who studied with
Ad ReinhardtAdolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
and
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
and the brother of writer
Phillip LopateDoctor Phillip Lopate is an American film critic, essayist, fiction writer, poet, and teacher. He is the younger brother of radio host Leonard Lopate.-Early life and education:...
. The show covers a broad range of topics including jazz and gospel music, literature, science and history.
SoundcheckSoundcheck is a New York, United States, hour-long weekday afternoon talk radio program about music and the arts hosted by John Schaefer. It is produced by WNYC, New York Public Radio. The show airs at 2 p.m. EST on 93.9 FM in New York City...
is a one-hour weekday talk show hosted by John Schaefer about music and the arts. The show features interviews with musicians, critics, journalists, authors and others. It also features live musical performances in mix of genres, including indie rock, jazz, classical, and world music. The show also airs on XM Satellite Radio Channel 133.
WNYC broadcasts the major daily news programs produced by National Public Radio, including
Morning EditionMorning Edition is an American radio news program produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It airs weekday mornings and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 05:00 to 09:00 ET, with feeds and updates as required until noon...
and
All Things ConsideredAll Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
, as well as the
BBC World ServiceThe BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
and selected programs from
Public Radio InternationalPublic Radio International is a Minneapolis-based American public radio organization, with locations in Boston, New York, London and Beijing. PRI's tagline is "Hear a different voice." PRI is a major public media content creator and also distributes programs from many sources...
like
This American LifeThis American Life is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. It is distributed by Public Radio International on PRI affiliate stations and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays,...
and
A Prairie Home CompanionA Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...
.
The station airs many long-running cultural and music programs, including Folksong Festival on Saturday nights that has survived battles with mayors and blacklists. Hosted by
Oscar BrandOscar Brand is a folk singer, songwriter, and author. In his career, spanning over 60 years, he has composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Canadian and American patriotic songs...
, who debuted the show on December 10, 1945, and who was blacklisted in the McCarthy era, the show was one of the first radio programs in the United States to focus on issues of homosexuality and continues to shake up audiences with anti-American Revolution programs, "bad daddy" shows for Father's Day, "Evil Mothers" for Mother's Day, and more.
In 2006 the station began wnyc2 (lower case letters), an all-classical music channel broadcast on
HD RadioHD Radio, which originally stood for "Hybrid Digital", is the trademark for iBiquity's in-band on-channel digital radio technology used by AM and FM radio stations to transmit audio and data via a digital signal in conjunction with their analog signals...
and on the Internet. Their slogan is, "Five hundred years of new music", and most of their playlist comes from the late twentieth and twenty first centuries. The station's AM and FM channels carry primarily news and information programming on weekdays but maintain different broadcast schedules. The FM signal broadcasts musical programming after 7 p.m. It eliminated much of its weekday classical music programming in 2001,
following the advice of consultants and the example of other public radio stations such as Philadelphia's WHYY.
Locally-produced programs include:
- Big Band Sounds - music from the 1920s to the 1950s
- Folksong Festival - devoted to the traditional and contemporary folksong
- The Infinite Mind - examines scientific, existential, and social issues concerning the human mind with brain researcher Dr. Fred Goodwin
- Jonathan Schwartz
Jonathan Schwartz is an American radio personality, known for his devotion to traditional pop music.Schwartz worked at New York's WNEW-FM from 1967 to 1976, followed by stints at WNEW-AM, WQEW, and currently WNYC-FM...
- American Popular Standards, classical music, rock, and jazz
- New Sounds - guest musicians from David Byrne
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...
to Meredith MonkMeredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...
to Ravi ShankarRavi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
, presents performances and premieres new works from the classic and operatic to folk and jazz
- The No Show - features music, satire, news commentary and comedy with Steve Post
- Radiolab - each episode is a patchwork of people, sounds, stories and experiences centered around one idea
- Radio Rookies - Radio Rookies provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world.
- Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts is an event at New York’s Symphony Space on the Upper West Side, in which actors read classic and new short fiction before a live audience. The annual season of the live events at Symphony Space begins in the mid-fall and ends in mid-spring, and a typical episode would include...
- actors read contemporary and classic short fiction, ranging from Chekhov, Maupassant, Malamud, and Singer, to Jhumpa Lahiri and Jonathan Franzen
- Soundcheck - daily talk show about music covering all musical genres, the show focuses on the musical passions of performers, composers, and critics as well as the public radio audience
- Spinning On Air - specializes in unusual, uncategorizeable music, with an emphasis on in-studio performances
- The Takeaway - a weekday morning show co-produced with Public Radio International
Listenership and new media
Combined, the WNYC stations and WQXR-FM is the most-listened-to commercial or non-commercial radio station in the borough of
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. It ranks 13th citywide, however, in competition with salsa, hip hop and light FM, according to the radio ratings service Arbitron. WNYC had 99,378 paying members in 2006, up from 78,866 in 2001. With more than one million unique listeners each week, WNYC has the largest audience of any public radio station in the United States. In 2005, the station won an award for recording the highest audience growth among non-commercial stations in the previous five years.
WNYC has been an early adopter of new technologies including
HD radioHD Radio, which originally stood for "Hybrid Digital", is the trademark for iBiquity's in-band on-channel digital radio technology used by AM and FM radio stations to transmit audio and data via a digital signal in conjunction with their analog signals...
, live audio streaming, and
podcastA podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing.
RSS-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
feeds and email newsletters link to archived audio of individual program segments. wnyc2 is a classical station that is delivered only via Internet and HD radio, 24 hours a day. WNYC also makes some of its programming available on satellite radio.
External links