Alabama Public Radio
| City | Tuscaloosa, Alabama |
|---|---|
| Branding | Alabama Public Radio |
| Repeater(s) | WUAL-FM 91.5 (Tuscaloosa) WQPR 88.7 (Muscle Shoals) WAPR 88.3 (Selma) WHIL 91.3 (Mobile) |
| Format | Public Radio |
| Affiliations | American Public Media, National Public Radio, Public Radio International |
| Owner | University of Alabama |
| Website | apr.org |
Alabama Public Radio is a network of public radio stations based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that serves roughly the western half of the state of Alabama with classical music, folk music, jazz, and nostalgic music programs, as well as news and feature programs from the National Public Radio (NPR), Public Radio International (PRI), and American Public Media (APM) networks. The network is operated by the University of Alabama, with studios in Tuscaloosa.
Since the station is licensed to a university, students in the UA College of Communication and Information Sciences get opportunities for practical training in announcing and other varied production duties. Nonetheless, APR maintains a small professional staff, as well as several volunteer announcers from the larger community. The Alabama Public Radio newsroom has recently won over 50 awards for journalism excellence, one third of which are at the national and international levels. This includes RTDNA's national Edward R. Murrow award for Overall Excellence. The APR news team also works extensively with journalism students at the University of Alabama. Newsroom student interns typically put in 750 hours of work, which results in 142 minutes of Alabama-centric news, which airs statewide. This provides students with valuable real-life experience, and material for their resumes.
The University of Alabama established WUAL-FM in January 1982 as the state's fifth public radio station. It emphasized service to the immediate western Alabama area in its first several years, since most of the region had no other access to NPR programming. However, UA soon realized the potential for expansion into other parts of the state without NPR service. Since Birmingham, Huntsville, southeastern Alabama, and Mobile already had existing stations, WUAL and UA officials focused on developing relay transmitters to send WUAL's signal into northwestern and south central Alabama. Thus, WQPR, originally a joint project with the University of North Alabama in Florence, appeared in the late 1980s. It was followed in the early 1990s by WAPR, which is a joint venture of Alabama State University, Troy University (both of which already owned NPR stations of their own in the Montgomery area) and UA.
...
Wikipedia