WAMU-FM
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| City | Washington, D.C. |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Washington metropolitan area |
| Branding | WAMU 88.5 |
| Slogan | The Mind is Our Medium |
| Frequency | 88.5 (MHz) (also on HD Radio) |
| Repeater(s) | WRAU (88.3 MHz, Ocean City) WYAU (89.5 MHz, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia) |
| First air date | October 23, 1961 (originally carrier current 1951–1961) |
| Format | News/Talk (Public) HD2: Bluegrass |
| ERP | 50,000 watts |
| HAAT | 152 meters (499 ft) |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 65399 |
| Callsign meaning | AMerican University |
| Affiliations | National Public Radio |
| Owner |
American University (Board of Trustees of American University) |
| Webcast | Live stream |
| Website | wamu.org |
WAMU (88.5 FM) is a public radio station that services the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by American University, and its studios are located near the campus in northwest Washington.
WAMU began as a carrier current student radio station on July 28, 1951. Its signal did not make it too far off the AU campus. The station received a commercial FM license in late 1960, and made its first FM broadcast on October 23, 1961. The student radio station is now WVAU, an Internet-only station.
From its inception, WAMU has provided public affairs and educational programming. Beginning in 1961, WAMU was granted a non-commercial broadcast license and joined the National Educational Radio Network, a predecessor to NPR. In 1971 it was a founding member of National Public Radio.
In 1967, WAMU began programming bluegrass music which, in its heyday on the main channel, included the Lee Michael Demsey Show and the Ray Davis Show and weekends included Mountain Stage from West Virginia Public Radio. The station hosted an annual bluegrass concert at Fairfax High School as well as the yearly Pickin' in the Glen featuring performers such as Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, the Gibson Brothers, the Lewis Family, Hot Rize, and Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers.
The station changed its programming in 2002, transitioning its main channel to all news and public affairs and creating a separate bluegrass station online and on its HD2 channel (and, in 2004, with a low-power standard FM signal in northern Virginia [see translators list, below]) through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2004, the prominent Washington journalist Ellen Wadley Roper left WAMU a $250,000 bequest, the largest gift in the station's history.
When fellow public radio station WETA changed to an all-classical music format in 2007, WAMU became Washington, D.C.'s only full-time NPR news station.
In December 2015, WAMU executives announced that Diane Rehm would be stepping down from her show following the 2016 Presidential election, representing a major shake-up in WAMU's lineup. Rehm, 79, stated that she wanted a younger voice to take her place at WAMU. Conversely, Kojo Nnamdi, 71, lost its second hour of broadcasting in 2015, showing a trend for easier-to-access media for younger consumers.
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