WKCR
| City | New York, New York |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | New York college |
| Branding |
The Original FM 89.9 WKCR 89.9FM NY |
| Frequency | 89.9 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | February 24, 1941 |
| Format | FM/HD1: College radio HD2: WWFM simulcast (Classical) |
| ERP | 1,350 watts |
| HAAT | 284 meters |
| Class | B1 |
| Facility ID | 68270 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 40°45′21.4″N 73°59′08.5″W / 40.755944°N 73.985694°W |
| Callsign meaning | W King's Crown Radio (Columbia Univ.) |
| Owner | Columbia University |
| Website | wkcr.org |
WKCR-FM (89.9 FM) is a radio station. Licensed to New York, New York, USA, it serves the New York area. The station is currently owned by Trustees of Columbia University in New York.
WKCR broadcasts in the HD (hybrid) format.
What is now known as WKCR-FM originated in the early part of the twentieth century as the Columbia University Radio Club (CURC). An exact date of origin is not known, but documentation of the CURC as an ongoing organization exists as early as 1936. The club was not a radio station as we know it, but rather an organization concerned with the technology of radio communications. The group shared a prestigious association with Major Edwin Armstrong (E '13), the man who invented FM broadcast technology. This association accounts for the marginally accurate phrase, "The Original FM," that one will often hear alongside the WKCR call letters.
In 1939, Major Armstrong turned his attentions towards commercial broadcasting. This spurred the CURC to shift from a club concerned with radio technology to a de facto radio station that provided broadcasts to the campus. The FCC granted the station its license on October 10, 1941.
For the next twenty-five years, the entirely student-run organization operated two stations. The largely popular-music AM station broadcast only on-campus through a carrier current system, while WKCR-FM was heard throughout the New York City area through conventional FM broadcasting as an intellectual radio station (The AM station was allowed to die off in the 1960s). Programming was largely Columbia sports, classroom events, classical music, and broadcasts from the United Nations, including many interviews with representatives of foreign nations. When Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957 staff members of WKCR recorded its signal during the satellite's first pass over the United States, and became the first North American radio station to rebroadcast this signal. The next morning the FBI took the tape, which has never been returned or paid for.
After the student uprising of 1968, this format changed. The station shifted its emphasis from being an illustration of the university to presenting commercially inviable programming to the New York metropolitan area. Jazz became the core of this broadcast approach, which is neatly summarized in the slogan, "The Alternative." The descriptions of individual departments contain information about WKCR's concept of alternative programming. Around this time the station changed its policy from being entirely run by Columbia undergraduates as an extracurricular activity to employing graduates and then others unassociated with the university.
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Wikipedia