WETS-FM (89.5 FM) is the

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

member station for the Tri-Cities region of northeast

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

and southwest

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. The station is operated by

East Tennessee State University East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is a public research university in Johnson City, Tennessee. Although it is part of the State University and Community College System of Tennessee, the university is governed by an institutional Board of Tr ...

as a partnership between ETSU and the station’s listeners. WETS receives a little over half of its funding from listener contributions. It also receives public funding from federal (

Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...

) and government-funded university sources. Its studios are located on the ETSU campus in

Johnson City, Tennessee Johnson City is a city in Washington, Carter, and Sullivan counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee, mostly in Washington County. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 71,046, making it the eighth largest city in Tennessee. John ...

. Operating 24-hours a day, the station also has a SHOUTcast

webcast A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...

available on its web site. The station also operates an FM translator at 91.5

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

Lenoir, North Carolina Lenoir is a city in and the county seat of Caldwell County, North Carolina, Caldwell County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 18,263 at the 2020 census. Lenoir is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. To the north ...

. In addition to news and discussion programming, the station carries entertainment and music programming on the weekends, including

Americana Americana may refer to: *Americana (music), a genre or style of American music *Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States Film, radio and television * ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...

music, featuring local music from southern

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

. The programming on the news and discussion front ranges from the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

to NPR programs such as ''

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 AM ...

,'' ''

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

,'' ''

Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 6 ...

,'' and ''

The Diane Rehm Show ''The Diane Rehm Show'' was a call-in show based in the United States that aired nationally on NPR (National Public Radio). In October 2007, ''The Diane Rehm Show'' was named to the Audience Research Analysis list of the top ten most powerful nati ...

'' to the

Pacifica Radio Pacifica may refer to: Art * ''Pacifica'' (statue), a 1938 statue by Ralph Stackpole for the Golden Gate International Exposition Places * Pacifica, California, a city in the United States ** Pacifica Pier, a fishing pier * Pacifica, a conceiv ...

-produced ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...

'' program. The airing of the left-wing ''Democracy Now!'' has proven to be controversial, since the Tri-Cities is a decidedly politically and culturally conservative region. As such, the station lost a number of members who objected to WETS broadcasting the program. However, the show has also attracted a base of local supporters, who have formed a "Democracy Now Tri-Cities" group dedicated to keeping the program on the air. This group has urged WETS not to succumb to ideological pressure to censor liberal opinions that are otherwise seldom heard in the region. WETS is the home station of ''Your Weekly Constitutional'', a constitutional law show produced in collaboration with Montpelier. As of February 1, 2010, WETS changed its weekday format to news and information programming. Previously the station had aired classical music in the weekday mornings and evenings and Americana music in the afternoons, with a blues program ("Blue Monday") on Monday afternoons. Most weekend programming was not affected by this change. In the fall of 2011, WETS began broadcasting three HD channels. The first channel is a simulcast of the analog signal, the second is an all-Americana channel and the third is an all-classical channel. WETS was the first station in the Tri-Cities radio market to offer HD broadcasts. All three channels stream live on the Internet. WETS first signed on the air on February 24, 1974. The station has transmitted from a tower on

Holston Mountain Holston Mountain is a mountain ridge in Upper East Tennessee and southwest Virginia, in the United States. It is in the Blue Ridge Mountains part of the Appalachian Mountains. Holston Mountain is a very prominent ridge-type mountain in Tennesse ...

since 1981, from studios located in Richard F. Ellis Hall (opened in 1988, dedicated to the station's first director in 1993) on the south side of ETSU's campus; it originally operated from a two-story frame house. As an annual fund raiser the station presents the ''Little Chicago Blues Festival'' at the Down Home each spring.

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* {{Coord, 36.434, N, 82.135, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title ETS-FM ETS-FM NPR member stations East Tennessee State University 1974 establishments in Tennessee Radio stations established in 1974