WNUR-FM (89.3 FM) is a 7,200–watt

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

based in

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, ...

that broadcasts to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and its northern suburbs. It is the student radio station of

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

History

WNUR first began broadcasting on May 8, 1948. It originally operated from a 10-watt transmitter that reached into portions of Skokie and Chicago. Between 1982 and 1995, WNUR's slogan was "The New Music FM". Since 1995—the same year the station moved into new facilities in Northwestern's Annie May Swift Hall—WNUR's slogan has been "Chicago's Sound Experiment". (The station had previously broadcast from older facilities in the basement of the same building). In March 2007, WNUR began broadcasting from studios in John J. Louis Hall on Northwestern's Evanston Campus.

On-air programming

WNUR programming over the years has included ''Airplay'' (a weekly program dedicated to local Chicago music), free-form experimental audio collage programming, weekly live radio comedies, and world-premiere live radio dramas written and directed by

David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and '' Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained cri ...

. Current programming blocks focus on news, music (including classical,

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fo ...

, hip-hop,

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, and

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

), individual shows such as '' This is Hell''. ''Rock Show'' specializes in independent, experimental and underground music. DJs play no wave,

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

, musique concrète,

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...

noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, artists indulge in extre ...

, and related styles. Notable alumni of the programming block include

Steve Albini Steve Albini (pronounced ; born July 22, 1962) is an American musician, record producer, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman and Flour, and is a member of Shellac. He is the founder, owner and principal ...

and the

Arcade Fire Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. The band's current touring line-up also includes former core member ...

's William Butler. ''Jazz Show'' specializes in independent, experimental and underground music, and emphasizes new and local releases. DJs on this programming block play

Free Jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its ...

, and related styles.

Off-air activities

In addition to broadcasts, some station blocks focus on creating non-radio content. WNUR News and WNUR Sports both create their own podcasts and blog posts, while Airplay publishes live performance videos. In 2019, the first volume of the station's music magazine ''Wavelength'' was published.

WNUR Sports

WNUR Sports carries

Northwestern football The Northwestern Wildcats football team represents Northwestern University as an NCAA Division I college football team and member of the Big Ten Conference based near Chicago in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern began playing fo ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, and men's basketball. Since the mid-1990s, WNUR has been the exclusive carrier of

Northwestern Wildcats The Northwestern Wildcats are the athletic teams that represent Northwestern University, located in Evanston, Illinois. Northwestern is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and the only private university in the conference. Northwestern ...

women's basketball. In addition, WNUR often covers Wildcats

women's lacrosse Women's lacrosse (or girls' lacrosse), sometimes shortened to lax, is a sport with twelve players on the field at a time (including the goalkeeper). Originally played by indigenous peoples of the Americas, the modern women's game was introduce ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

, as well as a handful of Northwestern Wildcats volleyball, soccer, and field hockey games. WNUR Sports has carried every Northwestern football game since at least 1995, and the last eight NCAA

championship games. WNUR Sports is a distinct entity that operates on its own budget, separate from the WNUR operating budget. WNUR Sports has served as the exclusive carrier of Northwestern Men's Basketball for several tournaments that flagship WGN was unable to cover, including the 2006 San Juan Shootout hosted by the

University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) or Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (RUM) in Spanish (also referred to as Colegio and CAAM in allusion to its former name), is a public land-grant university in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. UPRM ...

and the 2005 BCA Invitational at the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...

. WNUR Sports also provides sideline reports for all football broadcasts. WNUR Sports hosts a weekly call-in show known as The SportsVoice. The SportsVoice is the only call-in show dedicated to Northwestern Wildcat Athletics. As with all WNUR Sports programming, it is hosted and produced entirely by students.

Alumni

DJs from WNUR have occasionally gone on to produce their own music. Alumni include music critic and sometimes musician

John Corbett John Joseph Corbett Jr. (born May 9, 1961) is an American actor and country music singer. On television, he is best known for his roles as Chris Stevens on ''Northern Exposure'' (1990–1995), Aidan Shaw on ''Sex and the City'' (2000–2003), ...

and members of many bands including OK Go, The Effigies,

, Town and Country, Chavez, Volcano! and the No Doctors. House DJs

Derrick Carter Derrick Carter (born October 21, 1969) is an American DJ, record producer and musician from Chicago, Illinois, United States. He is regarded as one of the bestMark Farina Mark Farina (born March 25, 1969 in Chicago, Illinois, USA) is an American disc jockey and musician, known for his Chicago house, acid jazz and downtempo works. His notable releases include ''Mood'' (KMS Records, 1989) and the '' Mushroom Jazz'' ...

also held shows on WNUR in the early 1990s. Other alums include

Neil Tesser Neil Tesser (born 1951) is a Grammy Award–winning American journalist, radio host, music critic, and author. In 2015, he received the Jazz Journalists Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz Journalism. Biography Born in New York, Tess ...

Sarah Sherman Sarah Sherman (born March 7, 1993), also known professionally as Sarah Squirm, is an American comedian, actress, and screenwriter. Sherman is known for using surreal and body horror comedy. She became a featured player on the NBC sketch comedy ...

and ''

This American Life ''This American Life'' (''TAL'') is an American monthly hour-long radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internatio ...

'' host

Ira Glass Ira Jeffrey Glass (; born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality. He is the host and producer of the radio and television series ''This American Life'' and has participated in other NPR programs, including ''Morning Edition'', ' ...

got his start at the station. Arbitron executive Pierre Bouvard also hails from WNUR, as does radio researcher and strategist Mark Kassof. Kevin Beacham, host of '' Redefinition Radio'' on

Minnesota Public Radio Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest. MPR ha ...

's independent music station,

KCMP KCMP (89.3 FM, 89.3 The Current) is a radio station owned by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) that broadcasts a AAA music format including a significant rotation of songs by local artists. Licensed to Northfield, Minnesota and covering the Minnea ...

, hosted the hip-hop program ''Time Travel'' on WNUR during the mid-1990s. In the late 1970s, novelist

Eckhard Gerdes Eckhard Gerdes (born 1959) is an American novelist and editor. Life Eckhard Gerdes was born in 1959 in Atlanta, Georgia, and has lived in Switzerland, Germany, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Katanga Province, Katanga, the Republic of Sou ...

was a DJ, Free Form Producer, and Rock Producer at the station. Alumni of WNUR Sports include

Guy Benson Guy Pelham Benson (born March 7, 1985) is an American columnist, commentator, and political pundit. He is a contributor to Fox News, political editor of Townhall.com, and a conservative talk radio host. Benson served as a Fellow at the Georgetow ...

WIND Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few ho ...

, Dave Eanet of WGN,

Glenn Geffner Glenn Geffner, a Miami native, is a radio play-by-play announcer who recently announced for the Miami Marlins. Geffner joined the Marlins radio broadcast team in 2008. Geffner partners with Dave Van Horne on the Marlins Radio Network. In addition to ...

of the

Florida Marlins The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park. The fran ...

, Dave Revsine of the Big Ten Network,

Kevin Blackistone Kevin Blackistone (born October 17, 1959) is an American sports journalist and professor for Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, as well as a frequent panelist for ESPN's ''Around the Horn''. On radio, he appears a ...

of Fanhouse.com and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

, and

Darren Rovell Darren Rovell (born June 30, 1978) is a sports business analyst who works for The Action Network. He previously worked for ESPN. Early life and education He attended and graduated cum laude from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, i ...

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

References

External links

WNUR Records, 1953-1994, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, IllinoisWNUR History SiteUnderground Archive Project
documenting over 1,000 albums from the WNUR music library {{DEFAULTSORT:Wnur-Fm NUR Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois NUR-FM Radio stations established in 1948 1948 establishments in Illinois