WITF-FM (89.5 FM) is a

non-commercial A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that does not, in some sense, involve commerce, at least relative to similar activities that do have a commercial objective or emphasis. For example, advertising-free community ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

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 radio ...

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

to serve

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in Pe ...

. The station is owned by WITF, Inc., and broadcasts

NPR 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 ...

talk and news programming. It is co-owned with the area's

Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

(PBS) member station,

WITF-TV WITF-TV (channel 33) is a non-commercial television station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, a member station of PBS serving the Susquehanna Valley region (Harrisburg– Lancaster–Lebanon–York). It is owned by WITF, Inc., alongs ...

(channel 33). Both stations are based at the Public Media Center in Swatara Township (with a Harrisburg mailing address), and broadcast from a shared tower located on Blue Mountain in Susquehanna Township. Like most NPR member stations, WITF-FM broadcasts

fundraising Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...

appeals, seeking contributions from its listeners to support the station.

History

On April 1, 1971, WITF-FM

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...

the air, becoming the first station in

Central Pennsylvania South Central Pennsylvania is a region of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania that includes the fourteen counties of Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lancaster, Lebanon, Mifflin, Perry, Snyder, and York. Portions of wes ...

to broadcast a fulltime

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

. It was originally

to Hershey (the license moved to Harrisburg in 1982). WITF-FM was founded as the

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

to WITF-TV, which signed on seven years earlier. At first, the stations broadcast from "temporary" studios at the former Hershey Middle School, moving to Locust Lane in Harrisburg in 1982. On July 22, 2005, WITF-FM-TV began construction on their current 75,000 square foot facility in Swatara Township. Staff began moving into the facility on November 27, 2006. After airing a mix of classical music and NPR programming for much of its history, the station dropped all classical music programming on June 25, 2012. WITF-FM began a 24 hour schedule of news and information consisting of syndicated programs from NPR and other providers, along with local news and cultural arts reporting by the WITF staff. WITF has its own Multimedia News Department. It provides local and regional news coverage for both radio and TV. In 2012, StateImpact Pennsylvania won one of three 2013

Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award The Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award honors excellence in broadcast and digital journalism in the public service and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The awards were established in 1942 and administered ...

s for its outstanding reporting on energy issues for focusing on the fiscal, environmental and social issues of gas drilling on Pennsylvania's economy. WITF reporter Scott Detrow contributed to the report. In 2016, WITF's reporting was honored with six regional Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association for excellence in broadcast and online journalism. Following the

January 6 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...

in 2021, WITF's news department began adding language to political news reports to point out that state legislators or members of Congress mentioned in the story advocated against certifying the Pennsylvania 2020 presidential election results. ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' media columnist Margaret Sullivan highlighted this move in a May 2021 column.

Simulcast and translator

WITF-FM broadcasts at 5,900 watts, which is fairly modest for a full NPR member on the FM band. As a result, even with its transmitter located atop Blue Mountain, it only provides a grade B signal to the largest city in its service area, Lancaster.City grade and grade B coverage maps
/ref> To provide a stronger signal to listeners in Lancaster, WITF-FM programming is simulcast on the following

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

: On January 9, 2009, WITF-FM also began

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

ing its programming on WYPM:

References

External links

WITF official website
* * * *

(WITF; ''

''; May 2, 2021). {{NPR Pennsylvania NPR member stations ITF-FM Radio stations established in 1971 1971 establishments in Pennsylvania