WVIA-FM (89.9 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 to serve

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...

and 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

Northeastern Pennsylvania Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) is a geographic region of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania that includes the Pocono Mountains, the Endless Mountains, and the industrial cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazleton, Nanticoke, and Carbon ...

. The station is owned by the Northeastern Pennsylvania Educational Television Association along with its sister television station,

WVIA-TV WVIA-TV (channel 44) is a PBS member television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania. Owned by the Northeast Pennsylvania Educational Television Association, it is sister to NPR member WVI ...

. Studios are based in Jenkins Township, near

Pittston Pittston is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The city gained prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as an active anthracite coal ...

, and the broadcast tower shared by the stations is located on

Penobscot Knob Penobscot Knob, also Penobscot Mountain, is a summit located in the western fringe of the Poconos nearest to Mountain Top, Pennsylvania which in the Solomon Gap pass below it lies an important multi-modal transportation corridor. At one time befo ...

near Mountain Top at (). WVIA-FM uses

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...

. The station owns

Chiaroscuro Records Chiaroscuro Records is a jazz record company and label founded by Hank O'Neal in 1970. The label's name comes from the art term for the use of light and dark in a painting. O'Neal came up with the name via his friend and mentor Eddie Condon, a ja ...

and broadcasts "The Chiaroscuro Channel" on its HD3 channel with a

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 major ...

format.

History

WVIA-FM signed on for the first time on April 23, 1973. The building housing the transmitters for WVIA-FM and WVIA-TV was destroyed by fire on February 12, 2010. WVIA-FM resumed broadcasting at low power on February 17, 2010, and returned to full-power at Noon on August 3, 2010. WVIA-FM has operated a translator at 89.3 FM in Williamsport since the late 1970s. In 2002, WVIA-FM's owners signed on WVYA, a full-power Class A station, to provide better coverage in that area. In 2010, a third full-power station, WTIO in Mainesburg, was brought online, taking over from a translator that had served the

Tioga Valley Tioga may refer to: United States communities *Tioga, California, former name of Bennettville, California *Tioga, Colorado *Tioga, Florida * Tioga, Iowa *Tioga, Louisiana *Tioga, New York, a town in Tioga County *Tioga County, New York, a county at ...

. A fourth station joined the group in 2012, when WPAU signed on from Palmyra Township to serve the far northeastern corner of the state.Promo
announcing WPAU's sign-on

Simulcasts and translators

Four full-power stations are licensed to

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 ...

the programming of WVIA-FM full-time: WVIA-FM programming is broadcast on the following

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

References

External links

* {{NPR Pennsylvania VIA-FM NPR member stations Radio stations established in 1973 1973 establishments in Pennsylvania