WAMC


WAMC is a public radio network headquartered in Albany, New York. The network has 12 broadcast radio stations and 16 broadcast relay stations. The two flagship stations of the WAMC network are WAMC-FM 90.3 MHz and its AM repeater station WAMC AM 1400 in Albany. The organization's legal name is "WAMC" and it is also known as "WAMC Public Radio" or "WAMC Northeast Public Radio."
In addition, the station operates The Linda/WAMC Performing Arts Studio, a performance venue in Albany located near its Central Avenue studios.
A member of NPR and affiliate of Public Radio International and American Public Media, WAMC is a charitable, educational, non-commercial broadcaster meeting the requirements of Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code ) It had total annual revenues for the fiscal year 2010 of $6.36 million.
Its corporate officers include Anne Erickson, chair of the board of trustees, and Alan S. Chartock, president and chief executive officer.

History

WAMC started in 1958 as a radio station for the local hospital and medical school, Albany Medical Center and Albany Medical College. Albany Medical Center is a large tertiary-care hospital serving the upper Hudson Valley, and the medical school is one of the country's ACGME-accredited medical schools. The affiliation with Albany Medical Center was the source of the call letters WAMC.
The station's 24/7 non-commercial classical music format served a large listener base and was popular among music aficionados. The earliest years also included broadcasts of health information and lectures from visiting professors. Early on, part of WAMC's regular programming was the broadcast of live concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra from Tanglewood and Boston. When the NPR network was founded in 1970, WAMC signed-on as one of NPR's original 90 "charter" members. Around 1980, financial pressures caused the hospital and medical school to divest the station. In 1981, the Federal Communications Commission license on 90.3 FM was transferred to a 501c3 tax-exempt entity, WAMC, Inc., which had been set up by a group of five corporators affiliated with the State University of New York and New York State government. In the years since the transfer, the station has cut back on most classical music programming while becoming a producer of information-based, non-music programming, providing a variety of interview-format programs to radio stations across the country via the station's in-house subsidiary, National Productions.
Community and corporate contributions have helped the original single station grow over the years into a network of 22 facilities with large primary service contours covering New York's Capital District, Western Massachusetts, southern Vermont, and parts of New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. WAMC-FM's main transmitter and antenna are atop Mount Greylock in Adams, Massachusetts, the highest mountain in the state in the Mount Greylock State Reservation; it had formerly been a tenant on the tower, which was built and maintained by Albany's ABC affiliate WTEN for their satellite station for the Berkshire region and Pittsfield, WCDC. The tower also features a radio facility for the Massachusetts State Police and a translator station for Albany's NBC affiliate, WNYT.
The main 90.3 mHz signal operates at 10,000 watts, which on paper is somewhat modest for a full NPR member on the FM band. However, its high location gives it one of the largest coverage areas of any NPR station in the Northeast. It provides at least grade B coverage to most of east-central New York, southwestern Vermont, western Massachusetts, southwestern New Hampshire, and northwestern Connecticut.
On December 22, 2017, WAMC entered into an agreement to purchase the Mount Greylock WCDC transmitter and tower from the current owner of WTEN/WCDC, Nexstar Media Group, for just above $1 million. Nexstar had taken the WCDC license permanently silent on December 1, 2017 after turning it in as a result of the FCC's 2016 spectrum auction for $34.5 million in compensation, and due to it sitting on Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation land and WTEN's lease having expired two years prior, WAMC could have been taken off the air without their purchasing of the facility. WAMC owns the facility itself, but not the land beneath, which is under lease with the MDCR until 2025, and will fundraise in order to rebuild their financial reserves.
It has been a custom on WAMC to play two songs to mark the end of every fund drive: Kate Smith's "God Bless America" and Ray Charles' rendition of "America the Beautiful".

Stations

Translators

Programs

WAMC programs include Legislative Gazette, women's news show 51% with Allison Dunne, environmental news show Earth Wise, Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen, The Academic Minute with Lynn Pasquerella, ideas show The Best Of Our Knowledge with Bob Barrett, author interview show The Book Show with Joe Donahue, The Capitol Connection with Alan S. Chartock, and media criticism show The Media Project. WAMC distributes its shows to other public radio stations.

Criticism and views

Accusations of bias

NPR's official news policy says its affiliate stations should be "fair, unbiased, accurate, honest, and respectful of the people that are covered".
A Washington-based NPR news producer, who requested anonymity, stated that Chartock, the station's president and a frequently heard voice on the station, presents politically-biased commentary.
Chartock responded that WAMC’s editorial neutrality is maintained by "including as many conservative commentators on the air as liberal ones".

Network expansion

WAMC has grown into a network of twelve stations and sixteen translators serving portions of seven states in New England and Mid-Atlantic States, bringing news, information and cultural programming. The station's February 2017 fund drive raised over $1,000,000 in less than one day.

Miscellaneous

First Amendment Fund

In 2005, WAMC's board of trustees established a "First Amendment Fund" to promote and preserve the First Amendment and the right of free speech by providing a source of funding "to support WAMC if special situations or needs should arise". The contributions in this "unrestricted, board designated" fund reported on WAMC's 2006 IRS tax forms was $482,577.