WFMT

WFMT has been broadcasting classical music since 1951. Its website says WFMT "strives to entertain, engage, and above all, respect its listeners with a quality and variety of programming found nowhere else". It is also the primary station of the nationally syndicated WFMT Radio Network and a jazz network available to other public radio stations around the U.S. Hosts on WFMT include Candice Agree, Lisa Flynn, John Clare, Kerry Frumkin, LaRob K.Rafael, Jan Weller, David Schwan, Kristina Lynn, and Peter Van de Graaff. Weeknights, Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin is heard. Weekly broadcasts include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera. Weekends feature shows on baroque music, folk music, Latin American classical music, and chamber music. The syndicated weekly show With Heart and Voice airs Sunday mornings. On Saturday at twelve o'clock they have an opera. Programs can be heard through its satellite services and online via several streaming services. WFMT is the only individual radio station that is an associate member of the European Broadcasting Union. ==History==

WOAK The station signed on the air on May 16, 1948. It originally held the call sign WOAK. The station was owned by Gale Broadcasting Company. WOAK generally aired pop music, but also featured classical music programs and dramas. The number of Chicago radio stations that aired classical music programs was small, but none compared to WFMT. WFMT In 1951, the station's call sign was changed to WFMT. Bernard and Rita Jacobs launched WFMT's classical music/fine arts radio format on December 13, 1951. They began with 8-hour-a-day broadcasts, with Bernard serving as the station's engineer, and Rita as the station's announcer. The station's ERP was also increased and its frequency was changed to the present-day 98.7 MHz. In 1969, the station's transmitter was moved to the Prudential Building, and in 1971 its transmitter was moved to the John Hancock Center. All advertising on the station would be read exclusively by WFMT's on-air hosts. Fine Arts Network In 1976, WFMT created the Fine Arts Network for broadcast syndication of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera. In 1979, WFMT became America's first radio superstation, delivered by satellite and cable systems across the United States and dozens of countries, including the Soviet Union and China. The simulcast continued until 1979, when Midway Broadcasting and Migala Enterprises were granted licenses to share time on the frequency. In June 1980, WFMT became the first U.S. radio station to join the European Broadcasting Union. A live performance of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was heard in the US, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, and West Germany simultaneously. Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen was broadcast live for the first time as a digital transatlantic performance from the Bayreuth Festspielhaus to the US and Canada in 1983. Beethoven Network In 1986, WFMT launched the Beethoven Satellite Network, a satellite delivered classical music programming service. It allows public radio stations to broadcast classical music during some hours of the day or around the clock, even if their budgets don't allow for a local staff or music library. 1991 to 2020 The WFMT Fine Arts Circle, a member/listener support and funding group, was formed in 1991. It was created by Steve Robinson and is now carried by over 50 stations in the U.S. and is heard by over 400,000 people each week. WFMT also launched a Fine Arts Hotline for the Chicago area that same year. 2020s streamlining and staff and host firings and departures Since at least 2024, parent company company Window to the World Communications Inc. has streamlined WFMT and fired staff and long-time radio hosts; programming and management structure has also been changed or reduced. Long-term radio hosts Dennis Moore and Bill McGlaughlin were dismissed, and other hosts have resigned or been replaced; the undiscussed changes in staffing and management style led to WFMT employees announcing an intent to unionize in March 2025. ==Awards and honors==

In 1957, the station received an Alfred I. DuPont Award as the country's best broadcaster in the small-station category. WFMT also aired a discussion between Frank Lloyd Wright and Carl Sandburg, which was simulcast with WTTW, marking the first collaboration between WTTW and WFMT. In 1964, Hi Fi/Stereo Review readers voted WFMT the best station in Chicago in terms of audio quality. The station's first series of Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts began in 1965. ==Past hosts==

Several noteworthy individuals have worked at WFMT in its history. Award-winning stage and film director, writer, and producer Mike Nichols, at the time a student at the University of Chicago, joined the station in 1951. Nichols started the folk music program The Midnight Special in 1953. The station replays Terkel's noteworthy interviews on Friday nights. Carl Grapentine, former weekday breakfast host on WFMT, has served as the voice of the university of Michigan Marching Band since 1972, and has doubled as the public-address announcer at Michigan Stadium since 2006. He retired from full-time presenting in July 2018 but still continues to contribute programming. Two-time Peabody Award-winning audio dramatist Yuri Rasovsky, creator of the National Radio Theater of Chicago, began a decade-long association with WFMT in 1975. He is still heard periodically on The Midnight Special in his classic "Chicago Language Tape" skit. WFMT is noted for the longevity of various staff members. Norman Pellegrini joined the station as an announcer in 1952, and became program director in 1953, holding the position until disputes with the station owners forced him out in 1996. He later became the assistant of original owner Bernard Jacobs. Another key contributor to WFMT's success was Associate Program Director Lois Baum. Arriving at the station from KPFK in California in July 1964, Baum produced and oversaw the production of countless spoken arts programs and features. She produced the Critic's Choice series, regular broadcasts of reviews and commentary by artist Harry Bouras (whose name was the inspiration for the playful Chicago art group, the "Hairy Who"), theater critic Claudia Cassidy, and journalist and author Herman Kogan. Baum selected and programmed plays and readings produced by the BBC and by the National Radio Theater of Chicago, and created The Storytellers, a program devoted to short stories. With co-producer George Drury, she created Word of Mouth, a spoken arts program that presented a mixture of rare archival recordings and new studio recordings of poets, novelists, philosophers, scientists, actors and musicians. In addition to her extensive work with spoken arts programs, from 1972 until 2009, Lois Baum co-hosted with Norman Pellegrini nationally syndicated broadcasts from the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In August 2000, Steve Robinson was hired as general manager of WFMT. He had worked in classical music radio since 1967, and retired in 2016. ==Technological achievements==

Since going on the air in 1951, WFMT has garnered a strong reputation for technological innovation and sound quality. In 1958, WFMT and public television station WTTW collaborated on a pioneering stereo music project in which WTTW broadcast a left audio channel, and WFMT broadcast the right audio channel simultaneously. and was once again chosen by Sony to broadcast from a MiniDisc in 1992, ==References==