WETA (90.9 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 sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

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 Washington, D.C.,

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began wi ...

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" al ...

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

. Its studios are located in

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county ...

and its broadcast tower is located near Arlington at (). WETA is a

grandfathered A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...

“superpower” station. The station covers the

Washington metropolitan area The Washington metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the National Capital Region, is the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C. The metropolitan area includes all of Washington, D.C. and parts of the states of Maryland, Virgi ...

with the highest analog

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would h ...

(ERP) of any FM station in the market with 75,000 watts. This exceeds the maximum analog ERP limit allowed for a Class B FM station, and is also above the maximum allowable analog ERP for the station's antenna

height above average terrain Height above average terrain (HAAT), or (less popularly) effective height above average terrain (EHAAT), is the vertical position of an antenna site is above the surrounding landscape. HAAT is used extensively in FM radio and television, as it i ...

(HAAT) according to current FCC rules, which is 32,000 watts at 186 meters. WETA programming is

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, simul ...

on WGMS 89.1 in

Hagerstown, Maryland Hagerstown is a city in Washington County, Maryland, United States and the county seat of Washington County. The population of Hagerstown city proper at the 2020 census was 43,527, and the population of the Hagerstown metropolitan area (exte ...

and on translator W205BL 88.9 in

Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in and the county seat of Frederick County, Maryland. It is part of the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. Frederick has long been an important crossroads, located at the intersection of a major north–south Native ...

. WETA and WGMS broadcast using

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 ...

Past formats and format changes

From

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...

through early

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

, WETA featured a mixed radio format of classical music, folk music, jazz, and news. It switched to a predominantly news and talk radio format from February 28, 2005 until January 22, 2007, when it switched to its current all-classical radio format. The switch was part of an unusual deal between the public radio station and commercial station WGMS (FM), which abandoned the classical music format it had aired for decades after an attempt to sell WGMS to

Washington Commanders The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) E ...

owner Dan Snyder failed. The FCC subsequently granted WETA permission to use the WGMS call letters for its Hagerstown, Maryland repeater station, formerly known as WETH.

Current format

WETA changed to a classical music format on January 22, 2007, at 8 p.m. EST, with classical music now offered for more of the broadcast day than ever before in the station's history. Its current classical format is primarily mainstream orchestral, with a smattering of early and baroque music and chamber music. Aside from Saturday afternoon opera, very few vocal performances are aired on WETA. As of April 2007 WETA reduced the number of hourly

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 ...

newscasts, which had continued to be heard every hour since the change to the classical music format. Newscasts are now heard on the hour during

drive time Drive time is the daypart in which radio broadcasters can reach the most people who listen to car radios while driving, usually to and from work, or on public transportation. Drive-time periods are when the number of radio listeners in this cl ...

and at selected hours at other times. WETA also airs audio from the ''

PBS NewsHour ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS member stations. It airs seven nights a week, and is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events. Anchored by Judy Woodruff, the pro ...

'' Monday through Friday evenings, for the benefit of area commuters unable to arrive home in time to view the program on television. WETA airs opera programming on Saturday afternoons, including the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts during the Met's regular December–April broadcast season. They inherited from WGMS an all-vocal classical music format branded, "VivaLaVoce, the station that sings", on HD2. WETA's only competition in the market area is

WBJC WBJC (91.5 MHz) is a non-commercial, public FM radio station licensed to Baltimore, Maryland. The station is owned by Baltimore City Community College and it airs a classical music radio format. WBJC holds periodic fundraisers on the air to pa ...

(91.5 FM), also a non-commercial station, which broadcasts a classical music format and is licensed to serve

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...

Other services

Since 1974, WETA has provided a subcarrier channel for the Metropolitan Washington Ear, a

radio reading service A radio reading service or reading service for the blind is a public service of many universities, community groups and public radio stations, where a narrator reads books, newspapers and magazines aloud for the benefit of the blind and vision-imp ...

for blind and visually impaired people. Listeners tune in to the service using special receivers provided free to qualifying individuals and can receive audio from more than 200 current publications, including newspapers, magazines, and books.

Stations

One full-power station is licensed to

the programming of WETA:

Translators

WETA programming is broadcast on the following

translator 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 ''transl ...

Signal note

WETA is short-spaced to

WHYY-FM WHYY-FM (90.9 MHz, "91 FM") is a public radio station licensed to serve Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its broadcast tower is located in the city's Roxborough neighborhood at () while its studios and offices are located on Independence Mall in C ...

''WHYY NPR'' (licensed to serve

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

) as they operate on the same channel and the distance between the stations' transmitters is 128 miles as determined by FCC rules. The minimum distance between two Class B stations operating on the same channel according to current

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdictio ...

rules is 150 miles.

References

External links

*
Classical WETA Live StreamClassical WETA "Classical Blog for Music Lovers" by Critic-at-Large, Jens F. LaursonThe Segue from WGMS to WXGGThe Segue from News/NPR to Classical WETAWETA FM Press Release describing January 22, 2007 format change to all classical
* * * *

{{Authority control Classical music radio stations in the United States

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

Members of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington NPR member stations Radio stations established in 1970 1970 establishments in Virginia