Kentucky Public Radio,

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

Louisville Public Media, is a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

that operates the three

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

member stations in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

—news and talk

WFPL WFPL (89.3 Hertz, MHz) is a 24-hour public radio, listener-supported, commercial radio, noncommercial FM radio, FM radio station in Louisville, Kentucky. The station focuses on news and information, and is the primary National Public Radio net ...

, classical

WUOL-FM WUOL-FM (90.5 FM, "Classical 90.5") is a 24-hour listener-supported noncommercial radio station in Louisville, Kentucky, broadcasting a classical music format. It began broadcasting in December 1976 as part of the University of Louisville. WUO ...

, and

adult album alternative Adult album alternative (also triple-A, AAA, or adult alternative) is a radio format. See pages 9 and 10Mills, Joshua. "A New Radio Music Format: Rock for Prosperous Adults" New York Times, Feb 28 1994, p. 2. ProQuest. Web. Accessed September 4, ...

WFPK WFPK is a 24-hour listener-supported, noncommercial radio station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, broadcasting at 91.9 MHz FM with an adult album alternative format. The station plays national and local alternative music. It is ow ...

. The current organization began in 1993, when the

Louisville Free Public Library The Louisville Free Public Library (LFPL) is the public library system in Louisville, Kentucky, and the largest public library system in the United States, U.S. state of Kentucky. History Formation The Louisville Free Public Library was created ...

, licensee of WFPL and WFPK, along with the

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public university, public research university in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. Chartered in 1798 as the Jefferson Seminary, it became in the 19t ...

, which ran WUOL-FM, collectively transferred the licenses of the three stations to the community-licensed Public Radio Partnership. The organization has a board of directors which consists of three members appointed by the University of Louisville, four members appointed by the Metro Louisville government, 16 at-large members from the Louisville community including the chairman, and the organization's president.2016 FCC Ownership Report for WUOL/WFPK/WFPL
/ref> It was the first public broadcasting organization (not counting state networks) to unite three radio stations under a single umbrella.LPM history
/ref> This move came amid the expansion of NPR programming in the 1990s. WFPL, long the flagship NPR station in Kentuckiana, found it difficult to make room on its schedule for both the new programming and the jazz, bluegrass, and blues music that had been a staple on the station for years. At the same time, both WUOL and WFPK aired classical music in a market that was nowhere near large enough to support two classical music stations. The two stations had been competing for classical listeners since 1976, when UL launched WUOL. Even before then, WFPK had to contend with a commercial classical broadcaster, WHAS-FM, from 1966 to 1975; that station was the sister of heritage AM station WHAS and was mainly a civic service (it carried little or no advertising) by WHAS' longtime owners, the

Bingham family Bingham may refer to: Places Australia * Bingham, Queensland, former name of the town of River Heads United Kingdom * Bingham, Nottinghamshire, a town in England * Bingham (wapentake), a historic district of Nottinghamshire, England * Bingham, Ed ...

. After two years of discussions leading to the Partnership's formation, the stations launched a major format overhaul that took effect on air on January 8, 1996. WUOL became the sole outlet for classical music in Louisville, in part due to its longstanding ties with UL's School of Music. WFPL turned its focus to news and talk, ceding its entire recorded music inventory and most of its music-based programming to WFPK, which dropped classical entirely and eventually became a mostly Triple-A station, largely due to the decline in popularity of the genres WFPL featured earlier in its history. In 2000, the stations jointly moved their operations to the former Electric Building in downtown Louisville. Eight years later, the group changed its trade name to the current Louisville Public Media. In 2013, Louisville Public Media created the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (KyCIR), a nonprofit newsroom focused on

investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend m ...

References

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External links

Official site
Mass media companies established in 1993 Mass media in Louisville, Kentucky Non-profit organizations based in Louisville, Kentucky 1993 establishments in Kentucky