WUTC (88.1 FM) is a

non-commercial A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that is not carried out in the interest of Profit (economics), profit. The opposite is Commerce, commercial, something that primarily serves profit interests and is focused on bu ...

, listener-supported

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 the broadcasting 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 rad ...

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

, serving the Chattanooga metropolitan area and the

Tennessee Valley The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to north Alabama and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North C ...

. It is owned and operated by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and broadcasts from UTC campus. It is a member station of

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 ...

and broadcasts news programs plus a variety of music, including

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, ...

and related genres. WUTC has an

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 ha ...

(ERP) of 30,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

is on Sawyer Cemetery Road in

Walden ''Walden'' (; first published as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is an 1854 book by American transcendentalism, transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. T ...

. The signal can be heard in parts of

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

and

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

Programming

WUTC airs a mix of news and talk programs and

(AAA) music shows on weekdays with other genres heard on weekends. Popular weekday shows from NPR include ''

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 a ...

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

'' and ''

Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's hosts are Terry Gross and Tonya Mosl ...

''. Once-a-week specialty shows include '' On The Media, The Moth Radio Hour, Latino USA, Travel with Rick Steves, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Radiolab, The TED Radio Hour, Freakonomics Radio, Left, Right and Center'' and '' Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me''. Weekday music shows are hosted by Richard Windham (late mornings) and Haley Solomon (early evenings). Specialty music shows, heard nights and weekends, include programs on acoustic, bluegrass,

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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

, folk,

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and

Celtic music Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celts (modern), Celtic people of Northwestern Europe (the modern Celtic nations). It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and ...

. The station seeks donations on the air and on its website. In June 2025, it was revealed late morning host Richard Windham would be retiring from radio at the end of the month after having worked at the station since the late 1980s. A benefit concert will be held in his name to celebrate his illustrious career in radio and his contributions towards it.

History

Early years

WUTC signed on the air in .''Broadcasting Yearbook 1982'' page . Retrieved Nov. 4, 2024.
/ref> In its early years, it aired a

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

, with news and educational shows. Another Chattanooga non-commercial station, 90.5 WSMC-FM, also airs classical music. WUTC's studios were in Race Hall on the UTC campus. Until 1988, WUTC rebroadcast the morning programming of WUOT-FM in

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...

. At that point, WUTC obtained its own satellite downlink and was able to obtain nationally syndicated programming from public radio networks on its own.

NPR affiliation

In October 1995, WUTC became the exclusive home in the Chattanooga market for several NPR programs, including ''

,'' ''

,'' '' Car Talk'' and ''

Weekend Edition ''Weekend Edition'' is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio ( NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program ''Morning Edition''. It consists of ''Weekend Edition Saturday ...

''. That's when 90.5 WSMC-FM dropped most NPR programming due to conflicts with religious programming on its schedule. WSMC-FM is owned by Southern Adventist University and it devotes some hours on Fridays and Saturdays to Adventist programming.Bhatti, Jabeen
Religious program dispute drives Chattanooga station out of NPR
''Current'', 1995-07-31. Today, WUTC maintains a mix of syndicated programming and local music shows in its weekday schedule, with a focus on syndicated shows almost exclusively on weekends. In July 2002, WUTC began streaming its broadcast online. In May 2006, it became the first Chattanooga radio station (public or commercial) to simulcast its broadcast in

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

format. In 2022, WUTC moved its studios and offices from its longtime location in Cadek Hall to the UTC Administrative Services Building on Palmetto Street.

Controversy

In March 2017, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga fired WUTC reporter Jacqui Helbert, who had interviewed state politicians about a

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

bathroom bill. The political figures alleged they did not know she was a journalist even though she was reportedly wearing headphones and a microphone with the WUTC logo. The dismissal came after state legislators complained to university officials. Station and university officials said that Helbert breached journalistic ethics by not identifying herself as a journalist or giving the legislators a chance to comment before the story aired. However, critics claimed station and university officials overreacted out of fear that the legislature would reduce the station's funding.

References

External links

WUTC official website
*
WUTC department at UTC
{{coord, 35.207, N, 85.281, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title University of Tennessee at Chattanooga UTC WUTC