WYPR is a public radio station that services the Baltimore,
Maryland
metropolitan area. The station broadcasts on
88.1
MHz on the
FM band.
The
station is simulcast in the Frederick
and Hagerstown
area on WYPF (88.1 FM) and in the
Ocean
City
area on WYPO (106.9 FM).
Surprisingly, the two stations on 88.1 are not synchronized. WYPF's
sound is about 1/2 second behind WYPR, making listening nearly
impossible in the area between the two cities.
WYPR is Baltimore's
National
Public Radio member station, carrying content from NPR,
Minnesota Public Radio,
Public Radio
International and the
BBC World
Service. In addition, WYPR produces several of its own
programs, many of which focus on local affairs.
History
Serving the metropolitan Baltimore area and the
state of Maryland, the mission of Your Public Radio is to broadcast
programs of intellectual integrity and cultural merit which enrich
the minds and spirits of our listeners and ultimately strengthen
the communities we serve.
-- WYPR Mission Statement [182923]
Starting operations in 1979 as
WJHU, owned by
Johns Hopkins University,
the station had a classical format. Over the years it progressively
added more content from NPR and its partners, shifting to the
format of news/talk in the daytime and overnight weekday hours, and
music (mainly jazz) programming during evenings and nights. In the
fall of 1998, then-WJHU added overnight coverage of
World Radio Network (WRN), which
provides English-language news programs from broadcasters around
the world; today the station simulcasts the
BBC World Service during the overnight.
The station was sold by the university in early 2002 to Your Public
Radio Corp., a locally based group of station talk hosts and
listeners, and became WYPR. In 2004 Your Public Radio Corp. bought
religious broadcaster WJTM in Frederick, which became a relay of
WYPR with the call letters of WYPF. WYPF's signal also covers
Hagersown.
On July 30, 2007, Your Public Radio Corp.
bought Ocean City,
Maryland
alternative rock station 106.9 WRXS, which began
simulcasting WYPR starting September 10, 2007. That station
was renamed WYPO on October 3, 2007.
For many years, it operated at only 10,000 watts.
While this provided a
decent signal to Baltimore itself and most of its close-in suburbs,
many of Baltimore's outer suburbs, including Annapolis
, only got a grade B signal. However, in
2008, it increased its power to 15,500 watts, giving it a coverage
area roughly comparable to the other major Baltimore
stations.
Weekday Schedule
Midday with Dan Rodricks
Midday is WYPR's daily public affairs program heard from noon -
2PM, Monday through Thursday. Hosted by longtime Baltimore Sun
columnist Dan Rodricks, the program covers a wide range of topics
selected to engage, inform, and entertain the listening
audience.Since its debut, Midday has covered a mix of the serious
(politics, the economy, education) and the not-so-serious (National
Grammar Day, crab cakes, film noir) with, as one listener describes
it, "A certain politeness, good manners, and gentle laughter.
Maryland Morning
Maryland Morning with
Sheilah Kast is a
mix of interviews about news, the arts, politics, science, history.
all the topics and people that make Maryland such an interesting
place to live and work. From 9 to 10 a.m. every Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday and Friday, they reach from the Chesapeake Bay to the
mountains for compelling conversations with people who make the
news, and with people who cover it - including WYPR's own
reporters. Maryland Morning is produced by Bruce Wallace, Katherine
Gorman and Lawrence Lanahan.
External links