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WAMC is a
In addition, the station operates The Linda/WAMC Performing Arts Studio, a performance venue in Albany located near its Central Avenue studios.
A member of NPR and affiliate of Public Radio International and American Public Media, WAMC is a charitable, educational, non-commercial broadcaster meeting the requirements of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. §501(c)(3))[4] It had total annual revenues for the fiscal year 2010 of $6.36 million.
Its corporate officers include Anne Erickson, chair of the board of trustees, and Alan S. Chartock, president and chief executive officer (since 1981).
WAMC started in 1958 as a radio station for the local hospital and medical school, Albany Medical Center and Albany Medical College. Albany Medical Center is a large tertiary-care hospital serving the upper Hudson Valley, and the medical school (with which it is affiliated) is one of the country's ACGME-accredited medical schools. The affiliation with Albany Medical Center was the source of the call letters "WAMC".
The station's 24/7 non-commercial classical musical format served a large listener base and was popular amongst music aficionados. The earliest years also included broadcasts of health information and lectures from visiting professors. Early on, part of WAMC's regular programming was the broadcast of live concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra from Tanglewood and Boston. When the NPR network was founded in 1970, WAMC signed-on as one of NPR's original 90 "charter" members. Around 1980, financial pressures caused the hospital and medical school to divest the station. In 1981, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license on 90.3 FM was transferred to a 501c3 tax-exempt entity, WAMC, Inc., which had been set up by a group of five corporators (amongst them the current CEO and president, Alan S. Chartock) affiliated with the State University of New York and New York State government. In the years since the transfer, the station has cut back on most classical music programming (live BSO concerts are still broadcast) while becoming a producer of information-based, non-music programming, providing a variety of interview-format programs to radio stations across the country via the station's in-house subsidiary, National Productions.
Community and corporate contributions (often obtained during regular fund drives) have helped the original single station grow over the years into a network of 22 facilities with large primary service contours covering New York's Capital District, Western Massachusetts, southern Vermont, and parts of New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey. WAMC-FM's main transmitter and antenna are atop Mount Greylock in Adams, Massachusetts, the highest mountain in the state, giving the flagship 90.3 MHz signal a large radius for a transmitter of its size.
It has been a custom on WAMC to play two songs to mark the end of every fund drive: Kate Smith's "God Bless America" and Ray Charles' rendition of "America the Beautiful".
NPR's official news policy says its affiliate stations should be "fair, unbiased, accurate, honest, and respectful of the people that are covered." [5]
A Washington-based NPR news producer, who requested anonymity, stated that Chartock, the station's president and a frequently heard voice on the station, presents politically-biased commentary.[6]
Chartock responded that WAMC’s editorial neutrality is maintained by "including as many conservative commentators on the air as liberal ones".[6]
WAMC has grown into a network of eleven stations and eleven translators serving portions of seven New England and Middle Atlantic States, bringing news, information and cultural programming. The station's fund drive in March 2011 raised over $1,000,000 in nine days.
In 2005, WAMC's board of trustees established a "First Amendment Fund" to promote and preserve the First Amendment and the right of free speech by providing a source of funding "to support WAMC if special situations or needs should arise". The contributions in this "unrestricted, board designated" fund reported on WAMC's 2006 IRS Form was $482,577.[7]
WAMC produces many programs of its own. These include:
WAMC also produces programs that are distributed under the name "National Productions". These include:
WAMC also podcasts their original programs.
plus most radio stations
1 = Clear-channel stations with extended nighttime coverage. 2= Stations share time on the frequency.
Wamc, Frequency, Albany, New York, New England, Whaz (am)
New York City, New York, Albany County, New York, Capital District, Empire State Plaza
Public Radio International, American Public Media, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Pacifica Radio, Morning Edition
Sound, Second, Wave, Radio, South America
Talk radio, Sports radio, Cadillac, Michigan, Wkad, Wlxv
Pamal Broadcasting, HD Radio, Digital television, Wnyt (tv), Glens Falls, New York
Albany, New York, New York, Saratoga County, New York, Hudson Valley, New York City
Frequency, Wamc, Sound of Life Radio, Wqbk-fm, Wqsh
Wqsh, Wamc, Frequency, Pamal Broadcasting, Wtry-fm