| City of license | Washington, D.C. |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Washington, D.C. |
| Slogan | The Mind is Our Medium |
| Frequency | 88.5 (MHz) (also on HD Radio) |
| Translator(s) | WRAU (88.3 MHz, Ocean City) W288BS (105.5 MHz, Reston, repeats HD2) |
| First air date | October 23, 1961 (originally carrier current 1951-1961) |
| Format | Public radio HD2: Bluegrass HD3: Other programming from NPR, the BBC and WTMD |
| ERP | 50,000 watts |
| HAAT | 152 meters |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 65399 |
| Callsign meaning | AMerican University |
| Affiliations | National Public Radio |
| Owner | American University |
| Webcast | Live stream |
| Website | wamu.org |
WAMU is a public radio station that services the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The station broadcasts on 88.5 FM, online at wamu.org, and on HD Radio at 88.5-HD1, 2 and 3. WAMU is on-air 24 hours a day. It is licensed to American University, and its studios are located near the campus in northwest Washington, D.C. WAMU's HD2 subchannel broadcasts Bluegrass Country, which is also available at bluegrasscountry.org and on-air in northern Virginia at 105.5 FM; WAMU-3 broadcasts content from WTMD, an AAA station in Towson, Maryland, as well as other NPR and BBC World Service programming. This change became effective on September 17, 2007.
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WAMU began as a carrier current student radio station on July 28, 1951. Its signal didn't make it too far off the AU campus. The station received a commercial FM license in late 1960, and made its first FM broadcast on October 23, 1961. The student radio station is now WVAU, an Internet-only station.
For many years, WAMU was supported by a loyal base of bluegrass listeners. Each day, the station played the Lee Michael Demsey Show and the Ray Davis Show. Saturday afternoons had another Ray Davis Show as well as the Jerry Gray Show. Mountain Stage from West Virginia Public Radio played Sunday afternoons. Each spring, the station hosted a bluegrass concert at Fairfax High School. It featured performers such as Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, the Gibson Brothers, the Lewis Family, Hot Rize, and Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. Pickin' in the Glen was another musical event hosted by WAMU. Currently, WAMU broadcasts bluegrass on its HD2 channel and on a dedicated Internet audio stream.
In 2004, the prominent Washington journalist Ellen Wadley Roper left WAMU a $250,000 bequest.
On January 22, 2007 at 8:00 p.m., WAMU became Washington, D.C.'s only full-time NPR news station, when WETA (located across the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia) changed to an all-classical music format, filling the void left by WGMS.
WAMU 88.5 is a public radio news and information station, carrying content from NPR, American Public Media, Public Radio International and the BBC World Service. In addition, WAMU 88.5 produces its own call-in talk shows, The Diane Rehm Show and The Kojo Nnamdi Show, Metro Connection, and music and entertainment programs, including Hot Jazz Saturday Night, and The Big Broadcast, which originated in 1964 as Recollections, hosted by John Hickman. Hosted since 1990 by Ed Walker, himself a storied Washington broadcaster, the program features rebroadcasts of drama, comedy, and variety programs from the "golden age of radio", including The Jack Benny Show, Dragnet, Gunsmoke, The Great Gildersleeve, Lux Radio Theater, and Philco Radio Time with Bing Crosby.
The Diane Rehm Show is nationally distributed by NPR to a weekly audience in excess of 2 million people. In 2010, host Diane Rehm won a George Foster Peabody award for her on-air career.
WAMU's Bluegrass Country, an online and HD Radio station run by WAMU, produces live and original bluegrass music programs, including Stained Glass Bluegrass, The Ray Davis Show, and Mornings with Katy Daley, and The Lee Michael Demsey Show.
Other programming includes The State We're In, a coproduction with Radio Netherlands which airs documentary reports about "human rights, human wrongs and how we treat each other".
WAMU runs the following translators to increase its coverage area:
| Callsign | Frequency | City of license | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| WRAU | 88.3 MHz | Ocean City, Maryland | Main program |
| W288BS | 105.5 MHz | Great Falls, Virginia | Bluegrass Country |
W288BS formerly repeated WTMD.
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