WPPB (FM)

WPPB (88.3 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a Jazz format. Licensed to Southampton, New York, USA, the station serves the New York college area. The station was previously owned by Long Island University and is now owned by Peconic Public Broadcasting and features programing from American Public Media, National Public Radio and Public Radio International.^{[2] [3]} The station is also broadcast on HD radio.^[4]

In addition its to NPR programming local programs include jazz, rhythm and blues, world music, and music from the Broadway theater. Syndicated weekend programs include The Eclectic Café, Friday Night Soul and American Musical Theater, The Splendid Table, Putumayo World Music Hour, Afropop, and Worldwide Jazz.

History

The original station was a carrier current station, WSCR, housed in a Southampton College dormitory suite, and run as a student club. After much of the equipment was lost to theft, and finding the theft covered by insurance, construction of a new stereo FM station began in the basement of Southampton Hall by 1978. The antenna tower was raised in January 1980, and the station went on the air, still as a club and funded by student activity fees, as WPBX at 91.3 MHz on 1980-03-11. The first two songs played were "On the Air" and "DIY" by Peter Gabriel. It was completely student-run, with free-form programming, and largely ignored by the administration, until 1981-82 when the administration imposed some control and installed Joseph Valerio to run the station. Valerio arranged to carry Texaco's broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and programming began evolving toward an NPR-style format. On 2002-07-06, the station changed its call sign to WLIU.^[5] In February 2002, the station changed to a Jazz format. In April 2004, the station changed to a News format.

The station broadcasted from the second floor of Chancellors Hall on the campus of Stony Brook Southampton until the spring of 2010. State University of New York at Stony Brook took over the LIU campus (previously named Southampton College) in 2006. At the time of the takeover an agreement was made to permit the station to continue to broadcast from the school through 2009 and that it could continue to use the tower on the campus through 2024.

Ownership of the station from Long Island University to Peconic Public Broadcasting was completed on December 15, 2010 and the call-letters changed to WPPB to reflect this.^[6]

References

External links

• Query the FCC's FM station database for WPPB
• Radio-Locator information on WPPB
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WPPB