WRTI

WRTI is a public radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is a service of Temple University.

WRTI began in 1948 as an AM carrier current station. It was founded by John Roberts, professor emeritus of communications at Temple and long-time anchorman at WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV). He'd helped found the School of Communications and Theater at Temple. The call letters stood for "Radio Training Institute." In 1952, the station received an FM transmitter, receiving a full license to cover the FM facility in 1953. After years of serving as a student laboratory, WRTI-AM signed-off for good in 1968. WRTI-FM switched from block programming to an all-jazz format in 1969. It added classical music in 1997 after Philadelphia's commercial classical music station, WFLN, changed formats.

WRTI is a music-intensive Public Radio service, broadcasting Classical music during the day (6am-6pm), and Jazz at night (6pm-6am).

The station features hosts Dave Conant, Jack Moore, Jill Pasternak, Bob Perkins, Bob Craig, Maureen Malloy, Mark Quinlan, Jeff Duperon, Tim Johnstone, Zivit Shlank and Frank McCloy. WRTI also has special programs on Friday and Saturday evenings. Each Friday 10pm-2am there's "The Bridge," with host J. Michael Harrison. This program explores the merging platforms of popular music and jazz. Saturday from 9pm-12am "El Viaje" airs, hosted by David Ortiz, focusing on Latin Jazz and Salsa.

WRTI also presents Arts and Culture programming. The multi-award winning CrossOver (Saturday 1130am WRTI/Friday 7pm WRTI-HD2), hosted by Jill Pasternak, explores music as "the international language." The show, which presents music and conversation with some of the world's greatest artists and personalities, focuses not only on Classical and Jazz, but also music in the periphery of those two art forms. Featured have been Michel Legrand, Rick Braun, Byron Janis, Billy Joel, Eric Whitacre, Marvin Hamlisch, Michael Feinstein, Louis Lortie, Herbie Hancock, Yolanda Kondonassis, Branford Marsalis and many more.

The award-winning Creatively Speaking! arts magazine show (Saturday 11am), hosted by Jim Cotter, features contributors Jason Peifer, David Patrick Stearns, Susan Lewis and Tom Di Nardo among others. These arts writers also file arts reprts for WRTI News.

Local news updates are done from 6–9 am, 12 pm, and 3–6 pm by such anchors as Windsor Johnston, Jim Hilgen and Meridee Duddleston. Top-of-the-Hour newscasts include world news from NPR.

WRTI's main transmitter is located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. The station also serves much of Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Northern and Central Delaware with six other full-power transmitters and seven translators.

WRTI also broadcasts in HD Radio. Two of its signals (WRTI and WRTJ) broadcast HD2 signals as well. Known as "WRTI-HD2," this auxiliary service transmits Jazz in the daytime and Classical music at night, opposite the station's main signal, thus providing a full 24 hours of Classical and Jazz programming for those with HD-capable radios. Also, the programming of both WRTI-FM and WRTI-HD2 comprise two separate web audio streams. The "All-Classical" stream presents WRTI-FM's daytime programming, switching to WRTI-HD2's programming at night. The "All-Jazz" stream broadcasts WRTI-HD2's daytime programming, switching to WRTI-FM's signal at night. The web streams have proven popular with those who do not have an HD-capable radio or are not within the coverage area of WRTI and WRTJ.

The Temple University Board of Trustees holds the FCC license of the station.

Rebroadcasters

The station's programming is relayed by the following full-power signals and translator stations.

See also

External links

• WRTI website
• History of WRTI