WFCR (Radio station : Amherst, Mass.)

WFCR studio, ca.1968

The first public radio station in western New England, WFCR radio first went on the air on May 6, 1961, transmitting from a 10-watt station located at Springfield Trade High School. Then known as Four College Radio (Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst), WFCR initially operated on a very limited schedule, broadcasting only from noon to midnight, six days per week, and it offered little in the way of locally-produced content. After joining the Eastern Educational Radio Network in 1962, however, WFCR began gradually to expand its scope, increasing its on-air presence to seventeen hours per day within two years and pursuing a more ambitious agenda of covering cultural events in the region. By the late 1960s, WFCR became a major public venue for the myriad musical productions originating in the Pioneer Valley region, as well as for local writers, artists, and the steady stream of visiting lecturers at the Four Colleges.

With Hampshire College joining the Four Colleges in 1966 -- thus creating Five College Radio -- WFCR hired its first Music Director. UMass assumed the license for the station in 1967, the same year that Congress established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and relocated the studio from Springfield to Hampshire House on the UMass campus. The station's community affairs programming began in earnest shortly thereafter with the appearance of Que Tal Amigos, a Spanish-language program aimed at migrant workers in the Pioneer Valley, and soon included programming tailored to women (the Women's Hour), French Americans, and African Americans, among others.

In 1997, WFCR began to offer a 24/7 schedule and offers a full line-up of news and talk programming offered to the region through WNNZ at 640AM and 91.7FM, and streamed through internet at nepr.net . The station's mix of classical and jazz music, news, and entertainment reached over 175,000 listeners per week in 2012.

From the guide to the WFCR Radio Broadcast Collection MS 741., 1954-1987, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries)