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| Broadcast area | Greater Boston |
| Frequency | 89.7MHz (HD Radio) |
| RDS | WGBH RADIO |
| Branding | GBH 89.7 |
| Programming | |
| Language | English |
| Format | Public radio |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner | WGBH Educational Foundation |
| History | |
First air date | October 6, 1951 (74 years ago) (1951-10-06) |
Former call signs |
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Call sign meaning | Great Blue Hill |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 70510 |
| Class | B |
| ERP | 98,000 watts |
| HAAT | 198 meters (650 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 42°12′42.3″N71°6′49.1″W / 42.211750°N 71.113639°W /42.211750; -71.113639 (WGBH) |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast |
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| Website | www |
WGBH (89.7FM, "GBH 89.7") is apublic radio station located inBoston, Massachusetts. WGBH is a member station ofNational Public Radio (NPR) and affiliate ofPublic Radio Exchange (PRX) andAmerican Public Media (APM). WGBH is theflagship radio property of theWGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns company flagshipWGBH-TV andWGBX-TV, along withWGBY-TV inSpringfield andWCAI-FM on Cape Cod and the Islands.
The station, dubbedBoston Public Radio in 2009, renamedBoston's Local NPR, broadcasts anews-and-information format during the daytime (including NPR News programs and PRX'sThe World, which is a co-production of WGBH and PRX, and formerly theBBC World Service), andjazz music during the nighttime.[citation needed]
Prior to December 1, 2009, the station had a mixed news and entertainment format, featuring local jazz and blues programs, with the station tagline being "Boston’s NPR Arts & Culture Station", to differentiate it from all newsWBUR-FM, also located in Boston and known at the time as "Boston's NPR News Station". Following the rebranding, much of the station's culture-related programming was dropped in favor of nationally syndicated NPR, PRI, and APM programs.[citation needed]
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"GBH" stands forGreat Blue Hill, the site of WGBH's FM transmitter inMilton, Massachusetts, as well as the original location of WGBH-TV's transmitter.[2] Great Blue Hill has an elevation of 635 feet (193 m), is located within the Blue Hills Reservation, and is the highest natural point in the Boston area. Mai Cramer, longtime host of the programBlues After Hours, jokingly maintained that the station's call sign stands for: "We Got Blues Here!"[citation needed]
According toNielsen data aggregated by Ken Mills, a Minneapolis broadcast consultant, as of June 2017[update] the number of WGBH's listeners has nearly doubled since 2012, increasing from 235,200 to 445,200. WGBH is the 10th-most-popular NPR news station in the United States.[3]
The main WGBH signal operates at 98,000 watts, which is strong enough to cover the eastern half ofMassachusetts, as well asRhode Island, EasternConnecticut, much of southernNew Hampshire, and the southern tip ofMaine. Indeed, for years WGBH claimedProvidence, Rhode Island, as part of its primary coverage area; the station still provides a strong city-grade signal to Rhode Island's capital.[citation needed]
WGBH also operates a separately-programmed service for theCape Cod and Islands area, with a full-time news-and-information format. This service is simulcast on three stations:WCAI inWoods Hole, WNAN inNantucket, and WZAI inBrewster.[citation needed]
WGBH also ownsWCRB, aclassical music station. This service is simulcast byWJMF inSmithfield, Rhode Island (near Providence).[citation needed]
Both WCAI and WCRB are also simulcast onHD Radio subcarriers of WGBH itself. The WCRB simulcast on WGBH-HD2 is also relayed by translator W242AA (96.3 FM)East Cambridge, as theFederal Communications Commission regards it as a WGBH translator (from October 1991[4] until April 8, 2010,[5] W242AA carried WGBH's main service).
WGBH, WCAI, and WCRB allstream their programming worldwide on the Internet.[citation needed]
WGBH Educational Foundation received its first broadcasting license (for radio) in 1951 under the auspices of theLowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council, a consortium of local universities and cultural institutions, whose collaboration stems from an 1836 bequest by textile manufacturerJohn Lowell Jr. calling for free public lectures for the citizens of Boston.[citation needed]
WGBH signed on October 6, 1951, with a live broadcast of theBoston Symphony Orchestra.[6][7] Within a decade, it had grown enough that it partnered with theFive Colleges to set up a repeater for western Massachusetts,WFCR. That repeater became a full-fledged station in 1962, and is now the flagship NPR outlet for western Massachusetts.[citation needed]
WGBH was a charter member of NPR, and was one of the stations that carried the inaugural broadcast ofAll Things Considered in 1971.
In the summer of 2016, the station began broadcasting some of its programming from an on-air studio in the newly renovatedBoston Public Library Johnson building, fronting on Boylston Street inBack Bay.[8]
In May 2024, WGBH laid off 31 employees across 13 departments, a 4% staff reduction. Production of three television programs was also suspended.[9] Another 6% were laid off in June 2025.[10]
WGBH broadcasts news programming, generally fromNPR orPRI. On weekends and some weekday evenings, a variety of public affairs programming and other informational/entertainment programming is featured, such asThis American Life,The Moth,Selected Shorts,Freakonomics,On Being,Radiolab,Studio 360, andThe New Yorker Radio Hour.[citation needed]
Jazz music is broadcast on weekend evenings and overnights. Until July 2, 2012, WGBH also carried jazz during the evening and overnight hours on Mondays through Thursdays; this programming was cut back to increase news and information programming during the evening and overnight hours.[citation needed] Saturday programming consists of various syndicated programs such asWeekend Edition,Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!,This American Life, and others.
Celtic music was featured in the long-running locally produced WGBH show, A Celtic Sojourn, hosted by Brian O'Donovan from 1986 until his death in 2023.[11]
Programs originating from WGBH for the local market include:[citation needed]
Programs originating from WGBH that are also broadcast in other markets include:[citation needed]
Until December 1, 2009, WGBH broadcast a variety of classical music programming, mostly during the day on weekdays, weekend mornings, and Sunday afternoons. These broadcasts included (in addition to generally available recordings) recordings made by WGBH of regionalchamber music and solorecital performances, live in-studio performances and interviews, as well as live broadcasts of theBoston Symphony Orchestra fromSymphony Hall (on Friday afternoons when the orchestra is scheduled to play), andTanglewood (on Sunday afternoons in the summer).[citation needed]
In addition, WGBH's music programming also includedfolk music on Saturday afternoons andblues on Saturday evenings.[citation needed]
In September 2009, the WGBH Educational Foundation announced a deal to acquireWCRB, a local classical music station. It consolidated all classical music programming on WCRB, and changed WGBH to an all-news and information format.[12] A significant number of WGBH's traditional classical listeners were sacrificed in the transition, as WCRB transmits from the North Shore of Boston, and cannot be received reliably in areas to the south, including Cape Cod. In November 2009 the station announced that its long-running Saturday afternoon folk and Saturday evening blues programs would be discontinued in December, howeverA Celtic Sojourn andA Prairie Home Companion would remain.[13]
On June 20, 2012, it was announced that WGBH would cut back jazz to nine hours a week,[14] replacing weeknight evening and overnight jazz programming with public radio news and information programming. The cutback in jazz took place on July 2, 2012. Eric Jackson still does nine hours of jazz programming on weekends; Steve Schwartz's Friday show was eliminated completely.[citation needed]
The same notice announced that in July 2012, WGBH would combine the hour-longEmily Rooney Show andCallie Crossley Show into a two-hour segment namedBoston Public Radio.[15] The station also started carrying the APM showMarketplace.[citation needed]
In February 2013,Jim Braude andMargery Eagan (previously co-hosts of theJim & Margery Show talk show onWTKK) were brought on to co-hostBoston Public Radio.[16] They brought along with them the monthlyAsk the Governor program, a series that WGBH also provides to other local stations free of charge.[citation needed]
WGBH andWBUR-FM both serve the Boston area, and there is some overlap between programming on the two stations (i.e.All Things Considered,Morning Edition). When WGBH announced plans to convert their daytime hours to news and information, there was speculation as to how much overlap between the two stations there would be.[17]
WGBH broadcastsThe World and the sound portion of thePBS NewsHour, while WBUR does not. As mentioned above,The World is locally produced by WGBH. WBUR carriesTalk of the Nation,On Point,Here and Now, andCar Talk, which are not heard on WGBH. The latter three programs are produced locally by WBUR.[citation needed]
The two stations also broadcast somewhat different selections from among the programs available through their national network affiliations.[citation needed]
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