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_Building.jpg) WABE (FM) Building (April 2025) | |
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| Broadcast area | Atlanta metropolitan area |
| Frequency | 90.1MHz (HD Radio) |
| Branding | 90.1 FM WABE |
| Programming | |
| Format | Public radio |
| Subchannels |
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| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | |
| WABE-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | September 13, 1948 (1948-09-13) |
Call sign meaning | "Atlanta Board of Education"[1] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 3538 |
| Class | C0 |
| ERP | 100,000watts |
| HAAT | 334.1 meters (1,096 feet) |
Transmitter coordinates | 33°45′32″N84°20′07″W / 33.75889°N 84.33528°W /33.75889; -84.33528 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen live |
| Website | wabe |
WABE (90.1MHz) – branded90.1 FM WABE – is anon-commercial educationalFMradio station licensed toAtlanta, Georgia, and serving theAtlanta metropolitan area, serving as theNational Public Radio (NPR) member station for the market. Owned byAtlanta Public Schools and licensed to theAtlanta Board of Education, it is asister outlet toPBS member stationWABE-TV (channel 30) and localeducational access cable service APS Cable Channel 22. The three outlets share studios on Bismark Road in theMorningside/Lenox Park section of Atlanta; WABE-TV's transmitter is located on New Street Northeast (south of DeKalb Avenue) in the city'sEdgewood neighborhood.
WABE carries a general public radio schedule with local hostsLois Reitzes, Rose Scott andH. Johnson and produces thePeabody Award-winning podcastBuried Truths withHank Klibanoff.
In September 1994, a nonprofit corporation, the Atlanta Educational Telecommunications Collaborative, Inc., was founded to provide financial, promotional, and volunteer support for WABE (as well asWABE-TV channel 30 and Atlanta Public Schools cable channel 22). WABE'ssignal reaches practically all of thenorthwestern and north-central parts of the state. It is the dominantpublic radio station inmetropolitan Atlanta, but starting on June 30, 2014, has been joined during the daytime byGeorgia Public Broadcasting's Atlanta feed on 88.5WRAS-FM. GPB provides public radio programming to most of the rest of the state.
On October 16, 1947, the Atlanta Board of Education received a construction permit to build a new noncommercial educational radio station on 90.1 MHz in Atlanta.[3] The station took the call letters WABE, representing its owner.[1] The facility was completed by May 1948, when on-air tests were run,[4] but it would not be until the next school year when WABE entered into full-time service on September 13.[5] Initially, WABE ran exclusively instructional programming for students in Atlanta andFulton County schools and was the first station of its kind in the Southeast.[6] TheRich's Foundation had donated equipment to run the station; at the time, Rich's produced educational radio programming that aired on a six-station network in Georgia, which included WABE when it signed on.[7]
The firstradio studios were in two rooms on the 14th floor of theAtlanta City Hall; the station moved to its present quarters on Bismark Road in 1957.[8] The former Rock Springs Elementary School would also house WETV, the first educational television station in Georgia, which began broadcasting in February 1958.[9]
It was not until the early 1970s that the station significantly broadened its output to include non-instructional programs. The station added more evening hours in 1971 and began regular weekend broadcasts for the first time.[10] In 1973, "Friends of WABE" was formed, giving the station its first community volunteer organization;[11] broadcasting in stereo began in April 1974 after commercial radio station owner GCC Communications gave a grant for new equipment.[12] In 1979, WABE won its firstGeorge Foster Peabody Award for a two-part program,The Eyewitness Who Wasn't: The Matthews Murder Trials.[13]
The late 1970s and early 1980s also saw other changes, notably the formation of a Public Broadcasting Association to advise on the operations of WETV and WABE[14] andFulton County's decision to stop funding WABE and WETV in 1982, which almost led the Atlanta school board to turn both over to GPB.[15] Ultimately, the factor that dissuaded the Board of Education from handing over its broadcasting outlets was that it was a minority school system and had no interest in turning over the services to a predominantly White group.[16]
The early 1980s also brought major changes that cemented WABE's service to Atlanta. After nearly 35 years, instructional programming was distributed to schools directly beginning in the 1982–83 school year, freeing up daytime hours for public radio programming.[17] The radio station then relocated toStone Mountain in April 1983 at an increased power of 100,000 watts, greatly improving coverage.[18] It would remain on Stone Mountain until 2004, when technical considerations relating to the digital television transition displaced WPBA from the site.
A 1991 study suggested a move to a multicultural format for WABE, which drew the ire of public broadcasting supporters.[19] The advisory board campaigned in 1993 to take full control of the stations;[20] this led to its restructuring as the Atlanta Educational Telecommunications Collaborative in 1994.[21] Later in the decade, the statewide network made another overture to take over WPBA and WABE, which the Atlanta Board of Education rebuffed, with the racial composition of channel 30's management compared to the state agency again being cited.[22]
Into the 2010s, WABE continued to broadcast classical music during daytime hours, even as most public radio stations in large markets were moving toward speech-based daytime schedules, in large part because of Reitzes, the longest-tenured air personality on Atlanta radio.[23] As a result, many NPR programs that became mainstays after the network's rapid programming expansion in the 1990s, such asThe Diane Rehm Show,Talk of the Nation,Here and Now,On Point,The Story with Dick Gordon andNewshour from theBBC World Service, were not heard until WABE added all-classical and all-news/talk HD Radio subchannels in 2006.[24] In 2014, the station announced that, beginning in January 2015, the classical programming would move exclusively to the station's HD2 subchannel, to be replaced by new national and local programming (including a two-hour arts program hosted by Reitzes) alongside an addition of seven employees to the news staff.[25] The substitution of more popular news programming for classical shows helped to fuel ratings growth at WABE, which increased its ratings by 45 percent from 2015 to 2019.[26] In 2019,Buried Truths, a podcast from WABE hosted byHank Klibanoff, won the station its second Peabody Award.[27]
On January 19, 2022, Public Broadcasting Atlanta rebranded both WABE and WPBA-TV, along with their websites, podcasts and smartphone apps, as a single unified entity named WABE, with a new logo and slogan, "Amplifying Atlanta", and a call sign change for the television station.[28][29]
During the day, WABE mixes public radio programs fromNPR and other producers—includingMorning Edition,All Things Considered,Here and Now,Fresh Air, andMarketplace—with its own local shows, includingCity Lights withLois Reitzes, covering the arts;Closer Look with Rose Scott. Weekends continue to feature musical programming, including broadcasts of theAtlanta Symphony Orchestra and two programs hosted byH. Johnson:Jazz Classics on Saturday nights andBlues Classics on Friday nights. On Sunday nights,The Atlanta Music Scene presents concerts from venues in the area.