area nashville tennessee frequency 90.3 mhz also on hd radio first air date december 17 1962 format public news talk erp 80 000 watts haat 345 meters 1133 ft class c non commercial facility id 53821 transmitter coordinates 36 02 08 n 86 50 56 w 36.03556 n 86.84889 w 36.03556 ; 86.84889 callsign meaning public library nashville affiliations npr owner nashville public radio sister stations wfcl wpln am webcast listen live website wpln.org wpln fm 90.3 fm is a national public radio affiliated station in nashville tennessee . since june 2011 the station has employed exclusively a news and talk format ; until then the station carried at least some classical music . the station maintains studios on mainstream drive north of downtown nashville studios that some consider among the finest radio production facilities in the u.s. contents 1 overview 2 history 3 governance 4 digital broadcasting wpln hd2 wpln hd3 5 sister stations 6 references 7 external links overview edit as of this writing nashville public radio offers five distinct but complementary programme streams wpln am ; wpln fm ; hd 2 and hd 3 which are multicasts from the main fm channel ; and wfcl see below . all may be received over the air or streamed from wpln s website . wpln fm s signal which is transmitted from a tower on johnson chapel road in williamson county just outside brentwood travels in about a 65 mile radius reaching most of middle tennessee and some counties in southern kentucky . wpln fm shares the tower with three other nashville fm stations wrlt wkdf and wnrq ; it has broadcast from that site since 1984 . wpln also repeats its programming on two low powered repeaters on the fringes of the middle tennessee area whrs 91.7 fm in cookeville and wtml 91.5 fm in tullahoma . in early 2006 wpln fm began broadcasting its programming in digital . more information is found below . on september 8 2009 wpln fm discontinued its 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. classical music programming in favor of a block of news and talk programs from npr and other providers . 1 2 that action reflected a trend in medium sized markets towards orienting public radio schedules in favor of more popular and perhaps more accessible political and features programming and away from classical music whose audiences are aging according to market researchers . however the demand for the spoken word programs grew to the point that station officials decided to acquire the vanderbilt university owned student station wrvu and convert it into a full time classical music station wfcl on 91.1 fm on june 7 2011 . wpln thereafter became a full time news and talk station with feature programming on weekends . this action is similar to earlier ones involving public radio stations and college stations in san francisco and houston . history edit wpln began as a modest extension of the city s public library system beginning operations on december 17 1962 from the richland park library branch on charlotte avenue in west nashville . it broadcast a limited schedule almost entirely of classical music only on mondays through fridays and was only heard in and around the city of nashville proper . a year later nashville and davidson county merged to form a metropolitan government . the library and with it wpln became an arm of the new structure . in 1965 the library moved the station into the then newly constructed main library downtown it has since been replaced . by that time the station had begun operating a full seven days a week . the station was one of the 73 charter members of national public radio in 1970 one of the first public radio stations in the south to join the network . the station s website claims it joined npr in 1968 but this is incorrect ; npr was not founded until two years later . in 1972 wpln began broadcasting in stereo and at a full 100 000 watts of power . a talking library subchannel for blind and visually impaired residents of the area began in 1975 . schedule and programming expansion continued at a steady pace throughout the 1980s and 1990s while wpln s physical plant did not expand beyond a block of rooms in the library building . in order to rectify the space shortage and provide more extensive service to the community than was possible under the budgetary and bureaucratic constraints of the public library system the library board decided in 1995 to begin proceedings to release the station to an independent community board . the public library relinquished control of wpln fm on october 1 1996 to a group known as nashville public radio . the station eventually moved out of the library into a modern studio in the metrocenter area on may 24 1998 . the success of this move may have prompted the metropolitan nashville davidson county school system which operated public television outlet wdcn channel 8 to follow suit three years later . that station is now wnpt . wpln fm was one of only a few non commercial fm licenses held by a public library system in the u.s. in most cases libraries usually operate radio frequencies only for radio reading services like that mentioned above for the blind and visually impaired signals that are available only on special receivers . governance edit wpln is governed by a self perpetuating board of directors with a separate board of local residents who advise the board of directors on the needs of the listening area . digital broadcasting wpln hd2 wpln hd3 edit in addition to the main fm and am channels wpln now has two digital multicast stations 90.3 fm hd 2 and 90.3 fm hd 3 . initially 90.3 hd 2 featured primarily classical music and music programs such as the world cafe and echoes . in june 2011 following the launch of classical 91 one 90.3 hd 2 switched to carrying time shifted programming from wpln s main channel . on may 22 2014 after wpln discontinued wrvu from its hd3 channel and moved xponential radio from its hd2 channel to broadcasting full time on its hd3 channel wpln replaced its time shifted programming from wpln s main channel with a simulcast of its am sister station wpln am . xponential radio was previously heard on wpln hd2 every night to every morning from 6 pm 6 am . 90.3 hd 3 initially carried much of the same programming as wpln am . in june 2011 the hd 3 subchannel was temporarily silenced . on september 1 2011 at noon 90.3 hd 3 returned to the air returning the college alternative format of vanderbilt university s wrvu to the nashville airwaves . this lasted until may 22 2014 when wpln discontinued wrvu from its hd3 signal due to low raitings and replaced it with xponential radio . wrvu has now gone to be an internet only radio station . these multicast stations can be heard using a special hd radio receiver . 90.3 hd 2 can also be streamed on the internet through wpln s website and 90.3 hd 3 can be streamed on the internet through xponential radio s website . 3 sister stations edit in 2002 nashville public radio purchased an existing medium wave station to broadcast npr and local news talk and public affairs programs for which the fm did not originally have time on its schedule . the new wpln hd2 and hd3 have given middle tennessee residents even more choices of music and spoken word shows . for more information see wpln am . references edit http wpln.org page id 10957 http www.bizjournals.com nashville stories 2009 08 31 daily36.html http www.hdradio.com station guides widget.php id 33 hd radio guide for nashville external links edit official website wpln hd2 digital signal query the fcc s fm station database for wpln radio locator information on wpln query nielsen audio s fm station database for wpln v t e nashville tennessee radio stations by am frequency 560 650 760 790 830 880 900 980 1160 1200 1300 1360 1380 1430 1450 1470 1490 1510 by sw frequency 3.195 3.215 6.875 15.825 4.84 13.845 5.07 5.935 7.49 9.35 12.16 5.89 9.98 by fm frequency 88.1 88.3 88.5 88.7 94.5 99.3 89.1 89.5 89.9 90.3 90.7 91.1 91.7 92.1 92.5 92.9 93.7 94.1 94.5 94.9 95.5 95.9 96.3 97.1 97.9 98.3 98.7 98.9 99.7 100.1 100.5 101.1 101.5 101.9 102.1 102.5 102.9 103.3 104.5 104.9 105.1 105.9 106.7 107.1 107.5 107.9 noaa weather radio frequency 162.475 162.525 162.55 by callsign kig79 w214bq w235bw w240ca w252cm w263ai w270af want waym w233af w257ar wayw wboz wbuz wcjk wcor wcrt wcrt fm1 wcvq wecv weno wfcl wfcm fm wfcn wffh wffi wfsk fm wgfx wgns whew whpy fm wjna wjxa wkda wkdf wlac wlvu wmdb wmot wmts fm wnah wnfn wng631 wnqm wnrq wnsr wpln wpln fm wprt fm w271ab wqqk wqzq wrfn lp wrlt wrvw wsix fm wsm wsm fm wubt wvcp wvol wvwf wwcr wwtn wxk63 wxna lp wyfn defunct wrvu wsm fm 1941 1951 nearby radio markets bowling green chattanooga clarksville hopkinsville cookeville florence muscle shoals huntsville jackson see also list of radio stations in tennessee v t e radio stations in the cookeville tennessee market by fm frequency 88.5 90.9 91.7 93.7 94.7 95.9 98.5 100.9 104.7 106.9 by am frequency 780 860 920 1050 1400 1600 by callsign watx wbxe wgsq whrs whub wksw wkxd fm wliv wliv fm wlqk wptn wsmt wttu wtzx wwog nearby radio markets bowling green chattanooga knoxville lexington fayette louisville nashville see also list of radio stations in tennessee v t e npr member stations in the state of tennessee stations chattanooga wutc collegedale wsmc cookeville whrs jackson wknp johnson city wets knoxville wuot madison wpln memphis wkno murfreesboro wmot nashville wfcl nashville wpln tullahoma wtml see also list of npr stations see also adult contemporary classic hits college country news talk npr oldies religious rock sports top 40 urban other radio stations in tennessee retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title wpln fm & oldid 719795883 categories hd radio stationsradio stations in tennesseeradio stations in nashville tennesseenpr member stations navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main 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