area greater boston branding 90.9 wbur slogan boston s npr news station frequency 90.9 mhz also on hd radio repeater s see table first air date march 1 1950 1 format news talk erp 12 000 watts haat 305 metres 1 001 feet class b facility id 68241 transmitter coordinates 42 18 27.00 n 71 13 27.00 w 42.3075000 n 71.2241667 w 42.3075000 ; 71.2241667 wbur fm callsign meaning boston university radio former callsigns wbur 1950 1997 affiliations npr public radio international owner boston university the trustees of boston university webcast listen live pls mp3 ogg vorbis website wbur.org wbur fm 90.9 fm is a public radio station located in boston massachusetts owned by boston university . wbur is the largest 2 of three npr member stations in boston along with wgbh and wumb fm . wbur produces several nationally distributed programs including car talk on point only a game here and now and open source and previously produced the connection which was canceled on august 5 2005 . radioboston launched in 2007 is wbur s only purely local show . wbur s positioning statement is boston s npr news station . wbur also carries its programming on two other stations serving cape cod and the islands wbuh 89.1 fm in brewster 3 and wbua 92.7 fm in tisbury . the latter station located on martha s vineyard uses the frequency formerly occupied by wmvy . 4 5 6 in 1998 wbur helped launch wrni in providence rhode island the first npr station within rhode island s borders . it has since sold the station to a local group . contents 1 programming 2 history 2.1 cape cod 2.2 rhode island 2.3 pro israel boycott 3 repeaters 3.1 current 3.2 former 4 see also 5 references 6 external links programming edit the wbur fm information booth at the 2015 boston book festival . wbur programs on point only a game and here and now are carried nationwide in the us on hundreds of public radio stations and on xm radio s public radio station xm public radio . in total wbur produces more than 25 hours of news and programming each week . on point is two hour discussion show hosted by tom ashbrook broadcast from 10 am to noon on weekdays with two hourly segments devoted to separate topics . often one hour long block will focus on a political issue and the other will focus on arts and culture . on point began as special programming in the aftermath of the 9 11 attacks originally airing from 7 pm to 9 pm . it took over the time slot of the similar the connection when that show was canceled in 2005 . on point is rebroadcast each day from 7 pm to 9 pm . here and now is a news and culture digest show hosted by jeremy hobson and robin young normally consisting of several interview segments with reporters authors artists and statesmen . it began as a regional and local show but soon expanded to cover national and international issues . the show is broadcast on wbur on weekdays from noon to 2 pm and is syndicated nationally by more than 400 other npr member stations . open source is a weekly show hosted by christopher lydon former new york times journalist and original host of the connection . the show focuses on the arts literature and foreign affairs . in 2007 wbur launched radio boston a weekly radio show featuring longtime boston journalist david boeri . the show was later hosted by jane clayson johnson as a one hour discussion and interview though boeri still introduced each show with a report from the field . in 2010 radio boston expanded to broadcast monday through friday and the program now airs from 3 pm to 4 pm . in the fall of 2010 new host meghna chakrabarti went on maternity leave and was temporarily replaced by wbur reporter sacha pfeiffer . chakrabarti has returned and is currently co hosting the show with anthony brooks . only a game is a weekly sports program broadcast saturdays at 7 am and 7 pm . the show is hosted by bill littlefield and is syndicated to about 210 affiliate stations by national public radio . the wide ranging program describes itself as irreverent and often covers sports from a human interest angle rather than appealing directly to a particular fan base . on sunday evenings at 9 pm wbur also broadcasts a show entitled boston university s world of ideas . the show features academics and intellectuals presenting lectures and answering questions on issues of national or global importance . the 3 minute comedy sketch series 11 central ave broadcast on wbez in chicago was for a time recorded at wbur . 7 history edit wbur first went on the air march 1 1950 . initially most of wbur s staff were boston university students and the station broadcast a number of bu sporting events . by the 1970s wbur began receiving funding from the corporation for public broadcasting and became a public radio station with a professional staff . 1 bu students continued programming on a low power am transmitter serving the bu campus . the wbur studios remain on the bu campus on commonwealth avenue in boston . during the 1970s and 1980s the station had several jazz music and classical music programs . the disc jockeys demonstrated a broad knowledge of composers performers and the execution of jazz demonstrating familiarity with such matters as improvisation and shared this with listeners . 1 8 noteworthy jazz and classical disc jockeys included dennis boyer classical fm in the pm steve elman jazz spaces tony cennamo jazz new morning and subsequently a night time show james isaacs jazz and jose masso latin con salsa . at the end of the 1980s wbur began replacing many of its music programs with news and information programming from npr public radio international and the bbc . this brought wbur into head on competition with another major boston area npr station wgbh . wgbh eventually decided to retain a mostly music classical music daytime jazz nights and cultural programming format wbur s former territory although wgbh did broadcast npr s morning edition and all things considered . by the early 1990s with the exception of con salsa on saturday nights wbur had adopted an around the clock news and information format . numerous npr member stations have since followed wbur s lead and eliminated music programming in favor of news and information programming including rival wgbh which transferred classical music programming to wcrb following its acquisition in 2009 though it continued to program jazz at night until july 2012 ; since then wgbh has only aired a few hours of jazz on weekends . by 2009 the majority of npr member stations were programming 24 7 news and information formats . citation needed cape cod edit during the 1990s wbur began expanding onto cape cod . in 1992 it partnered with cape cod regional technical high school to air wbur programming over its wcct fm when students were not on the air . the following year wbur reached similar arrangements with wsdh 91.5 fm at sandwich high school and wkkl 90.7 fm at cape cod community college . in 1997 auto dealer ernie boch sr. donated wuok 1240 am in west yarmouth which had been simulcasting wxtk to boston university which changed its call letters to wbur and made it a full time satellite of wbur fm which added the fm suffix to accommodate the west yarmouth station . the 1240 am signal is older than the boston flagship station having signed on as wocb in 1940 . wbur programming was then dropped from wkkl in 1999 as the 1240 am signal can be heard in much of wkkl s coverage area . 1 on november 27 2012 wbur announced that it would acquire wmvy 92.7 fm in tisbury on martha s vineyard to serve as an additional satellite 9 under the call letters of wbua . 6 the transaction was completed on february 8 2013 ; at midnight that night wbua began to carry the wbur schedule . 10 wmvy s adult album alternative programming continues through an online stream run by a nonprofit not associated with wbur . 10 11 the acquisition of wbua rendered the 1240 am facility redundant ; on august 5 2013 bu announced that it would be sold to alex langer who will program it with portuguese language programming similar to that of another langer station wsro . 12 13 the call letters of 1240 am were changed to wbas on february 1 2014 14 two days after bu and langer agreed to a time brokerage agreement . 15 soon afterward wsdh also dropped wbur s programming . wbur added another cape cod satellite on may 23 2014 with the sign on of wbuh in brewster ; this station broadcasts at a higher power than other noncommercial stations on cape cod allowing it to serve the majority of the region the exception is the falmouth area which is within wbua s coverage area . bu had sought to build a station on cape cod since 2004 and applied for the 89.1 facility in brewster in 2007 but in march 2011 the federal communications commission issued the construction permit to home improvement ministries who subsequently sold the permit to bu . 3 rhode island edit in 1998 wbur helped to found rhode island s npr station wrni . at the time rhode island was one of two states lacking an npr station . wbur decided to partner with the newly formed foundation for ocean state public radio to build a state of the art facility at historic union station in downtown providence . initially wbur invested heavily in wrni s local programming but several of these programs were soon canceled . in 2004 wbur announced suddenly that it planned to drop wrni by selling it raising a number of questions . rhode islanders were angry at the thought that they would be forced to buy a station they had invested greatly in creating . it was later revealed that the wbur management believed wrni was a financial drain and wished to get rid of it . the resulting management turmoil caused the departure of longtime wbur station manager jane christo . wrni has since moved towards independence and is now mostly autonomous although it still carries a great deal of wbur programming . pro israel boycott edit between 2001 and june 2002 wbur estimated that it lost between 1 2 million 16 due to the loss of at least six underwriters and a number of small donors 17 due to a boycott launched by jewish groups who charged that npr coverage of the middle east was biased against israel . 18 boston is a major center for the american jewish community and this made israel a particularly sensitive subject . the boycott started in october 2001 when two boston area businesses ended contracts wordsworth books now defunct in cambridge massachusetts and cognex corp. in nearby natick massachusetts . the two businesses were reportedly tied with the advocacy group committee for accuracy in middle east reporting in america camera a persistent critic of npr s coverage for almost a decade . 19 camera has demonstrated outside national public radio npr stations in 33 cities in the united states . the camera boycott also extended to the new york times and washington post . fairness and accuracy in reporting and explicitly pro palestinian organizations have made contradictory accusations of a pro israel bias in npr s coverage or imbalance in particular stories . npr s ombudsman and an independent reviewer appointed by the agency found lack of completeness but strong factual accuracy and no systematic bias in reporting on the controversial issue . 20 further information npr controversies allegations of