John F. Kennedy in a 1951 interview with WBUR (Boston University Photography)
WBUR-FM went on the air at 4 p.m. on March 1, 1950, as a 400-watt non-commercial educational station licensed to Boston University. In its early years, the WBUR staff comprised amateurs, professionals, volunteers and students.
Through the 1960s, more and more radio professionals joined WBUR and gradually transformed the station’s format. By 1971, WBUR had enough full-time employees to qualify for status as a public radio station and applied to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for certification.
In 1980, the station began to receive programming from NPR via satellite. By 1982, WBUR had established its identity as a news station, with NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered broadcast each weekday and local news programming produced by a staff of young reporters.
These changes coincided with the significant recognition WBUR began to receive at the local and national levels. In 1984, the station won three Associated Press awards for news coverage. In May 1986, WBUR won the 1985 George Foster Peabody Award, the most prestigious national award for broadcasters, for “Liberation Remembered,” a four-part series on the Holocaust. WBUR has won the Peabody Award twice more since then, including an award for Car Talk in 1993.
In March 1999, WBUR-FM was named “News Station of the Year” by the New England Associated Press, an award it has since received three times from both the Regional AP and the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Bob Oakes has hosted WBUR's "Morning Edition" since 1992.
Today, WBUR broadcasts with an effective radiated power of 40,000 watts and the station has continued to grow substantially in size and stature. Two daily programs are broadcast live from our Boston studios and distributed nationwide on NPR member stations: On Point, hosted by Tom Ashbrook (10 a.m. to 12 noon, Monday through Friday; rebroadcast 7 to 9 p.m.), and Here & Now, hosted by Robin Young (12 noon to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday). In addition to these award-winning programs is another daily offering, Radio Boston, hosted by Anthony Brooks and Meghna Chakrabarti (3 to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday). Two other shows are also broadcast from WBUR studios on a weekly basis: the fêted Car Talk, with “Tappet Brothers” Tom and Ray Magliozzi, and Only A Game, hosted by Bill Littlefield.
Car Talk, distributed by NPR, is heard on more than 350 stations nationwide and is one of NPR’s most popular offerings. NPR assumed national distribution of Only A Game in 1997 and of On Point in 2004. Public Radio International began distributing Here & Now in 2005 to NPR affiliates nationwide.
Acclaim For WBUR And WBUR.org
Over the past decade, WBUR has garnered numerous prestigious awards both for its news coverage and its website, wbur.org. This includes recognition from RTNDA, CPB, Public Radio News Directors, the Public Radio Program Directors Incorporated (PRNDI), the Massachusetts Broadcasters’ Association, Ohio State University, Columbia University, the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association and many other professional and academic groups.
Recently, these awards have included the 2011 National Edward R. Murrow Award for “Best Large Market Radio Website” and the 2010 National Edward R. Murrow Award for “Overall Excellence.” Additionally, in 2010 and 2009, WBUR won dozens of regional RTDNA and AP first-place awards.
