Chicago Public Media

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Chicago Public Media is a not-for-profit media company that operates as the primary National Public Radio member organization for Chicago. It owns three non-commercial educational FM broadcast stations and one FM translator, and produces the programs Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! for NPR stations, This American Life which is self-distributed but uses PRX for distribution to other radio stations, and Sound Opinions for PRX. CPM is based at Navy Pier in Chicago.

The organization was started to take over the operation of 91.5 WBEZ from the Chicago Board of Education in 1990. Until April 2010, the company's legal name was The WBEZ Alliance, Inc. and it used the name Chicago Public Radio for its primary radio station and corporate identity.^[1]

On June 22, 2012, it was announced that CPM had purchased troubled WRTE-FM from National Museum of Mexican Art. In September 2021, Chicago Public Media and the Chicago Sun-Times announced that they had signed a non-binding agreement to allow Chicago Public Media to acquire the paper.^[2]

Radio stations[]

• 91.5 WBEZ is Chicago's main public radio station. CPM and WBEZ were both known as "Chicago Public Radio" in the past. It is rebroadcast by 90.7 WBEQ in Morris, 91.1 WBEK in Kankakee, and translators 91.1 W216CL in Chicago and 91.7 FM W219CD in Elgin.
• 89.5 WBEW at Chesterton, Indiana is the radio station of "Vocalo", a user-created content project in which people send in their own content to be played on 89.5 or across Internet streaming. From 2002 to 2007 it was a rebroadcaster of WBEZ as well.
• 90.7 WRTE is a jazz music station in Chicago.

Productions[]

• Chicago Amplified — a web-based audio archive of educational events in Chicago
• Off-Air Series — non-broadcast events held around the Chicago area
• Odyssey — a daily talk show from 2001 to 2005
• Sound Opinions — a rock music talk show with news, interviews, commentary, and performances; distributed by Public Radio Exchange; previously on 93.1 WXRT
• This American Life — a radio magazine based around a theme in each episode. The show is now self-distributed but uses Public Radio Exchange to send episodes to radio stations.;^[3] the related TV show with the same name for 2 seasons from 2007 to 2009
• Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! — a comedy quiz show co-produced with National Public Radio and distributed through NPR
• Worldview — a daily international-affairs program

See also[]

• Third Coast International Audio Festival — formerly part of CPR; its program Re:sound still airs on WBEZ

References[]

External links[]

• Chicago Public Media — official website