WFCR 88.5 New England Public Radio - Amherst, MA

WFCR (88.5 FM) is a non-commercial radio station licensed to Amherst, Massachusetts. It serves as the National Public Radio (NPR) member station for Western Massachusetts, including Springfield.

The station operates at 13,000 watts ERP from a transmitter on Mount Lincoln in Pelham, Massachusetts, 968 feet (295 meters) above average terrain. The University of Massachusetts Amherst holds the license. The station airs NPR news programs during the morning and afternoon drive times and in the early evening. Middays and overnights are devoted to classical music and jazz is heard during the later evening hours. WFCR's broadcasting range extends to Western and Central Massachusetts, Northern Connecticut (including Hartford) as well as parts of Southern Vermont and Southern New Hampshire. WFCR's studios for most of its history were located at Hampshire House on the UMass campus. However, in 2013, the station moved most of its operations to the Fuller Building in downtown Springfield. The station signed on May 6, 1961, as a simulcast of WGBH-FM in Boston. By 1962, it had severed the electronic umbilical cord with WGBH-FM, and by 1964 it had expanded its local programming to 17 hours per day. The call letters originally represented "Four College Radio", becoming "Five College Radio" in 1966. It is a charter member of NPR, and was one of the stations that carried the initial broadcast of NPR's All Things Considered. While UMass has held the license since 1967, when it was acquired from the WGBH Educational Foundation, WFCR has always received funding from the Five Colleges (UMass Amherst, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College and Hampshire College) as well as from fund drives conducted periodically over the air. Since 2011, WFCR and sister station 640 AM WNNZ have called themselves New England Public Radio. WFCR claims the distinction of being the first radio station in Western Massachusetts to transmit a signal using iBiquity's HD Radio system. It airs two digital streams. The first is a simulcast of the analog signal, the second is a 24-hour classical music station. On April 11, 2019, WFCR announced that it would consolidate operations with WGBH-owned PBS station WGBY-TV (channel 57) under the New England Public Media banner, effective in July. UMass will retain the WFCR license, and the New England Public Radio Foundation will retain the licenses to WNNZ and its satellites; NEPM will operate the stations under program service operating agreements.