About WFDD
88.5 WFDD is the NPR station for the Piedmont Triad. We've been on the air since 1948, and we're licensed to Wake Forest University.
Find us
- 88.5 FMPiedmont Triad & Southern Virginia
- 100.1 FMBoone area
You can also stream us, use the WFDD app or ask your smart speaker. Here's how.
Coverage
Our main tower is in northern Davidson County. You'll usually get a clear signal from Mount Airy to Asheboro and from Statesville to Burlington, and often farther.
- Strong signal
- Good signal
- Fringe: reception varies
Who we are
WFDD's newsroom covers Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point and the communities around them. The rest of the day you'll hear NPR, the BBC and other public radio programs.
We were North Carolina's first NPR member station, and we've been broadcasting continuously longer than any other public radio station in the state. We belong to the North Carolina Public Radio Association, and we're a service of Wake Forest University.
Mission: Inform. Connect. Educate. Inspire.
Vision: 88.5 WFDD will be the most valued source of news and information in the Piedmont Triad, Northwest North Carolina, and Southern Virginia communities. We will be an indispensable community partner, working collaboratively with regional groups and organizations to further a deeper engagement with the community, and supporting arts and culture throughout our region. We will commit ourselves to maintaining relevance in a changing environment.
History
“This is station W-A-K-E coming to you from the campus of Wake Forest College in Wake Forest, North Carolina…”
Those were the first words on the air in the fall of 1946. Two students, Al Parris and Randy Randall, were broadcasting illegally from their rooming house with five watts. The signal carried about 300 feet. Students in the girls' dormitory could barely hear it.
- 1948
- Students raised $200 and got an FCC license. Brothers David and Ralph Herring built a 50-watt transmitter from diagrams in an electronics book, and the station signed on April 19. Someone else already had the call letters WAKE, so within a month it became WFDD, for Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
- 1956
- The college moved to Winston-Salem, and the station came along. Students ran it for its first ten years.
- 1958
- Dr. Julian Burroughs, who'd been student station manager in 1950-51, came back as the first non-student manager. He stayed until 1981.
- 1961
- WFDD became a non-commercial educational FM station.
- 1967
- Listeners helped pay for a new antenna and a 36,000-watt transmitter. WFDD became the first FM stereo station in Winston-Salem.
- 1970
- WFDD joined National Public Radio as a charter member, the first station in North Carolina to do so.
- 1982
- A 100,000-watt transmitter went on the air. A tornado destroyed it on May 5, 1989.
- Today
- We broadcast around the clock from a 60,000-watt tower in northern Davidson County. This year marks 80 years since that first broadcast. See our 80th anniversary.
Independence
Wake Forest holds our broadcast license and supports the station. In its Statement of Integrity, the university commits to giving station management the freedom to make editorial decisions, free from undue or improper influence.
Read the Statement of Integrity
WFDD is a unit of Wake Forest University, which, like many other institutions of higher education nationally, views broadcasting as participatory in the mission and work of the University through provision of services to the public, which are educational in the best and broadest sense. Wake Forest has nurtured and supported WFDD from its inauguration, and WFDD is an integral part of University planning for the future. Public broadcasting is rooted in the constitutional guarantees of a free press and free speech. The Radio Act of 1927 articulates the basic policy that broadcasters operate in “the public interest, convenience and necessity.” Thus, Wake Forest University holds a federal broadcast license for the purpose of providing services for the public.
Public broadcast stations are qualified by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and are subject to a variety of federal and state statutory and regulatory requirements. Wake Forest University and WFDD are jointly committed to respect and follow the business and legal frameworks within which our station operates.
In providing its public service, WFDD produces and broadcasts a wide range of programming of the highest professionalism and quality. The University is committed to maintaining the full confidence of the public in the editorial integrity of our news and programming, and to assuring all citizens that station management has the freedom necessary to provide WFDD's services effectively. Editorial integrity in this context is defined as the responsible application by professional practitioners of a free and independent decision making process ultimately accountable to the needs and interests of all citizens.
We recognize that as surely as programming is WFDD's purpose and the product by which our audiences judge the value of the station, that judgment continues to depend upon their confidence that our programming is free from undue or improper influence. We underline the importance of this issue and reaffirm University support and assistance to WFDD so that the station continues to meet this criterion in a responsible and efficient way.
In keeping with our responsibilities, the University will:
- Continue to create the culture and sense of direction which assure that WFDD's mission of providing high quality programming remains paramount.
- Enable professional management to operate in a way which assures full public confidence in WFDD's financial and editorial integrity.
- Support WFDD's management in its responsible exercise of activities necessary to achieve the full WFDD mission effectively.
Contact
Call 336-758-3083, or use the contact page. Got a story idea? Send a news tip.
WFDD is listener-supported. If you value what you hear, make a gift.