WBGO Jazz 88.3 FMWBGO Jazz 88.3 FM

WBGO went on air in 1979 as New Jersey's first public radio station, started by an urban think tank that had come together in Newark to rebuild the city after the riots of 1967. Its founders persuaded the Newark Public School System board to hand over a broadcast licence it was barely using, and within a year the station had affiliated with NPR and moved to a twenty-four hour day. It has broadcast from Newark ever since, ten minutes and one river away from Manhattan and the clubs.

The format has been jazz and blues throughout, presented by hosts rather than programmed by a clock, and it now reaches close to 300,000 listeners a week across the New York and New Jersey metro. WBGO co-produces Jazz Night in America with NPR and Jazz at Lincoln Center and feeds jazz coverage to NPR nationally, which makes it less a local station than an institution.