WBGO

About WBGO

WBGO (88.3 FM, "Jazz 88") is the world's leading jazz public radio station — licensed to Newark, New Jersey and run by Newark Public Radio since 1979, it is the only full-time jazz station serving the New York metropolitan area.

WBGO's signal first went on the air in 1948, licensed to the Newark Board of Education. By the late 1970s the station was underutilized despite a powerful signal reaching some 20 million people. In 1979 graduate student Bob G. Ottenhoff — whose initials became the station's call-sign meaning — persuaded the Board of Education to transfer the license to the newly formed Newark Public Radio, making WBGO New Jersey's first public radio station and dedicating it to jazz with the nickname "The Jazz Source."

From a humble storefront studio in downtown Newark, WBGO grew into a globally recognized jazz institution. It collaborates with NPR and Jazz at Lincoln Center on programs such as "Jazz Night in America," supplies jazz content to NPR stations nationwide, and airs award-winning local news, public affairs, and children's programming alongside its around-the-clock jazz.

Today WBGO is owned by Newark Public Radio, a publicly supported nonprofit, and reaches 300,000-plus weekly listeners across New Jersey and New York at 88.3 FM, with its transmitter at 4 Times Square in Manhattan. Its studios sit on Park Place in downtown Newark. Its digital home is wbgo.org.