WBFO-FM 88.7 — the region’s largest provider of National Public Radio news — has been sold to the WNED family of public radio and television.
WNED will pay the University at Buffalo $4 million for the licenses to operate WBFO, and its two sister stations in the Southern Tier — WUBJ-FM 88.1 in Jamestown and WOLN-FM 91.3 in Olean.
All three stations — which serve about 90,000 listeners from Western New York and Southern Ontario each week — will retain their call letters and continue to operate on the same frequencies.
It was not immediately clear how the sale might affect staffing. The two organizations are still working out the integration of services.
The sale, announced this afternoon, also is subject to state and federal approval.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to create a more efficient service to the community and offer a more comprehensive program schedule,” Donald K. Boswell, WNED’s president and chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement. “These two big names in public radio are joining forces.”
Management and board members from both organizations have been talking for months about merging the two entities.
UB will use the proceeds of the sale to provide student scholarships and support for faculty research, said UB’s Marsha Henderson.
“The University at Buffalo is putting WBFO in the hands of a community-based organization with an outstanding track record in public broadcasting,” Henderson said. “Radio isn’t a new business to WNED. They are already committed to radio and will continue to be so. We are confident that WBFO will thrive in its new home.”
WNED affirmed its commitment to continuing a full schedule of NPR programs on WBFO, including the popular news programs “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”
WBFO-FM was founded in 1959 by a group of students and faculty members at the then-private University of Buffalo. It was one of the charter founding members of National Public Radio in 1970.
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