In the early 1980s the Commonwealth of Virginia determined that no state agency should own a radio station, prompting Virginia Western Community College to look for a non-state agency to operate its radio station. The Virginia Tech Foundation saw this as an opportunity to keep the station on the air and to enhance public perception and recognition of Virginia Tech across the state as well as giving the university another link to the Roanoke Valley.

Today WVTF provides listeners with classical, jazz, and NPR programs broadcast from the state of the art studio in Roanoke, Virginia. Its companion station, RADIO IQ, broadcasts BBC and NPR news, talk, and discussion programs and, coupled with WVTF, are the public radio broadcast services of Virginia Tech. With support from the Virginia Tech Foundation, WVTF has been able to offer the highest quality of broadcasting to a weekly audience of nearly 170,000 listeners in central and southwest Virginia, southern West Virginia, and northern North Carolina, with hundreds more listening online and through mobile devices.

WVTF moved into its current studio in 2003, and since then has opened a Charlottesville satellite studio and office, installed an antenna in Richmond, Virginia to tap into the nation’s 55th largest radio market, and expanded its services into several other areas of the state including Lexington, Lexington-Rockbridge County area, and southwest Virginia from Emory to Bristol.

WVTF Public Radio Website >>