Radio HPM News 88.7 (KUHF)

KUHF is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 88.7 megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by the University of Houston System, and is licensed to and operated by the University of Houston. It shares broadcast facilities with—but is independent from—KUHT, Houston's PBS television station.KUHF first began airing programs on November 6, 1950 at the 91.3 megahertz frequency. Broadcasting at 9,600 watts, the station was operated by student volunteers. The station increased its signal strength to 12,000 watts in 1969. In the following year, the station began broadcasting at 88.7 megahertz, in order to reduce interference with KLYX (now KMJQ). The station finally began broadcasting at 100,000 watts in 1979, after receiving a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This grant also allowed the station to hire a professional staff, as well as become a National Public Radio member station.Between 1979 and March, 1986, KUHF's format was NPR news and jazz. In 1986 local commercial classical music station KLEF changed its format and donated its 12,000+ disc library of music to KUHF, with the proviso that the University of Houston commit KUHF to a format that served Houston's classical music audience, recently disenfranchised by the loss of KLEF. The current format on FM 88.7 consists primarily of classical music and news programming from National Public Radio and American Public Media. In addition, it airs many public radio staples, such as Car Talk and A Prairie Home Companion.In September 2006, KUHF began broadcasting in HD Radio offering three channels of digital programming in addition to the analog FM: HD channel one offers the same programming as is heard on FM, while HD channel two "mirrors" FM/HD-1 by offering classical music during times the other channel is playing news and informational programming and vice-versa. In this fashion, KUHF HD listeners can receive either NPR news/information or classical music any time of day or night, 24/7. HD Channel 3 carries AHORA, Spanish language programming co-produced by NPR and Radio Netherlands Worldwide.KUHF relaunched its website in March 2008, and now offers world-wide Internet radio channels of KUHF-News and KUHF-Classical, plus new on-demand listening options, such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition, The Front Row, and Marketplace available with local content included.As of March 2008, a mobile site with news and weather is available at www.kuhf.org/mobileOn August 17, 2010, the University of Houston System announced its intent to purchase the broadcast tower, FM frequency and license of KTRU (91.7 FM) from Rice University. KUHF's 88.7 FM frequency would be converted to an all-news format (KUHF News) and the 91.7 frequency would contain classical music and fine arts programming (91.7 FM Classical), with the proposed call letters KUHC.