WAER 88.3 FM

A non-commercial radio station licensed to Syracuse University and operated under the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Broadcasting on 88.3 MHz, the station transmits from a tower atop Day Hall on campus and carries a dual format of jazz music and National Public Radio programming. News, sports play-by-play coverage of Syracuse Orange athletics, and music programming run around the clock, staffed by a combination of full-time professionals and up to 50 student employees per semester. The station traces its origins to April 1, 1947, when an experimental educational FM broadcaster signed on at 88.1 MHz under the call sign WJIV-FM as a practical workshop for university radio students, becoming the first Class D educational station in the nation. Within months, the call letters changed to WAER, an acronym honoring Alpha Epsilon Rho, the radio honorary society; the letters were also interpreted colloquially as Always Excellent Radio. Financial support from General Electric helped establish early studio infrastructure. Over the decades, the station has served as a training ground for prominent broadcasting figures, including Bob Costas, Mike Tirico, Ted Koppel, Nick Wright, Dick Clark, and Jerry Stiller. Musician Lou Reed hosted a free-format program on the station during his time as a student at the university. That free-format tradition was later continued by the separate student-run station WERW. WAER manages news, sports, and music departments and produces programming that blends locally originated content with NPR network offerings.