WBKY/WUKY Radio
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
WBKY/WUKY. UK initiated radio broadcasting in 1929 in cooperation with WHAS radio in Louisville. Each weekday, live musical and educational programs were broadcast from the campus studios over WHAS. Later, WHAS and UK started radio "listening centers" in eastern Ky. Battery-powered radios gave residents public access to educational programs. Class of 1995. (Reverse) WBKY/WUKY - In 1941, UK initiated radio broadcasting in Beattyville, Ky. WBKY broadcast educational programming for local residents. In 1944 UK established a radio station on the campus and WBKY began broadcasting from McVey Hall. Station call letters were changed from WBKY to WUKY in 1989. WBKY/WUKY is the oldest university-owned FM station in U.S. and Ky.'s first public radio station. Class of 1995.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
The University of Kentucky began radio broadcasting in 1929 in cooperation with Louisville's WHAS, airing live musical and educational programs from campus studios, and the two later set up battery-powered "listening centers" that brought educational programming to eastern Kentucky. UK launched WBKY in Beattyville in 1941 and moved the station to campus in McVey Hall in 1944; the call letters changed to WUKY in 1989. WBKY/WUKY is the oldest university-owned FM station in the United States and Kentucky's first public radio station.
Why it matters
The station pioneered educational broadcasting and rural media access, marking an early chapter in the public and university radio that shaped American communications.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the late 1920s, radio was the astonishing new technology reshaping American life. Families gathered around a set in the evening the way earlier generations had gathered around a hearth, and voices and music could suddenly cross distances that had always isolated rural communities.
Kentucky in this era faced a stubborn challenge: much of the state was rural and mountainous, with towns tucked into hollows far from the cultural and educational resources of the cities. Getting information—and schooling—to those communities was slow and difficult.
The University of Kentucky, in Lexington, saw in this new medium a tool that fit its mission as a public, land-grant institution. If the university couldn't bring every Kentuckian to campus, perhaps it could send the campus out over the air.
People & events
It began in 1929, when UK teamed up with WHAS radio in Louisville. Each weekday, live musical and educational programs went out from the campus studios and over WHAS's signal—the university lending the content, the established station lending the reach.
Then came an especially inventive step. UK and WHAS set up radio "listening centers" in eastern Kentucky, equipping communities with battery-powered radios. In places where electricity itself was scarce, those battery sets meant residents could still gather to hear educational programming. It was a deliberate act of bridging the gap between the university and the mountains.
The next chapter moved from partnership to ownership. In 1941, UK launched its own broadcasting in Beattyville under the call letters WBKY, carrying educational programming to local residents. In 1944 the university established a station on campus, and WBKY began broadcasting from McVey Hall. Decades later, in 1989, the call letters changed to WUKY, the name it carries today.
Its place in the American story
WBKY/WUKY holds a genuine national distinction: it is the oldest university-owned FM station in the United States, and it was Kentucky's first public radio station. That's not a small footnote—it places this Lexington campus near the very origins of two intertwined American traditions, university broadcasting and public radio.
The deeper significance is the idea behind it. Long before the phrase "digital divide" existed, UK was wrestling with the same essential problem: how to deliver knowledge to people the highways and school buildings couldn't easily reach. The battery-powered listening centers were an early, hands-on answer.
That impulse—using the newest communications technology not just to entertain but to educate and to include the isolated—runs straight through the story of American public and educational media. This station was there near the beginning of it.
If you visit
A visit here is really a visit to a campus and a city, so let the marker reframe how you see them. Lexington reads today as a modern university town; the marker reminds you that some of that campus was, a lifetime ago, a broadcasting frontier.
Look for the setting near the University of Kentucky, and picture McVey Hall as a place where a signal first went out to listeners across the state. The technology was cutting-edge; the studios were homegrown.
This is a stop that fits a road trip about innovation, education, or the everyday history of media. It pairs naturally with the rest of Lexington's landmarks—an easy addition that adds an unexpected layer, the story of how a state university once used the airwaves to reach the hollows it couldn't otherwise touch.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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