WFMU 91.1WFMU 91.1

WFMU first broadcast on 24 April 1958 as the campus station of Upsala College in East Orange, running lectures, Lutheran services and classical records. A student volunteer named Vin Scelsa broke the format in 1967 with a programme called The Closet, and freeform took over from there. When Upsala went bankrupt and closed in 1995, station staff and supporters formed Auricle Communications and bought the licence outright rather than let the station die alongside the college that owned it.

It has been independent and listener-funded ever since, and is the longest-running freeform station in the country. DJs get complete control of their own hours, which produces shows moving through underground rock, noise, outsider music and things with no genre at all. The absence of a playlist is not a quirk here; it is the entire editorial position.