For Immediate Release
CONTACT: Jim Motavalli at 203-610-0549
According to the New Yorker, WPKN is “The Greatest Radio Station in the World”
In a “Talk of the Town” article for the August 23 New Yorker magazine, writer David Owen calls free-form WPKN in Bridgeport, CT (89.5 FM) “the greatest radio station in the world.”
Owen writes, “Depending on when you tune in, you might hear a Stevie Wonder song performed by an all-women jazz septet, or a dozen different covers of the same Bob Marley song, or twenty minutes of Tuvan throat singing, or a totally addictive cut by the group that the founder of Morphine founded before he founded Morphine…Because the shifts are staggered and the playlists are not generated by a corporate algorithm, you can be reasonably certain that, if you hear a song you don’t like, you’ll never have to hear it again. The station also has talk shows that no one would mistake for ‘Fox & Friends.’”
Station Manager Steve di Costanzo said, “It’s validation for what we do. It’s amazing. WPKN has been called a lot of things—iconic, strange, free-form and confusing. But I think the New Yorker is spot on to say that WPKN is the ‘greatest radio station in the world.’”
Program Director Valerie Richardson said, “I listen to WPKN every day, and I’m constantly amazed what I hear. The passion and creativity of our programmers is there for the world to hear every minute of the day. We hope people from around the world tune in online.” Listeners can stream the station from anywhere via the WPKNLive mobile app or listen at WPKN.org.
To fund its move to new quarters at Bijou Square in downtown Bridgeport (which will happen by late September or early October), the station is soliciting donations as part of the WPKN 2021 Move Capital Campaign. Listeners can sponsor a shelf in the WPKN library, help fund the exterior sign, or even get naming rights to the studios. The new location is right above the acclaimed Bijou Theatre, which is expected to be a collaborator in many ventures going forward.
WPKN, majority funded by its listeners (with some grants), will be the subject of a full-length documentary film, to be released in the early fall. Says director Cob Carlson, “WPKN gives its programmers a tremendous amount of creative freedom to produce great radio in whatever way they choose. That was one of the things that enticed me to do the film.”
Although WPKN has a 10,000-watt broadcast signal, it can be—and is—streamed by devoted listeners around the world. That’s one reason the station has consistently been able to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year it needs to stay on the air. WPKN is so different from the radio that people are used to on the rest of the dial that, once discovered, it remains their top listening choice. Give the station a chance—you’ll get hooked, too!