About Us

Alabama Public Radio is a network of public radio stations based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that serves roughly the western half of the state of Alabama with classical, folk, jazz, and nostalgic music programs, as well as local news and news and feature programs from National Public Radio, Public Radio International, and American Public Media networks.

Since the station is licensed to a The University of Alabama, students in the U. A. College of Communication and Information Sciences get opportunities for practical training in announcing and other varied production duties. Nonetheless, APR maintains a small professional staff, as well as several volunteer announcers from the larger community.

U. A. started WUAL-FM (91.5 FM) in January 1982 as the state's fifth public radio station. It emphasized service to the immediate western Alabama area in its first several years, since most of the region had no other access to the public radio medium. However, the university soon realized the potential for expansion into other parts of the state that similarly lacked NPR service.

Since Birmingham, Huntsville, southeastern Alabama, and Mobile already had existing stations, station and university officials focused on developing relay transmitters to send WUAL's signal into northwestern and south central Alabama. Thus, WQPR (88.7 FM), originally a joint project with the University of North Alabama in Florence, appeared in the late 1980s. It was followed in the early 1990s by WAPR (88.3 FM), which is jointly owned by Alabama State University, Troy University (both of which already held station licenses of their own) and UA. In September 2007, WQPR received a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to assist in its conversion from analog to digital broadcasting.

In 2011, due to the desire of licensee Spring Hill College to get out of public broadcasting, an existing station, WHIL-FM (91.3 FM) in Mobile, joined APR, effective July 1, 2011. 

Our studios and business office are located at The Digital Media Center, 920 Paul W. Bryant Drive, Gate 61 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  Our regular office hours are 8:00 a.m - 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday. Our business offices will be closed during most national holidays and during official University closings.

To reach us you may call 205-348-6644 or 800-654-4262.  If there is a technical problem you would like to report after hours, please use call the 800# and use the voice prompts so that your message is routed to our engineers.