This report was created in TAPSCAN using the following Radio information: LOUISVILLE; JUN22 (APR-JUN); Metro; M-Su 5A-5A ; P 12+; Station Combos Used: *LPM = WFPK-FM,WFPL-FM,WUOL-FM; See Detailed Sourcing Page for Complete Details. Copyright © 2023 The Nielsen Company. All rights reserved.

89.3 WFPL News Louisville is your trusted and reliable source for civic news that affects you, your neighborhood, your city and your state. WFPL is an independent, nonpartisan news outlet that provides you with the essential news and resources you need to understand and make decisions about our community and our world. We do fact-based reporting that is free from political and corporate influence. We produce and distribute daily journalism online and through broadcast and digital audio. We are the NPR affiliate serving Greater Louisville, Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Additionally, we collaborate to serve a statewide audience through the Kentucky Public Radio Network.

90.5 WUOL Classical Louisville brings the beauty and relaxation of classical music to your homes, offices, cars and anywhere you are. With 24/7 classical music and fine arts features, interviews and event listings, we offer a unique local connection. We champion area artists and cultural institutions, and we offer an escape from our raucous world with music that feeds the soul and expertise that illuminates the art. We work to reverse practices that excluded and marginalized music and artists of color. And we offer free, hands-on music education to tens of thousands of young people in local schools and community centers each year.

The friendly and knowledgeable voices at 91.9 WFPK Music Louisville highlight our local arts and music scene — on the radio, at WFPK Waterfront Wednesday® and at the many concerts we present across the community. The 24-hour listener-supported, noncommercial radio station is an award-winning hub for independent, adult alternative music and American gems like jazz and bluegrass. We introduce you to significant new music, connect you to Louisville’s best and play your long-time favorites for an eclectic mix that can’t be heard anywhere else. We also offer special community programming like Mental Health Days and 502unes.

The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom that produces investigative journalism that impacts you, your neighborhood and your Commonwealth. Our mission is to protect society’s most vulnerable citizens, expose wrongdoing in the public and private sectors, increase transparency in government and hold leaders accountable. We dig for the truth without fear or favor, cut through red tape and spark public conversation. KyCIR is a Peabody Award-winning newsroom that produces investigations for the web, radio, podcasts and more. We partner with local, regional and national newsrooms to expand the impact of our work.

In 2022, we launched our most comprehensive and interactive digital voter guide for the midterm elections. We provided a customized guide by address, so you could access trustworthy information to make your decisions at the polls, from school board to legislative races and ballot initiatives. The guide included an option to mark your selections and take a printed guide with you to the polls. We promoted the voter guide with outdoor boards and mailed printed copies to west Louisville registered voters through our partnership with the Google News Initiative. The digital guide had more than 30,000 unique pageviews. We also worked through our partners at the Kentucky Public Radio Network to create a statewide guide.

Each year, your Kentucky lawmakers make hundreds of votes, but the record of how they voted is not easy to access or understand. LPM Data Reporter, Justin Hicks, designed a program to scrape hundreds of documents to produce an easy-to-use, voting record database. This searchable database shows how state lawmakers voted on some of the most high-profile bills that became laws this year. The bills include legislation focused on critical issues such as the economy, schools, LGBTQ+ rights, health and the environment. Search by lawmaker or find out who your lawmakers are with our Legislative Vote Tracker.

Following a Greater Louisville Project report on youth violence, LPM partnered with Louisville Magazine and the Center for Interfaith Relations for a community discussion, “Faith in Justice: How do we create a safer city for Louisville Youth?” Attendees shared their insights, experiences and expertise during a discussion about the spike in gun violence involving Louisville youth.

WFPK and Waterfront Park kicked off the 21st season of Waterfront Wednesday in April 2023. These free concerts are a signature community event, drawing thousands to Waterfront Park and helping Louisville secure an international award as a top city for festivals. This year’s lineup included Durand Jones, Charley Crockett, The Hold Steady, Betty LaVette, Deer Tick and Back 2 Mac. In 2023, we launched a dedicated area for kids and families to play and do hands-on activities, aptly named Waterfront KidsDay. Families and children made instruments from household items during each month’s show. By season’s end, KidsDay participants had the opportunity to create enough instruments for an entire band. 

The LPM team worked alongside Louisville Magazine staff to produce a beautiful, moving look at what “home” means to people in Louisville from all walks of life. Support from the Jewish Heritage Fund enabled a partnership with the Young Author’s Greenhouse to feature youth voices as part of the publication. The guide was mailed to magazine subscribers throughout the region and made available in local bookstores. The American Society of Magazine Editors selected the collaborative issue as a finalist for a 2023 National Magazine Award. 

Sprinkle Sparkle is building a community of Black women and people of marginalized genders prioritizing pleasure as an act of defiance. Host Nubia Bennett builds each conversation around a simple question: How did you center your own pleasure today? This podcast is an important reminder that even a sprinkle of the sparkle that pleasure infuses into our lived experience — whether it is something big like a vacation, the decadence of a bite of your favorite dessert, or a simple affirmation that you made the right choice — can be enough to keep going. Sprinkle Sparkle is a product of LPM’s Podcast Incubator. 

LPM hosted our first-ever Brew with You series at local coffee shops across Louisville and Southern Indiana. Brew With You was a special opportunity to hang out with LPM hosts, reporters and staff from our news and music stations. The weeklong event stopped at coffee shops in St. Matthews, Beechmont, Okolona and New Albany. The week culminated with a final “brew” stop at Gravely Brewing in the Highlands where folks enjoyed a pint and met the DJs they hear on the radio. WFPK’s Laura Shine treated the crowd to a “Funky Friday Ride Home” live broadcast and dance party. 

A big part of Louisville culture involves food, and LPM has you covered. Louisville is known for its fish fry scene (listen to this Curious Louisville episode if you want to know why). For many years, LPM has put together a list of local fish fries using information from the Archdiocese of Louisville, and in 2023 we created a “fish frynder” to help you find the perfect catch. But if that still left you hungry, we also launched The Louisville Pizza Project. People voted for their favorite pizza place in Louisville and Southern Indiana and told us why. We profiled a few spots to find out what made them so special, and we made an interactive pizza map for folks to find them. 

Every other week, LPM’s arts and culture reporter Breya Jones delivers the latest arts and cultural news and events straight to your inbox. From local festivals and touring shows to profiles of local artists and arts organization leadership, the ACE email newsletter has something for everyone. It’s a great place to make sure you never miss Breya’s reporting and includes a curated list of events and arts news from other local organizations.

In an effort to better understand local media connection and disenfranchisement in Louisville’s West End, LPM received support from the Google News Initiative through the North American Innovation Challenge. We conducted extensive focus groups and surveys in Louisville’s majority Black neighborhoods to understand how we can better become a trusted local news source for Black Louisvillians. In between focus groups, we built products to address the feedback we received. We developed and marketed new podcasts, produced a mailed version of our annual voter guide and created new video content with local videographer Ty Lancaster. Our learnings were summarized and published at BetterNews.org.

The first product of our LPM Podcast Incubator returned with an all-new season. In the podcast, hosts Charlene Buckles and Dan Wu explore a unique but universal immigrant family experience: deciding their approach to their first language and even their name. The second season tackles biracial belonging and events like the Lunar New year shootings in California. Guests included Chef Edward Lee, poet Teja Sudhakar and more.

In America, we like to think that we’re always talking about race — like the conversation is happening everywhere, all the time. But race is embedded in society in ways we don’t even think about. Race Unwrapped and host Michelle Tyrene Johnson were awarded a 2023 Regional Murrow Award for the Season 2 episode, “Who Gets To Use All The Letters of the N-Word.” In Season 3, Michelle tackles different ways to unwrap and unpack race and identity through comedy. Guests include NPR’s Eric Deggans, Second City’s Anne Libera, comedian Rain Pryor, Dr. Lawrence Edwin Williams and more. 

We’re more alike than we are different. That can sound like a platitude in the wrong hands, dangerously close to “I don’t see color.” But spun out over the course of a winding conversation between poet Crystal Wilkinson and her guest, Wendell Berry, it becomes a nuanced exploration of the language, experience, struggle and heritage of being a Kentucky writer. In our season finale of the Words for the People podcast, recorded live at the 41st annual Kentucky Book Festival, Wilkinson and Berry connected and uplifted each other, the craft of writing and the Commonwealth that made them both what they are. Listen to the recording in the season’s seventh and final episode, The Mutuality of Country People.

LPM increased coverage of issues affecting the city’s youth and has worked to foster youth engagement in civic dialogue over the last few years. As a part of this work, LPM’s In Conversation featured several topics directly affecting youth, including our back to school episode, summer reading episode, and other shows covering foster care in Kentucky, preventing teen suicide, transgender-related laws in KY and nationwide, teaching civics and childcare and the workforce. LPM received funding from Jewish Heritage Fund for this focus on youth and was one of 12 public media organizations selected to participate in the Next Gen Public Media Accelerator, a program of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

Each year LPM produces a Report to the Community on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion sharing our goals, progress and plans to become a more equitable and inclusive organization. We continue to make progress toward our goal of a staff, Board and Community Advisory Board that match the demographics of our city. Additionally, we held or participated in events across 32 unique ZIP codes. WFPK’s playlist is more diverse than ever, and approximately 27% of the music heard on WUOL during this period represented a diverse attribute either in the performer or composer of the recording. But representation is only part of our work, and it’s a work in progress. LPM is working to be more equitable, to recognize groups that have been marginalized and to compensate for that history in our work today and in the future.

In August 2022, KyCIR launched a series on Louisville housing, exposing the intersections of many social problems hurting Louisvillians, from inequities in health, safety and education to environmental injustice and poverty. We started by surveying community members about their housing experiences, which yielded 100 tips about problem landlords, troubling market trends, cumbersome city programs and pressing issues around governmental oversight and accountability. Reporters attended the Russell Block Party event and gathered community feedback from residents that led to our final piece of the investigative series: One woman’s fight with the land bank could reopen pathways to generational wealth in west Louisville.

A nearly two-year investigation by the United States Department of Justice shows Louisville police have a history of excessive force, constitutional violations, under-reported incidents, invalid warrants and systemic racist practices. At LPM, we’ll continue to follow the city’s plans to address the Department of Justice’s findings that Louisville police violated civil rights and discriminated against Black residents.

A Louisville Metro Council member helped a local nonprofit get a $40 million COVID-19 relief grant. Then, the group gave him a job. The Louisville Metro Ethics Commission opened an investigation into Metro Council Member Anthony Piagentini after LPM’s investigation showed he may have violated local ethics laws. Piagentini ethics trial took place in late August. The city’s Ethics Commission is expected to rule on his case in October 2023. 

LPM continues to pursue accountability for the death of 7-year-old Ja’Ceon Terry at the Brooklawn foster care facility in Louisville. We reported on the state’s decision to revoke Brooklawn’s licenses and Brooklawn’s appeal of that decision, the retirement of the CEO of Seven Counties Services and the private settlement reached in a wrongful death lawsuit against Brooklawn. KyCIR obtained a report from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services that offers new and heartbreaking details into the systemic failures that led to Ja’Ceon’s death and spoke with employees and residents at Brooklawn about the tragedy.

In April, reporters Jared Bennett and Justin Hicks published an investigative report on how flood cleanup left eastern Kentucky feeling violated and vulnerable. LPM examined government officials and contractors responsible for debris cleanup. We discovered that subcontractors of AshBritt, a Florida-based company hired by the state to manage the debris cleanup process, were “manufacturing debris” by cutting down large tree limbs or removing trees that weren’t damaged by the flood, digging unnecessarily large access paths, turning in heavy, water-logged debris and clearing vegetation and dirt from stream banks to the point where the banks became unstable. Taxpayers were left on the hook for the potential fraud and wasteful spending.

Tyree Smith, a 16-year-old Eastern High School student, was killed while waiting for his school bus on Sept. 22, 2021. LPM News Education and Learning Reporter Jess Clark uncovered records showing JCPS and LMPD failed to act as danger grew at Tyree Smith’s bus stop. Documents showed that JCPS and LMPD were not only aware of an earlier shooting, but that JCPS also knew about other ongoing threats to the students on Tyree’s bus. Despite warnings from students and calls from parents, district officials and police threw up their hands and wrote off the danger as a given in Tyree’s neighborhood.

At the peak of the COVID pandemic, WFPK began regular Mental Health Days. Since then, it has become a popular part of our monthly lineup. Hosts take listener requests for uplifting songs and interview mental health experts — all in an effort to help remove the stigma from discussing mental health. In October 2022, LPM launched our inaugural Stop the Stigma event on World Mental Health Day, providing an opportunity for more than 60 community members to gather. Experts from The Pete Foundation, NAMI Louisville, Norton Healthcare, and Begin to Talk shared resources.

Following the Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, LPM’s health coverage heavily focused on abortion access. In November, abortion access showed up on the ballot for Kentuckians during the midterm election and was featured in our 2022 Voter Guide. LPM News also extensively covered Senate Bill 150, passed in March 2023 by Kentucky state legislators. It has been dubbed the “worst anti-trans bill in the country.” Although Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the bill, the majority-Republican legislature voted to override the veto. On In Conversation, we discussed the legislative measures focused on transgender kids, both in the Commonwealth and across the country.

As news organizations around the world focused on the April mass shooting in Louisville, LPM also provided coverage and attention to the mass shooting at Chickasaw Park later that week. Our reporters were featured nationally and internationally. LPM News continues to report on how individuals and organizations are addressing gun violence in our community: a play confronting the impacts of gun violence that debuted in Louisville, new surveillance cameras, Louisville’s new prosecutor’s focus on gun violence and victim services, and members of the Smoketown community starting an afterschool watch to keep Meyzeek students safe.  

LPM is part of 1A’s Remaking America project from WAMU and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As part of the partnership, LPM hosted an event in Chickasaw Park in west Louisville focused on lifting up the voices of young people in our community to share how they see their role in creating change. Our diverse panel of high school students shared their lived experiences, current civic engagement and ideas on how to encourage more civic participation among their peers. Excerpts from the powerful event were shared on the national 1A broadcast in October.

LPM has long prioritized bringing quality music education programming to schools throughout our community. Our New Lens program brought The Fourth Wall’s Fruit Flies Like a Banana program to Lincoln Performing Arts School with support from The Fund for the Arts. Kiana Del, Engagement Manager and WUOL host, worked with students at local elementary schools, connecting music and visual art through her lesson: “When Art & Music Collide”, where students create their own pan flute before making music with it. The Music Box podcast, made possible in part by support from the PNC Foundation, was also back with its sixth season of interactive music education for kids and families. Season 6 featured careers in music, from producers to recording engineers, as well as fundamental musical concepts like improvisation, polyrhythms and polymeters. 

Education and Learning Reporter Jess Clark had a lot to cover over the past year, from new schools and campus renovations to major changes at JCPS. From anti-transgender laws, affirmative action, charter schools, book bans and AI weapons detection, there was no shortage of controversies and conversations. Jess also covered innovative summer camps, free immunizations, afterschool programs and school safety. Her reporting covered the challenges and opportunities of local students of all ages. 

Along with reporters across the newsroom Data Reporter Justin Hicks extensively covered the flooding in eastern Kentucky in the summer of 2022. He ensured that Kentuckians wanting to support their neighbors knew how to help flood victims. KyCIR has been watching federal disaster assistance loans and flood cleanup closely as the work continues more than a year after the devastating floods in eastern Kentucky.

When Louisville-based Clariant Corporation applied for a permit to replace old equipment in the Park Hill neighborhood, it was crucial that residents understood the real health risks this would pose for them and their families, so Energy and Environment Reporter Ryan Van Velzer published a solution-focused investigation. The Louisville Air Pollution Control District received nearly 150 comments on the permit application after LPM’s reporting. One community member who gathered 68 signatures noted, “None of this would have been possible without your work at LPM.” 

Ryan Van Velzer was one of five journalists chosen for a prestigious MIT fellowship in early 2023. Ryan completed a four-month fellowship that challenged and supported journalists to do work that brings climate change reporting and solutions to the people feeling it most. This culminated with Coal’s Dying Light, Ryan’s three-part web, audio and visual story. The series explores how the decline of coal has affected Kentucky, including the resources available to help Kentucky lead a sustainable energy future and the lack of political will to do so. It’s a humanistic look at a profoundly political issue: America’s energy future and how to justly include coal miners. 

WFPK as-you-know-it has been kicking it since January 1996, and some of your favorite shows and hosts have been there from day one. This year we celebrated some major milestones for fan favorites: Roots ‘n’ Boots with host Michael Young celebrated 25 years as a mashup of Americana, Country, Alt-Country, Roots Rock and more, and is one of the longest-running specialty shows in the U.S. Relics, a mix of great old rock tunes from the mid ‘60s through the 80’s, celebrated 20 years with radio legend host Duke Meyer. Plus, WFPK Music Director Kyle Meredith has built the Kyle Meredith With… podcast into a national partnership with the Consequence podcast network. This year the podcast celebrated five years, 800 episodes and countless interviews featuring some of your favorite musicians, actors, and everything in between. 100,000 fans listen all over the world each month, and Kyle has become sought after by the music and entertainment industry for his thoughtful and engaging conversations.

In April, 90.5 WUOL aired Louisville Orchestra’s sold out Gala Concert with Yo-Yo Ma, conducted by Teddy Abrams and hosted live by WUOL Program Director Daniel Gilliam at Whitney Hall. The concert performance featured a musical lineup that reflected the history and DNA of the orchestra itself: iconic Beethoven, two composers from whom the orchestra has commissioned works, an offering by the orchestra’s ground-breaking Rap School, a selection from a piece written by Teddy Abrams for the historic concert in Mammoth Cave, and a performance of one of the iconic cello concertos of the 20th century in the hands of one of the greatest cellists who has ever lived. 

WUOL continued its partnership with 21c Museum Hotel to present New Lens — a free concert series exploring diverse and intriguing sounds and ideas in new music, art and society. The fifth season launched in June with Nashville-based pianist Matt Phelps playing Frederic Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” The monumental hourlong set featured variations on the Chilean protest anthem “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” The remainder of the season includes Shawn Jaeger presenting “Hi, Chuck,” a conversation between mother and son built from a cassette tape recorded in 1990; the Louisville intercultural ensemble Saw Peep; and Nashville contemporary music ensemble Intersection.

You hear Louisville music on WFPK alongside national bands, because we’re committed to supporting the local music scene, and in the summer of 2022 we carved out a show specifically to highlight Louisville and Southern Indiana artists. Musician, producer and open-format DJ Sam Sneed has been a part of the city’s music scene for more than two decades. Sneed co-hosted WFPK’s long-running show, Night Visions Radio, for ten years and in August of 2022 began a brand new weekly show on WFPK featuring local music and musicians, past and present. You can catch Sam Sneed’s 502unes on Thursdays at 10 p.m.

WFPK launched In the Pocket with Lady Dee in the summer of 2022 featuring Hard Bop to Hip-Hop, Blues to R&B and Fusion to House. In the Pocket with Lady Dee is an exploration of sound, highlighting the evolution and intergenerational art that is jazz music. WFPK host Lady Dee (aka Destiny Carter) is a multifaceted creator born and raised in Louisville’s West End. Her music pursuits started as a jazz trombonist, and she is an advocate for educating listeners on the expansiveness of jazz music throughout time and space. You can hear her on Saturday nights from 10 p.m. – 12 a.m. 

LPM MembersOnly in-studio concerts returned! Members were treated to some truly special MembersOnly shows this year, including intimate performances by Jason Isbell and Jim James at a new music venue, The Monarch. Dawes, Guster, Bela Fleck, Amanda Shires and more stopped by the LPM Performance Studio to play for WFPK supporters. Check out videos of some performances on WFPK’s YouTube page. LPM Classical fans also got the behind the scenes treatment, as WUOL Music Director Colleen Phelps continued her Behind the Playlist video interview series. Colleen interviews composers, conductors and musicians to learn the stories behind the music playing on 90.5 WUOL, and has a lot of fun, too. Interviews this past year included composer Malek Jandali, whose concerto recordings tribute brave women and victims of injustice, as well as the composer behind “The Sandman” Netflix series. You can find the full series on lpm.org and YouTube.

*Revenue related to LPM’s three-year newsroom expansion campaign was recognized in FY21 but will be released in FY22-FY24 to cover related expenses. These charts reflect preliminary fiscal year 2023 numbers that will be approved via our independent audit summary.