Inside FM89

Valley Public Radio's podcast that's all about outdoor activities in the Sierra and beyond recently was honored by at the annual Public Radio News Directors Conference in Miami. PRNDI awarded Outdoorsy with the second place award for station-produced podcasts in Division "B" - the second of three divisions, one for medium-sized public radio newsrooms. 

In response to an unprecedented political news cycle, and a seemingly-insatiable appetite for more reliable news analysis, we are excited to announce that KCRW’s "Left, Right and Center" will become a one-hour program starting in July. Listeners can now hear the program from 6:00 – 7:00 PM on Saturdays, following Weekend All Things Considered. 

Invisibilia, Latin for "the invisible things," explores the invisible forces that shape human behavior — things like ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions. In Season 3  — premiering in June — hosts Alix and Hanna will delve into the ways our concepts shape our worldviews and how we mold our own reality. You can hear the new season of Invisibilia Thursday nights in June at 8:00 PM, starting June 1, 2017.

David Aus Assumes Host Duties For “Sunday Night Jazz”

Loyal FM89 listeners may have noticed a new voice behind the station’s long-running jazz programming on Sunday nights. FM89’s David Aus, who has been with the station for the past two years as a classical announcer is the new host of the Sunday Night Jazz program, which can be heard from 9:00 PM – Midnight on Sundays.

The Radio Television News Association of Southern California has awarded Valley Public Radio six prestigious "Golden Mike" Awards at its annual awards banquet in Los Angeles. The event which took place on January 28, 2017 at the Universal City Hilton honors excellence in broadcast news production.

Wednesday December 21 – 10:00 AM
The Rose Ensemble Live in Concert: Christmas in Baroque Malta

Several hundred station supporters, community partners, and listeners gathered in Clovis on Wednesday to celebrate the ribbon cutting ceremony for the station's new broadcast center. After spending the last 40 years as a tenant of various buildings that were either too small, out of date, or not well suited to the unique needs of a public radio station, Valley Public Radio finally has a permanent home. 

Valley Public Radio/FM89 will celebrate the official opening of their new location in the Clovis Technology Park on Temperance and Alluvial Avenues with a catered ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, September 21st.  The event will commence at 10AM and feature speakers including Board Chairperson, David Parker, Clovis Mayor Nathan Magsig, and Don Howard, CEO of the James Irvine Foundation. Ribbon cutting will follow after the presentation, along with tours of the new broadcast center. 

In Valley Public Radio’s new podcast “Outdoorsy” reporters Ezra David Romero and Kerry Klein take listeners to wild places in California and introduce you to the people that explore them.

Both reporters consider themselves to be pretty “Outdoorsy,” though they’re coming at this from two different backgrounds. Ezra Romero’s explored the Sierra Nevada his whole life. He grew up near Fresno and his love for the outdoors started in his childhood. Today he’s an avid hiker, camper and kayaker.

After many seasons of planning and fundraising, a year of design work and another year of construction Valley Public Radio moved into its new home in Clovis on May 19th. The 10,500 foot state-of-the-art broadcast center is located at the corner of Temperance and Alluvial Avenues in the Portal Sierra Research and Technology Park. The project includes new broadcast studios for the station, more than doubling the studio space when compared with the station's old home.

Invisibilia is Latin for "invisible things." The program explores the unseen forces that shape human behavior -- things like ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions -- interweaving narrative storytelling with scientific research that will ultimately make you see your own life differently. The show is co-hosted by a trio of NPR's award-winning journalists, Alix Spiegel, Lulu Miller and Hanna Rosin, who have roots at This American Life, Radiolab and The Atlantic.

Valley Public Radio’s new home isn’t just an impressive piece of architecture, it’s also opening up new doors for the station’s programming thanks to state-of-the-art broadcasting technology.

With the station's move-in date about a month away, workers are busy installing things like carpet, furnishings and acoustic treatments. On Wednesday March 16 crews began installing carpet in portions of the building, while the station's IT and radio engineering teams worked on outfitting the technology center with equipment racks and other gear. Sound rated doors have been installed in the studio spaces, and in the lobby, lighting and furniture have been installed. Check back soon for more updates as work on the building is progressing quickly at this point. 

A sleek monopole tower now rises 70 feet above Valley Public Radio's new broadcast center in Clovis. The tower holds an antenna that relays the station signal to the KVPR 89.3 transmitter in the mountains above Auberry. 

The smell of fresh paint and the sound of workers installing glass are filling FM89's new broadcast center these days, as the project is nearing completion. After breaking ground back in May of 2015, the construction process is nearing an end. Workers with Zumwalt Construction estimate that the building will be substantially complete in early March, allowing us to begin our move in April. 

Look up when you visit Valley Public Radio's new Barmann-Chaney performance studio and you'll see beams. While they aren't structural, they're there for an important reason - acoustics.

A big part of the process of building a radio station is involved with the issue of sound and acoustic design. An ideal studio environment is both isolated from noise of the outside world or adjacent studios, and also has a good sound of its own, not too "live" and not too "dead" - acoustically speaking. 

The Radio & Television News Association of Southern California has honored Valley Public Radio with two prestigious "Golden Mike" awards. The station received the honors in Los Angeles Saturday night at the organization’s 66th annual gala at the Universal City Hilton. 

On Thursday workers started applying stucco to the exterior of the building. This is a big milestone for the project as it signals that completion is getting much closer. It also is important for another reason - the weather. The recent break in the El Nino-driven rains that have hit the valley gave the building just enough time to dry out for workers to start applying the stucco.