The Cohort
The thirty stations in the Local News Catalyst cohort reflect the remarkable range of local public media. From Alaska to the Gulf Coast, they include tribal and community radio, public television, university licensees, and organizations with staffs ranging from one to dozens. Each serves a distinct community, with its own history, priorities, and vision for the future. Meet the stations below.
K — West of the Mississippi
In the 1920s, the Federal Radio Commission assigned broadcasters west of the Mississippi River call signs beginning with the letter "K." The naming convention has been the same ever since.
McGrath, AK
Serves about 1,200 people across seven remote-village repeaters in Alaska’s interior.
Run by one full-time employee, the self-described Alaska Radio Nerd.
Petersburg, AK
Community radio for a fishing town with deep Norwegian roots, and the region’s designated emergency broadcaster.
The call letters come from Fisk, the Norwegian word for fish.
Broadcasts from the ancestral territory of the Unangax̂ people, who have lived in the region for more than 9,000 years.
Ketchikan, AK
Southern Southeast Alaska’s primary source of local news, owned by Rainbird Community Broadcasting.
KRBD stands for Rainbird Broadcasting, a nod to a local Ketchikan mascot.
The oldest Indigenous-owned public broadcasting station in the country, airing local news in Yup’ik three times daily.
Haines, AK
Lynn Canal Broadcasting, serving Haines, Skagway, and Klukwan from two studios fourteen nautical miles apart.
The only Southeast Alaska public radio station outside the regional CoastAlaska consortium.
Redding, CA
PBS station for Northern California’s North State, covering ten counties from Redding to Chico.
Got its start on the Chico State College campus in 1964 and aired Ken Burns’s The Civil War in 1990.
Highlighted as a Bridge Fund station for the region.
Fairfield, CA
An internet-only streaming station built for Pacific Islander communities across the Bay Area.
The only cohort member with no FCC broadcast license, streaming only, with a built-in podcast platform.
Point Reyes Station, CA
West Marin’s community station, broadcasting on three frequencies across Point Reyes, Bolinas, and the San Geronimo Valley.
More than 300 volunteer programmers of all ages have hosted shows in its twenty-four years on air.
Its studio runs partly on 11.4 kilowatts of solar power and also houses the tribal newspaper, Spilyay Tymoo.
Berkeley, CA
Flagship of the Pacifica Radio network and the first listener-supported radio station in the country.
Almost nobody owned an FM radio in 1949, so the founders handed out pre-tuned shoebox radios to give listeners a way to hear the signal.
Fort Collins, CO
Volunteer-powered community radio for Northern Colorado, deliberately unaffiliated with NPR or Pacifica.
Its 50,000-watt signal reaches from the Wyoming border to the Denver suburbs.
Ignacio, CO
Runs two services, Four Corners Public Radio and Southern Ute Tribal Radio, out of one studio. Tami Graham is Executive Director.
When it signed on in 1976, it was one of only eight tribal radio stations in the country.
Started in 1978 in a one-room cottage rented for one dollar a year, and opened a $9 million Community Media and Cultural Center on its forty-eighth anniversary in May 2026.
Claremore, OK
Rogers State University's public television station, serving students and 20+ counties in northeast Oklahoma since 1987.
The only full-power public television station in Oklahoma licensed to a public university, and one of the few public television stations nationwide that does not pay dues to PBS.
Lawton, OK
Cameron University’s NPR station, with sister signals reaching Altus, Ardmore, and Wichita Falls, Texas. Mike Leal is General Manager.
Started in 1989 playing classical music before expanding into NPR news and jazz.
Went off the air in 2008 after the university pulled funding, and returned only after sustained student and alumni pressure.
W — East of the Mississippi
Eleven stations, from Lake Superior to the Gulf Coast. All call signs east of the river begin with the letter "W."
Marquette, MI
Northern Michigan University’s PBS station and a Michigan Learning Channel partner. Patrick Lakenen is General Manager.
In 2017 it became the first public broadcasting station in the country to move from proprietary broadcast automation to off-the-shelf PC hardware, cutting capital costs by more than sixty percent.
Rhinelander, WI
Serves Wisconsin’s Northwoods and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Jessie Dick is CEO and General Manager.
Recently joined the new Wisconsin News Collaborative.
Named Minnesota’s 2025 Station of the Year by Ampers the same year it lost twenty-five percent of its revenue to federal cuts.
Baton Rouge, LA
Baton Rouge public radio, sharing a newsroom partnership with New Orleans Public Radio.
Louisiana’s first community-licensed public radio station, on the air since 1980.
Dunmore, WV
A three-station cooperative serving Pocahontas County, West Virginia, and Bath and Highland Counties, Virginia.
The region sits inside the National Radio Quiet Zone around the Green Bank Telescope, so these are the only radio signals reaching all three counties.
After its studio flooded in 2022, it broadcast for years out of a 2006 Winnebago nicknamed the Possum Den.
It ran classical, jazz, and news until 2016, when it flipped to all-Americana and became, by its own account, the region’s only channel dedicated to the genre.
The only broadcast television station within a seventy-five-mile radius of Cookeville, and its transmitter site doubles as an emergency-services facility for Putnam County.
Lancaster, PA
Radio Centro, a bilingual Spanish and English station run by the Spanish American Civic Association. Claudia Galdamez is Vice President for Broadcasting.
One of only about thirty-three Hispanic public radio stations in the country.
A separate and much smaller operation from the university’s NPR affiliate, Delmarva Public Media.
Run in partnership with both Delaware State University and the University of Delaware.
