WHQR Public Media is the NPR member station for southeastern North Carolina, broadcasting HQR News on 91.3 FM and Classical HQR on 92.7 FM from downtown Wilmington. It is operated by Friends of Public Radio, Inc., a community nonprofit.
WHQR Public Media is the NPR member station for the Cape Fear region, serving southeastern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina from studios on the third floor of the historic Warwick Building at 254 North Front Street in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. The station is licensed to and operated by Friends of Public Radio, Inc., a community nonprofit.
WHQR runs two services. HQR News is heard on 91.3 FM and 91.3 HD1 and carries programming from NPR, American Public Media, PRX and the BBC alongside the station's own local news coverage. Classical HQR, which began on the station's HD2 channel in 2009, is heard on 92.7 FM in Wilmington and 96.7 FM in Southport. Both stream at whqr.org. The 100,000-watt 91.3 signal reaches much of southeastern North Carolina, including Jacksonville, Surf City, Oak Island, Whiteville, Elizabethtown and Lumberton, and a translator on 100.9 FM serves Rose Hill.
WHQR went on the air on April 24, 1984, from a converted bar in a Wilmington strip mall. It was founded by opera lovers concerned about losing the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on local airwaves; their group, Friends of the Opera, became Friends of Public Radio, Inc. Ten years to the day after its first broadcast the station moved into the renovated Warwick Building, adding studios, a music library and a gallery for performances and exhibits, and it later bought the building's entire third floor. The station hosts concerts, art receptions and community events in its gallery, including the Soup to Nuts Live series and monthly classical concerts.
Its stated mission is to offer news, music, entertainment and interaction to expand knowledge, encourage artistic appreciation, engage the community and promote civil discourse.
WHQR has a small staff. It hires for its newsroom (reporters, reporter and host roles, and news leadership), classical and local music hosts, programming and operations, development, underwriting and major gifts, finance and administration, and digital work. The newsroom also commissions freelance journalists and recruits a summer news intern.
