Pittsfield Community Radio Begins South Berkshire Broadcasts
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Local radio programming from Pittsfield Community Radio, WTBR-FM, can now be heard on 88.1 MHz in Lee, Lenox, Stockbridge, and neighboring South Berkshire towns, in addition to 89.7 MHz in Pittsfield and central Berkshire County.
The new FM radio signal, with call letters WSBR, was granted a license by the Federal Communications Commission on Jan. 14, 2025, after a three-year planning and construction process.
The new signal is a full-power Class-A FM radio station licensed to Pittsfield Community Cable Broadcasting, Inc., the parent organization of Pittsfield Community Television and WTBR-FM. The city of license is Lee and broadcasts all programming originating from the current WTBR-FM in Pittsfield. The application process with the FCC is a competitive one, and not all requests for new frequencies are granted by the federal agency.
Pittsfield Community Radio is a Non-Commercial Educational station, broadcasting 24 hours a day, and featuring 34 regular, locally produced programs created by area volunteers. Programming includes both talk and music shows, along with the Morning Drive interview show heard every weekday morning at 7:30 AM. The community radio station also features an all-rock music format between community shows. The station is supported by contributions from the listening public, as well as non-commercial corporate underwriters.
The establishment of the new radio station is a product of cooperation between two of the county's community media centers. The new WSBR station is co-located with a future low-power FM (LPFM) station which is under construction at Community Television for the Southern Berkshires (CTSB-TV) in Lee. CTSB-TV, which serves Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington, and Sheffield with community television programming, was granted a construction permit from the FCC in 2024 to build a new radio station. That station is expected to be on the air within the next two years as well.
The newly licensed station broadens the reach of WTBR-FM to more of Berkshire County.
"We are excited to welcome listeners to the station from Lee, Lenox, Stockbridge, and surrounding towns," Executive Director Shawn Serre said. "Our station features so much local content that matters to Berkshire County. We are losing many sources of local programming and information these days, so it's even more important to connect our communities."
Serre emphasized the diverse local, entertaining, informative, and educational programming available to listeners.
"Many areas of our county share the same concerns over issues we address with interviews on the station. And of course, all listeners will benefit from the variety of music programming, from jazz music, to country, polka, oldies, Latin, and classic rock." The multi-lingual Spanish/English-language program ‘Mundo Latino' is also featured on the station.
In addition to broadcasting on the two area FM stations, WTBR-FM can be streamed at wtbrfm.com, and most of the local shows heard on the air are available as podcasts which can be downloaded from that website.
