The area's first FM station independent of an AM parent operation, WUNC signed on from the University of North Carolina on November 3rd, 1952, as a student-run station operating with equipment donated by Jefferson Pilot Broadcasting, which had recently discontinued operation of Charlotte-based WBT-FM after five years of operation. Carl Kassel, who would later become a well-known personality on National Public Radio, and Charles Kuralt, who gained fame as the host of CBS Sunday Morning, both matriculated through WUNC as students at the university. WUNC continued to operate over the next 18 years until a lightning strike on the station's antenna in 1971 left the station silent for almost five years. Through the work of those wanting to bring public radio to the area, WUNC returned to the airwaves April 3, 1976, this time as an NPR affiliate, with lots of classical and jazz music intermixed. Over the years, WUNC grew to become one of the most listened-to public radio stations in America. In 1995, the station installed a new antenna at a higher perch on the new WUNC-TV tower, constructed beside the 1954 structure atop Terrel's Mountain. That same year, WUNC also began 24-hour operation and donated its jazz music library to new sign-on WNCU, 90.7 FM at Durham's North Carolina Central University. On March 24th, 1999, WUNC expanded its service into the eastern part of the state via a translator in Manteo and a simulcast on WRQM, 90.9 in Rocky Mount, which began the next day. On September 3rd, 2001, WUNC dropped the last of their classical music for an all talk and information format. WUNC's Outer Banks service expanded in 2003 with WUND-FM, 88.9 in Columbia, sharing call letters and tower space with WUND, channel 2, the second of the UNC Center for Public Television's 11 statewide stations to sign on the air (1965). Prior to WUND-FM's September 2003 sign-on, WUNC aired along the Outer Banks via WURI, 90.9 FM in Manteo and WBUX, 90.5 in Buxton. With the advent of the new station, they entered into an agreement with WCPE to rebroadcast the station's all-classical format on WURI and WBUX. In the summer of 2005, WUNC is set to open up a satellite production studio at Durham's American Tobacco Campus.
