Beginning February 29, 2008, WNED will provide WNED-FM’s analog sub-channel to The Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service (NFRRS) for use as their new main broadcast outlet at the cost of $1.00 annually. Savings to the service, which has provided daily access of printed matter to thousands of area blind and print-handicapped persons since 1987, will be nearly $30,000 per year in leasing fees.

On March 3, WNED staff, including on-air personalities, will volunteer to read excerpts from magazines for “WNED Day at the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service.” Marking the official start of the new partnership, this “Opening Day” will include a symbolic “ribbon cutting,” when officials from both WNED and the NFRRS will turn on radios tuned to the new broadcast signal.

WNED-FM’s super-power (105,000 watt) signal will disseminate this valuable service to all of Western New York and Southern Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula from its transmitter site in Boston, New York for the exclusive use of NFRRS listeners through special radio receivers. Volunteers share daily readings of newspapers, magazines, books, and other vital community information.

“This is one of the biggest developments in Radio Reading’s history,” said NFRRS President Robert Sikorski. “WNED’s provision of its subcarrier signal for local Radio Reading has demonstrated yet again the exemplary way our public broadcasting association cares about this community.”

“Our airwaves are entrusted to us and we are constantly seeking ways to make them meaningful community assets,” said WNED President & CEO Donald K. Boswell. “WNED is exceedingly proud of this partnership and the opportunities it will yield for this remarkable agency that ‘gives the blind a chance to read.’ ”

Through WNED-TV, ThinkBright TV, Classical 94.5/WNED-FM and WNED-AM 970 The Information Station, the member-supported Western New York Public Broadcasting Association provides high quality programming and services that enlighten, inspire, entertain and educate our communities.  For more information, please visit www.wned.org.