WILL

WILL is the call sign of the three public broadcasting stations owned by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and run out of the College of Media. It consists of PBS member station WILL-TV (digital channel 9, virtual channel 12) and National Public Radio member stations WILL (580 kHz) and WILL-FM (90.9 MHz). The three stations are known collectively as Illinois Public Media, and are operated out of Campbell Hall for Public Telecommunication on the U of I campus.

History

After World War II, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted the National Association of Educational Broadcasters for the establishment of broadcast allocations (AM/FM radio and TV channels) for non-commercial education programming. The outcomes from these meetings established the foundation for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. The NAEB was based at WILL from 1951 to 1961.

WILL-TV received its largest bequest, $1 million (USD), from Lois Dickson, who had been a contributor to the station for the thirty years before her death at the age of 95 in 2004.