The Station

News Talk & Tar Heels Station

• WCHL serves a unique community with programming and involvement in the things that matter to the people who live here.

• WCHL is where they live. Its all news and talk format, the nation's number one format 12+, is intensely and uniquely local to Chapel Hill-Carrboro. It is a point of view.

"If there's a shooting in Durham at high noon, WCHL interrupts its programming only if they shoot a Chapel Hillian. If someone slips on a banana peel on Weaver Street that backs up traffic for two blocks, it is cause for a live remote."
    -Jim Heavner, President of VilCom, owner of WCHL

• Their kids matter. WCHL is the voice of 2,000 local school kids, recorded by WCHL one kid at a time, with traffic safety appeals.

• Issues matter. In every census, Chapel Hill-Carrboro is one of America's best-educated communities, frequently at the top. Serving that audience, WCHL's news department has won more local news awards than any other radio station in North Carolina.

• What matters is more than the government. WCHL does not rely on town hall or UNC to generate its news. WCHL has resumed its monthly-every month-"community leaders lunches" to find out what all segments of the community is proud of and is angry about. It is a unique local approach to news coverage.

• Recognition matters. WCHL focuses on daily celebrations of the good things that help a town shape a positive, can-do, self-image. It's "Daily Village Pride Awards," for example, ensures that consistency. It's a point of view.

• Courage matters. WCHL is unafraid to tell the truth. In the four decades that VilCom has operated WCHL, no story has ever been removed from the air because it was injurious to some special interest or even the management of the station. The community relies on that consistency and honesty.

• The world matters. WCHL doesn't send listeners elsewhere to keep up with the world. CBS Radio News is the broadcast journalism standard led on WCHL by Charles Osgood.

• Games and fun matter. From high schools to city leagues to the Tar Heels, on WCHL, it's all there. WCHL is the originator, and still the flagship, of the Tar Heel Sports Network.

• Laughter and joy matter. WCHL is fun, every hour. Games that tease, contests that reward, interaction with callers that bring a smile, are part of WCHL's legendary appeal.