WEKU went on the air on 7 October 1968 when Eastern Kentucky University president Robert Martin switched on a new 50,000-watt transmitter from studios in the Donovan Building in Richmond. Two years later it joined 89 other stations as a charter member of National Public Radio. It remains a department of Eastern Kentucky University, governed by the university's Board of Regents, and is funded by listener donations and business sponsorship rather than advertising. It belongs to Kentucky Public Radio, a four-station consortium with WFPL in Louisville, WKMS in Murray and WKYU in Bowling Green, which jointly funds the state Capitol reporting team. Today, WEKU is mainly focused on Kentucky news, state politics, energy and the coal economy, arts and culture, and classical music on a second stream, carrying network programming from NPR, American Public Media, PRX and the BBC World Service alongside its own reporting, from their headquarters in Richmond, Kentucky, United States. One interesting fact: the station now operates ten transmitters covering nearly half the Commonwealth and reaching more than 1.5 million residents, having added its tenth, serving Maysville, in December 2024, at a time when many public radio operations were contracting rather than expanding.