WKAR Radio Reading Service
available with special free receiver or on WKAR.org

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RTB is now WKAR Radio Reading Service

WKAR Radio Talking Book, a free radio information service for mid-Michigan’s visually and physically challenged residents, will change its name – after 36 years – to WKAR Radio Reading Service, effective October 1, 2009.

The program’s name change reflects the wide variety of materials that the service’s corps of volunteer readers present daily, including newspapers such as the Lansing State Journal, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, USA Today, and The New York Times; magazines like Readers’ Digest, Sports Illustrated, Parents, Ebony, Smithsonian, U.S. News & World Report, and Time; and best selling books, including those presented on The Radio Reader with Dick Estell.

WKAR Radio Reading Service also provides a range of information programs designed especially for its listeners including, The People’s Pharmacy, A World of Possibilities, and the Best of Our Knowledge.

WKAR Radio Reading Service is available all day, every day. This convenient public service is free to qualified individuals.

Program listeners are able to hear WKAR Radio Reading Service programs via a special portable radio, which plugs in to an electrical outlet or can be used with batteries, that WKAR lends free of charge to participants. The radio is pre-tuned to the WKAR Radio Reading Service signal and individuals may also listen to their favorite FM stations, such as 90.5 WKAR. WKAR Radio Reading Service programs can be heard with in a 60-mile radius of WKAR Radio’s Meridian Township tower. The service is also available through WKAR.org.

Currently, more than 1,000 individuals enjoy the benefits of having the special WKAR Radio Reading Service radio in their homes as well as those residing in more than 300 extended care facilities throughout the mid-Michigan area. Listeners report enjoying the program’s unique news and information service – designed to meet the interests and needs of today’s visually and physically challenged community.

According to the Michigan Commission for the Blind, more than 20,000 visually and physically challenged individuals reside in the WKAR Radio Reading Service coverage area. WKAR’s ultimate goal is to place free radio with each resident who qualifies for the service.

For more information on how to receive a free WKAR Radio Reading Service radio, contact Brad Walker at: (517) 432-3120 x 346, or by e-mail at bradw@WKAR.org.