May 13, 2008
Speaker: Jim Cunningham,Senior Executive Producer and Host of the WQED fm89.3 QED Morning Show
WQED Pittsburgh, honored with the 2007 and 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Station Excellence and 12 other Emmy Awards, was founded in 1954 as the nation’s first community-supported tv station. WQED creates, produces and distributes quality programs, products and services to engage, inform, educate and entertain the public within its community and around the world. WQED Pittsburgh is one of the first broadcasters in the country to be fully high-definition (HD) in its studio and field production capabilities. It is the parent company of WQED-TV (PBS); WQED-DT; The WQED Neighborhood Channel; WQED-HD; WQEX-TV (A Shop NBC affiliate); WQED-FM89.3/Pittsburgh; WQEJ-FM89.7/Johnstown; a publishing division that includes PITTSBURGH magazine; local and national television and radio productions; WQED Interactive;and the WQED Education Department.
Jim Cunningham: Senior Executive Producer for WQED fm89.3/Pittsburgh and WQEJ fm89.7/Johnstown and Host of the QED Morning Show Jim Cunningham hosts the QED Morning Show weekday mornings from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m., and the nationally syndicated Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO), which airs Sundays at 4:00 p.m. In 2008, Jim traveled to Europe with the PSO to cover their Pittsburgh 250 celebratory tour and blog about the experience to share it with the fm audience at www.wqed.org/fm/blogs/morningshow.
Jim grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania. During the 9th grade he became involved with a radio club at school through which he began to work as an announcer for The Hightime Show, a Saturday morning broadcast on WNAE. Throughout high school, Jim was a regular on WNAE and WRRN-FM.
He continued to work in radio while at Thiel College, serving as the general manager of the college radio station, WTGP-FM. During college and after graduation with degrees in English and Business Administration, Jim worked full-time for WGRP-FM & AM as an announcer, producer and account executive. He worked as an intern for WQEDfm89.3 while a student and returned to the station to work part-time. He jokes that “I refused to leave until I was hired full-time.”
Squirrel Hill Historical Society 