“Public broadcasting’s purpose is to provide high quality news information and enlightenment to our communities.”
-Jack Brighton, Web Developer at WILL

WILL is a public broadcasting station that reaches roughly half of Illinois and a portion of Indiana. WILL is a member of national organizations NPR and PBS. This means that they pay membership dues to be a part of these organizations. An organization called The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a non-profit that is allocated money by congress. The CPB writes community service grant checks to stations in the country that qualify as a public television or radio station. WILL is one such station, and uses this funding in combination with locally raised money to pay their membership dues to NPR and PBS.

From the Illinois Public Media 2013 Annual Report

The station is also an extension of the University of Illinois’ College of Media. As a result of this close relationship, they utilize a .edu web address. The station has 40 full time staff members.

Public broadcasting’s mission is to publicize news for the good of the public. Pay walls and restricted content do not exist in this realm. It does not follow a commercial model or track audience activity in order to cater advertisements to that audience.