It is managed by Chicago's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member station WTTW's owner, Window to the World Communications, Inc. WFMT seeks donations on the air and on its website.

WFMT has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 6,000 watts, and transmits from atop the Willis Tower in Downtown Chicago.

Its website says WFMT "strives to entertain, engage, and above all, respect its listeners with a quality and variety of programming found nowhere else".

Hosts on WFMT include Candice Agree, Lisa Flynn, Kerry Frumkin, LaRob K.Rafael, Jan Weller, David Schwan, Kristina Lynn, and Peter Van de Graaff.

The number of Chicago radio stations that aired classical music programs was small, but none compared to WFMT.

[13][14] In 1956, WFMT aired a live recording of a folk concert with Pete Seeger and Big Bill Broonzy at Northwestern University.

[13] A brief attempt at introducing pre-recorded commercial advertising in the early 1990s, the only time in its history, proved unpopular with listeners.

In 1976, WFMT created the Fine Arts Network for broadcast syndication of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera.

[13][17] In 1979, WFMT became America's first radio superstation, delivered by satellite and cable systems across the United States and dozens of countries, including the Soviet Union and China.

[13] In August 1976, the FCC granted WFMT temporary authority to simulcast on AM 1450, using the former facilities of WVON, which had moved its call sign and programming to another frequency the previous year.

[13] A live performance of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was heard in the US, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, and West Germany simultaneously.

Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen was broadcast live for the first time as a digital transatlantic performance from the Bayreuth Festspielhaus to the US and Canada in 1983.

Award-winning stage and film director, writer, and producer Mike Nichols, at the time a student at the University of Chicago, joined the station in 1951.

Noted author and broadcaster Studs Terkel began a radio show on WFMT in 1952, remaining on the station until 1997.

Two-time Peabody Award-winning audio dramatist Yuri Rasovsky, creator of the National Radio Theater of Chicago, began a decade-long association with WFMT in 1975.

[36] Don Tait, who had been called a "a seminal figure in the history of WFMT", worked as a host from June 1972, until his retirement in October 2007.

His interest in archival recordings of conductors such as Willem Mengelberg, Bruno Walter, and Leopold Stokowski was often reflected in his programming.

Arriving at the station from KPFK in California in July 1964, Baum produced and oversaw the production of countless spoken arts programs and features.

In addition to her extensive work with spoken arts programs, from 1972 until 2009, Lois Baum co-hosted with Norman Pellegrini nationally syndicated broadcasts from the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

In 1974, it broadcast for the first time in four-channel (quadrophonic) sound, a live performance of the Chicago Lyric Opera's presentation of Rossini's Semiramide.

[13] This feed was received by cable companies (who transmitted WFMT's programming to their subscribers), as well as by home TVRO users.