The WXXI Public Broadcasting Council is a community non-profit organization of some 36,000 subscribing members in the Rochester, New York metropolitan area that owns that city's major public television and community radio stations, a newspaper, and other broadcasting services.

Demand for full-time public radio service in both classical/fine arts and news/talk formats grew beyond the ability of one signal to serve.

Later on,[specify] WXXI joined in partnership with the University of Rochester to operate WRUR-FM as a service with both news and adult alternative music and specialty programming, and took control of WJSL (now WXXY) in Houghton, New York, in the Southern Tier region to provide a mix of classical and news programming for a portion of the state which had previously been outside the range of a public signal.

WXXI joined in partnership with Hobart and William Smith Colleges (operators of National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate WEOS in Geneva, New York) to provide an alternative non-commercial service for the southern Finger Lakes region: WITH in Ithaca opened during the spring of 2010.

The $1.2 million deal is structured as a $675,000 payment as well as an additional $525,000 donation by Rust to WXXI;[2] the acquisition was completed on January 24, 2023.