For many years, Iowa's three state universities each operated their own set of radio stations, each with slightly different program offerings and coverage areas. Two of them, Iowa State's
WOI and the University of Iowa's
WSUI, are among the oldest radio stations in the world. The three universities competed somewhat as each station sought to expand its coverage area. In late 2004, the
Iowa Board of Regents, which governs the three universities, voted to merge the universities' radio stations in order to consolidate operations. The first network to launch was a "News and Information" service in January 2007, followed by a
Classical service in September 2007. Nighttime
adult alternative music programming that had already aired on several stations, such as "Night Music" and
KUNI's "Live from Studio One", was expanded into a third full service called "Studio One". This matches the network structures maintained by
Minnesota Public Radio and
Wisconsin Public Radio, which also separate their stations into different networks. Iowa Public Radio includes WOI AM-
FM at ISU, WSUI and
KSUI at the University of Iowa, and KUNI and
KHKE at UNI. The operations have combined revenues of about $7 million annually and about 60 employees. Since IPR came into existence decades after FM became popular, the dial was already full in most areas, limiting the potential for new stations and leading to inconsistent coverage. Some cities can receive several IPR stations, while areas of western and southern Iowa can only receive grade B coverage from one of the network's two 5,000-watt AM stations during the daytime. This has resulted in ten of IPR's fifteen fully licensed stations carrying a mix of services. Since its debut, IPR has made it a priority to expand its services in western and southern Iowa. Pending applications for new stations would add service in western Iowa, although other organizations are also competing for those frequencies. In addition, eight construction permits have been issued for new stations, many of which will add coverage in southern Iowa. On March 21, 2008,
KUNZ in
Ottumwa became the IPR network's first new station to begin broadcasting. IPR has since signed on a second Ottumwa station. In 2008, IPR shut down the individual station
web sites, all of which redirect to iowapublicradio.org. In 2000, the Iowa Board of Regents ended financing of IPR and in 2022 approved the transfer of the stations' licenses from the universities to IPR for a symbolic $1.00. The license transfer converted IPR from an educational licensee to a community licensee. ==Board of directors==