History
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. The three universities competed somewhat as each station sought to expand its coverage area. In late 2004, the Board of Regents of the three universities voted to merge the three radio operations, 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".
Iowa Public Radio includes WOI and WOI-FM at Iowa State University, WSUI and KSUI at the University of Iowa, and KUNI and KHKE at the University of Northern Iowa. 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 AM stations during the daytime. This has resulted in ten of IPR's fifteen fully licensed stations carrying a mix of services.
Upon its debut, the IPR network 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 already 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 plans to sign on a second Ottumwa station later in the year.
In 2009, IPR shut down the individual station Web sites, all of which now redirect to iowapublicradio.org.
Read more about this topic: Iowa Public Radio
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)