Minnesota Public Radio - History

History

Minnesota Public Radio began on January 22, 1967, when KSJR signed on from the campus of Saint John's University in Collegeville, just outside St. Cloud. The Director of Broadcasting for the station was William H. Kling, a graduate of Saint John's.

It soon became apparent that St. Cloud and surrounding Stearns County didn't have enough listeners for the station to be viable, so Kling more than tripled KSJR's power in hopes of reaching the Twin Cities. However, it only provided grade B coverage to Minneapolis and the western portion of the metro, and completely missed St. Paul and the east. Realizing that the station needed to cover the Twin Cities to have a realistic chance of survival, St. John's signed on KSJN, a low-powered repeater station for the Twin Cities, in 1968. However, the operation was still awash in debt. By 1969, St. John's realized it was in over its head operating a full-fledged noncommercial radio station, so it transferred KSJR/KSJN's assets to a community corporation, St. John's University Broadcasting. This corporation later changed its name to Minnesota Educational Radio, and finally Minnesota Public Radio. Kling led MPR as president and CEO for 44 years, before retiring in 2011.

MPR was a charter member of National Public Radio in 1971, and had helped lay the groundwork for forming that organization during 1969 and 1970. During the 1970s, the network expanded across Minnesota. Gradually, the network moved its operations to St. Paul, and KSJN became the flagship station.

MPR began live broadcasting of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, one of the best-known programs on public radio, in 1974. In 1980, MPR originated the Peabody Award-winning show, Saint Paul Sunday, which went national via syndication in 1981.

MPR assisted in the formation of American Public Radio (now known as Public Radio International) in 1983.

Originally, MPR played a mix of classical music and NPR news/talk programming. However, as NPR expanded its offerings, Kling made plans to split MPR into separate classical and news/talk networks. MPR sought to buy a second FM frequency in the Twin Cities from the late 1970s onward. As a fallback, in 1980 it bought WLOL (AM 1330), one of the oldest stations in Minnesota, and changed its calls to KSJN (AM), a simulcast of KSJN-FM. In 1989, AM 1330 changed its calls to KNOW and began airing an expanded lineup of NPR programming. In 1991, MPR bought WLOL-FM, AM 1330's former FM sister, allowing it to finally split its services into two networks. The KSJN calls moved to WLOL-FM's former frequency of 99.5, which began playing classical music full-time. The KNOW call letters and intellectual unit, including the NPR news and talk format, moved to KSJN's old frequency of 91.1.

MPR acquired Marketplace Productions, which produces Marketplace, "Marketplace Morning Report" and "Marketplace Money" from studios in Los Angeles, in association with the University of Southern California, in 2000. That same year, MPR founded Southern California Public Radio, which entered into a public service operating agreement with Pasadena City College for the operation of KPCC in Pasadena, California.

In 2004, MPR announced it would buy WCAL (89.3 FM), the classical music station operated by St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. WCAL (and a repeater station, KMSE in Rochester), were sold in a deal valued at $10.5 million, which was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in 2004. The next year, following the acquisition by MPR, WCAL changed its call letters to KCMP and was transformed into MPR's third service, "The Current".

In 2008, a WCAL advocate group took St. Olaf College to court for breach of trust for selling the radio station. (A June 2008 judge's opinion described the station as a charitable trust and not the college's property to freely dispose with. )) MPR's General Counsel and three attorneys took part in the proceedings.)

Today, MPR serves a regional audience of one million listeners through 43 stations presenting three broadcast network services.