Iowa Public Radio

About Iowa Public Radio

Iowa Public Radio was created in December 2004 by the Iowa Board of Regents to manage the radio operations licensed to Iowa's three public universities — Iowa State University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Northern Iowa. For decades each university had run its own stations, two of which (Iowa State's WOI and the University of Iowa's WSUI) hold some of the oldest radio licenses in the world, among the first 100 ever granted. The consolidation brought them under one network with coordinated programming and coverage.

The network launched a News and Information service in January 2007, a Classical service in September 2007, and expanded its nighttime music programming into a third full service called Studio One. In 2022 the Board of Regents voted to transfer the broadcast licenses from the universities to IPR itself, making the network a fully independent nonprofit media organization.

Today IPR is a member of National Public Radio, providing news, talk, and music programming via 26 radio stations plus streaming and on-demand audio. It serves a weekly audience of roughly 220,000–250,000 listeners across the News, Studio One, and Classical streams. Its headquarters are at 2111 Grand Avenue in Des Moines, with studios on the campuses in Ames, Iowa City, and Cedar Falls, and its digital home is iowapublicradio.org.