Minnesota Public Radio began on January 22, 1967, when KSJR-FM first signed on from the campus of Saint John's University in Collegeville, just outside St.
Kling more than tripled KSJR's power in hopes of reaching the Twin Cities, but that only provided grade B coverage to Minneapolis and the western portion of the metro, and completely missed St. Paul and the east.
In 1971, operations moved from Collegeville to St. Paul, funded in part with a news programming "demonstration" grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
In 1974, MPR began live broadcasting of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, one of the best-known programs on public radio, from the Park Square Theatre in Saint Paul.
In 1980, MPR originated the Peabody Award-winning classical music show Saint Paul Sunday, which went national via syndication in 1981.
The KNOW call letters and intellectual unit, including the NPR news and talk format, moved to KSJN's old frequency of 91.1.
[8] 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 the Federal Communications Commission approved in 2004.
[2] In 2009 a court found in favor of MPR, ruling that the statute of limitations on the matter had expired, nullifying the advocacy group's standing.)
Today, MPR serves a regional audience of one million listeners through 43 stations presenting three broadcast network services.
Beginning in 1991, MPR's programming split in two, forming separate news and classical music services (although one station in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan still carries a combination of the two).
The MPR newsroom has garnered international acclaim, earning the inaugural Knight News Innovation EPpy Award in 2008.
[10] The newsroom is known for its Public Insight Network, a database of citizen sources who contribute their expertise on a wide array of topics.
The Public Insight Network grew to 140,000 sources in 2011 and partners with other news media, journalism schools, foundations and community groups.
As of 2022, 24 full-power stations carry MPR's News and Information service and various translator signals around the state offer additional coverage.
This online news source covers issues that affect the state including politics, business, education, health, environment, and the economy.
In April 2021, the station rebranded as YourClassical MPR, aligning it with the umbrella branding used for American Public Media's digital classical music platforms and nationally distributed programming.
"[13] According to McQueen, he was "given two warnings—one of which was about his need to improve communication and the other warning was for switching out scheduled music to play pieces he felt were more appropriate to the moment and more diverse.
Several people on The Current's initial staff are well known in the area for previous work at stations that highlight music from Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.
Many of the staffers and on-air personalities came from other similar stations, such as the University of Minnesota's KUOM, community-oriented KFAI, and commercial alternative rock outlets REV 105 and Cincinnati, Ohio's WOXY.com.
The flagship station is KCMP (89.3 FM), licensed to Northfield on the southeastern periphery of the Twin Cities, though the signal covers most of the metro area.
KPCC, the NPR affiliate in Los Angeles operated by MPR's parent company, APM, carries The Current on its HD 2 signal.
Rock The Cradle is also programmed by personnel at The Current, and airs a variation of their AAA format, with music geared toward children and parents.
Stations are in Minnesota, South Dakota (Brookings and Sioux Falls), Michigan (Houghton), Iowa (Decorah), and Idaho (Sun Valley).
Through the PIN initiative, a community of citizens consigned their insights, personal experiences, and firsthand knowledge to journalists they trusted.