TPR has dedicated reporters covering specific beats, including Politics, Health Care, Education, the Environment, and Arts & Culture.

TPR also produces local segments including: In addition to the main studio at 1 Union Station in downtown Providence, TPR also operates three local news bureaus: Each bureau has a permanently-assigned, full-time bureau reporter, and a fully-soundproofed recording booth for interviews, live broadcasts, and similar projects.

The network's primary signal, WNPN (89.3 FM) in Newport, broadcasts from the old WLNE-TV tower in Tiverton and covers most of Rhode Island and the Massachusetts South Coast.

Even though BU doubled WRNI's transmission power to 10,000 watts, its signal was not strong enough to reach the southern and western portion of the state.

On September 17, 2004, with no advance warning, WBUR Group general manager Jane Christo announced that WRNI and WXNI were being put up for sale.

She wouldn't give any specifics, only saying that it was time for Rhode Islanders to buy the stations if they wanted to keep NPR programming in the state.

[16] The announcement led Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch to open an investigation into WBUR and WRNI.

[17] On September 27, BU interim president Aram Chobanian delayed the sale of WRNI and WXNI, citing concerns raised by both Lynch and Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri.

The addition of WRNI-FM made WXNI redundant, and BU sold that station separately to Diponti Communications, which renamed it WBLQ.

[21] There was a general expectation by listeners that public radio stations transmit on the noncommercial end of the FM band (88.1-91.9 MHz).

In July 2011, RIPR entered an agreement with WCVY (91.5 FM), which is owned and operated by Coventry High School and covers the Kent County region.

Previously, because WCVY did not broadcast 24/7, they had been forced, under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule 73.561(b), to "share-time" 16 hours per day of the frequency with the now-defunct religious station WRJI.

With the 2011 agreement, WCVY aired its own student-created programming on weekdays from 2-8 p.m. when school is in session, and The Public's Radio filled the remainder of the time to avoid another "share-time" challenge.

[30][31][32][33] The deal included a move and expansion of the existing signal from the UMass Dartmouth campus to a taller tower in Tiverton.

While not quite a "statewide" signal, the new 89.3 would provide one, single frequency that all the Narragansett Bay and South Coast communities can tune to hear the network.

On June 26, 2017, WUMD ended at noon and transitioned to an online-only station; the 89.3 signal went dark for two weeks to add new studio/transmitter link equipment.

Construction quickly began to expand 89.3 by refurbishing the old WLNE tower,[34] and a "license to cover" was applied for with the FCC on August 2, 2018[35] indicating imminent operation from the new facility.

The move roughly doubles the coverage of the original facility, adding 700,000 new listeners in Rhode Island and the South Coast.

The call letters were changed to WNPK and an application filed[36] to move 90.7 off-campus to a tower in South Kingstown near the University of Rhode Island, greatly expanding the signal.

At the moment, the now-WNPH operates at a low power while waiting for the FCC to approve its application to move to a new tower in and greatly expand the signal.

At the end of September 2021, repeater station W275DA begins broadcasting on 102.9 FM in Providence from the WPRO-FM tower on Neutaconkanut Hill.

After seriously considering rebranding to "Southern New England Public Radio", the network decided it was best to choose an identity "based on what we do as opposed to our zip code.