[3] Growth continued with the October 25, 1955,[4]: C-149 launch of Fargo's KFNW and its 1961 acquisition of KIHO in Sioux Falls, which became KNWC.
[5] Northwestern built FM stations in all three cities in 1965 (Fargo's KFNW-FM[4]: C-149 and Waterloo's KNWS-FM[6]) and 1969 (KNWC-FM in Sioux Falls[4]: C-181 ).
Des Moines, Iowa, became part of Northwestern Media's footprint when radio stations KJJC and KLRX were bought out of receivership[8] and became KNWI and KNWM in 2004.
[9] In 2010, citing years of low listener support and the fact that it was subsidized by the rest of the network, Northwestern College closed WSMR in Sarasota, Florida, which it had built in 1996; the station was sold to the University of South Florida for $1.275 million and began broadcasting classical music.
UNW had acquired the stations in order to move KDSN-FM to another frequency and facilitate a signal upgrade for KNWI.
[21] It obtained new licenses for full-power non-commercial stations in Ashland, Wisconsin, and Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2022,[22][23] and it also purchased a series of FM translators rebroadcasting KSLT from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel that year.