The station's reach is extended into the Canton, Mansfield, Lorain, Ashtabula, Sandusky, New Philadelphia and Wooster areas via a network of five full-power repeaters, two low-power translators, and one on-channel booster.

After a public service operating agreement with WCPN owner Ideastream took effect on October 1, 2021, this distinction was again made official as both stations combined programming and personnel, with WKSU as the surviving entity.

[20] With the guidance of E. Turner Stump and speech professor Walton Clarke, the university and Radio Workshop filed paperwork in 1949 for a licensed 10-watt educational FM station.

[21] In April 1950, the FCC gave the university permission to build a small transmitter attached to the roof of Kent Hall,[18] and after testing that began on July 19,[22] WKSU-FM (88.1) was born on October 2, 1950.

[32] On January 13, 1961, the university announced that WKSU-FM would soon return to the air following a $27,000 investment, with hopes of establishing a full-time operation daily from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.,[33] but the initial choice of 91.9 MHz was challenged by a Cleveland FM station over potential interference.

[30] WKSU began broadcasting the university's annual "Campus Day" parade[36] and all home Kent State Golden Flashes sporting events were carried live.

[39] WKSU-FM's news department covered much of the campus unrest at Kent State University in the late 1960s, operations director John Weiser later said that the staffers "handled the events... in a professional manner.

[41] The Ohio State Highway Patrol and riot police were called in to arrest 58 protestors[42] in what Weiser later considered to be his most vivid memory working with the station.

[40] After Kent, Ohio, was placed under a state of emergency on May 2, 1970, following a series of riots in the city and on the campus, WKSU-FM was used for a rumor control center for the student body dubbed "News Rap".

[56] By February 1974, WKSU-FM debuted Morning Show, created by Cleveland broadcasting veteran Dr. Bill Randle (then a professor of communications at Kent State) which featured sports reports from Paul Warfield, who was continuing his graduate studies at the university.

[61] WKSU-FM hosted their first fundraising drive over the weekend of April 19–21, 1974, offering in advance to give half of the money raised to relief efforts in Xenia, Ohio, following the 1974 Super Outbreak.

[67] In July 1980, the station expanded its signal to reach over a million potential listeners in Northeast Ohio thanks to a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) increasing its power to 12,000 watts.

WKSU's increased visibility and NPR carriage resulted in the station slowly streamlining their block programming format, as well as lessening the need for volunteers and student assistance.

[26] The summer of 1981 saw a schedule revamp with a reduction in folk music on weekend mornings and a later start time for Fresh Air, resulting in a debate during a Kent State Student Senate meeting over who was directly responsible for WKSU's programming policies.

[68] As Kent State's student population began to grow in the mid-1980s, Wright Hall was reconverted back into dormitories,[83] forcing the station's offices into leased space at a former restaurant east of the campus in 1987.

[26] WKSU-FM began a long-term $1.5 million fundraising drive in November 1987, initially to purchase the leased building and move all operations there[84][86] but opted to construct a new facility on the campus proper by the end of 1990.

[98] WKRJ in New Philadelphia followed as the university had an existing satellite campus in Tuscarawas County; a "groundbreaking ceremony" consisting of a cake cutting took place on October 18, 1991,[99] but delays and a change to the proposed transmitter site[100] resulted in the station signing on in the summer of 1993.

[96] WKSU's existing Kent transmitter was replaced with a new 909-foot (277 m) tower in Copley Township in 1994, again funded by NTIA[101] but was controversial as it risked encroaching on WCPN, whose management asserted was "the region's (National Public Radio) station".

[115] These internet-only streams were created as prototypes for potential digital subchannels using the HD Radio in-band on-channel standard and eventually were launched as such,[116] while also appealing to listeners that had a preference for either all-classical or all-information programming.

Later line-ups included Bob Dylan, Donovan,[124] Avett Brothers, Doc Watson, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dawes, Judy Collins and Arlo Guthrie.

[129] Within FolkAlley.com's first five years, web traffic data showed the site had been accessed in 130 different countries, resulting in a subscription base of 89,000 people and becoming the first public radio-produced internet stream to generate a profit; WKSU general manager Al Bartholet regarded the website as "like an international operation" successfully autonomous of WKSU-FM.

"[116] WKSU had already been carrying the first hour of Here and Now in between locally hosted classical programming; the format shift coincided with NPR expanding Here and Now as part of a larger initiative to revamp the network's image.

WKSU-FM launched multiple regular news segments including weekly interviews with Plain Dealer sports writer Terry Pluto,[141][142] Quick Bites stories on food and eating[143] and Exploradio reports on research and innovation.

[144] Amy Reynolds, dean of the university's College of Communications and Information, began hosting Elevations, a five-minute interview program on Saturday mornings.

[145] During a Kent State University Board of Trustees meeting in late 2015, chairman Dennis Eckert advocated for WKSU-FM to offer more locally based programming to national distributors like NPR to help boost the university's name awareness; WKSU-FM continued to produce Folk Alley for syndication and the station's news department frequently filed reports for NPR's news programs.

[148] This proposal had origins in a $100,000 CPB grant[149] jointly awarded to WKSU and Ideastream on September 1, 2020, to help expand public media service in Northeast Ohio and encourage collaboration between both entities.

[151] Elizabeth Bartz, a former member of WKSU's community advisory council, found out about the merger proposal just before her term expired in May 2021[150] and voiced her disappointment in the lack of communication with Kent State president Todd Diacon.

[147] Former radio executive John Gorman noted that WKSU's news department had for decades been a strong contributor to NPR, while WCPN had only recently established a fully-staffed newsroom with coverage that "pales in comparison".

WKSU's local programming includes The Sound of Ideas, an hour-long current events talk show hosted by Rick Jackson and Michael McIntrye.

[167] WKSU previously established a news bureau at the United Building in downtown Akron, sharing space with PBS member stations WNEO–WEAO (of which Kent State University is a part-owner) and Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC.