[13] It would be a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation's General Education Board in 1937,[14] coupled with the demands of accommodating commercial radio, that prompted the school system to enter broadcasting.

[10] Studios were constructed on the sixth floor of the Board of Education building in Downtown Cleveland, which radio supervisor William B. Levenson boasted as "one of the finest in the country".

[24] In the spring of 1939, WBOE experimented with facsimile transmissions sent outside of regular programming hours for distributing printed materials such as lesson instructions, announcements and maps;[25] this was demonstrated during the American Association of School Administrators' annual conference held in Cleveland.

"[10] Edward L. Hoon of the Ohio Education Association cited WBOE as a way to effectively reach students who were sick, hospitalized or unable to physically attend classes.

[50] Even as WBOE was a non-commercial station, the Cleveland Public Schools made special arrangements with WTAM, WHK, WGAR, WCLE and WJW[e] to provide access to educational sustaining programs from the four major radio networks: NBC, Blue/ABC, CBS and Mutual.

[14][48] All stations supplied private lines to WBOE's studios for the purpose of either directly broadcasting sustaining programs to a classroom[f] or to record them for future rebroadcast, sometimes with added narration.

[53] Sustaining programs relayed over WBOE during the 1939–1940 school year included Mutual's Intercollegiate Debates, NBC's Gallant American Women and Between the Bookends, and CBS's Young People's Concerts.

Southern Illinois University professor Richard Swerdlin considered educational radio in 1967 to be an inexpensive and overlooked alternative to television, citing WBOE as one of several "outstanding" stations in the field.

[91] WBOE's NPR addition was regarded as "half-hearted, poorly conceived and badly funded" as the station continued airing in-school educational programming during the weekday,[93] did not set up a local news department or conduct pledge drives.

[98] British classical pianist Clive Lythgoe, who already had a nationally distributed television program originating from WVIZ, hosted similar radio shows over both WBOE and WCLV (95.5 FM).

[108] Arnold R. Pinkney, the school board's Black president, expressed worry that the lawsuit would heighten racial tensions in the city;[109][h] the district later claimed fears of white flight precluded them from implementing a plan of their own volition.

[110] Presiding over the case, U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti ruled on August 31, 1976, that both the local and state boards of education were guilty of deliberately inducing segregation practices,[111][112] issuing the first of what would become 4,000 court orders over the next six years.

[136][92] The Cleveland Board of Education filed to renew WBOE's license on July 11, 1979,[137] which the FCC turned down on June 16, 1981, designating for hearing CPR and CPL's applications[138] as mutually exclusive.

CPR touted its desire to be a community based nonprofit with regional support, while CPL saw the radio station as a valuable addition to its existing role as an information service.

[92] Donald R. Waldrip, the court-appointed desegregation administrator for the Cleveland school board, filed a request with Judge Frank Battisti by late August 1981 to cancel the sale of WBOE to the library and instead sell the assets to CPR.

[124] WKSU's incursion resulted in a feud with WCLV and station president Robert Conrad, who sought to carry NPR fare unavailable in Cleveland, including a radio adaptation of the first Star Wars film trilogy.

[146][147] In turn, WKSU general manager John Perry threatened to deny the winner for the 90.3 FM license carriage rights for A Prairie Home Companion (syndicated by American Public Media, which unlike NPR, allowed affiliates to claim market exclusivity) as a bargaining chip against Conrad.

[158] The Woodhill-Quincy Administration building remained under Cleveland Metropolitan School District ownership after WBOE's closure and dissolution, but gradually fell into disuse and neglect.

[165] This event included a live show featuring vocalist Mel Tormé at the Cleveland Masonic Auditorium, followed by WCPN making its formal debut at 10 p.m. that evening.

[176] A schedule realignment to accommodate the premiere of Weekend Edition in the fall of 1987 saw the programs consolidated into a 12-hour block on Sundays, eliciting anger among the newly established "American Nationalities Movement of Ohio" which attempted a takeover of WCPN's board.

[179] Cleveland mayor George Voinovich expressed outrage over the cancellations and called on an investigation by the FCC[180] while Senator Howard Metzenbaum delayed passage of a budget bill for NPR unless WCPN restored the ethnic fare, but Jensen vowed not to reverse course and received moral support from management at other public radio stations.

[176] This settlement included a funding proposal of $185,000 in grant money for WCPN—including $90,000 from The Cleveland Foundation[181]—as well as the establishment of a five-member advisory board and producer to work with the ethnic hosts.

[181] The settlement came weeks after Cleveland Public Radio saw three longstanding leaders depart during the station's annual board meeting: chairman emeritus Brad Norris, vice president H. Andrew Johnson III and trustee Ben Shouse.

Financial statements disclosed during that meeting revealed that WCPN, despite increasing corporate underwriters and listener support, was experiencing deficits after declines in unrestricted foundation grants.

[162] In 1993, Jerrold Wareham was named as WVIZ's general manager, succeeding station co-founder Betty Cope; shortly after his appointment, Kit Jensen first proposed the idea of both entities forming a partnership.

[191] WNET president William F. Baker called the merger "wonderful news and the right direction for public broadcasting to be moving in... everyone winds up winning, especially the people of Cleveland.

[204] The changes also called for another attempt at a reduction in hours to the Sunday ethnic lineup,[205] but met opposition from Ohio governor George Voinovich, Cleveland mayor Michael R. White and Plain Dealer publisher Alex Machaskee.

[214] Sentiment among former personnel was critical toward ideastream placing an emphasis on television over radio; Kit Jensen disputed this, saying that the station's audience and listener support base had both grown substantially, and that issues to secure funding were preventing staff vacancies from being filled.

Dee Perry retired from the station on August 26, 2016, ending a 40-year career in broadcasting, with all local inserts during weekday NPR programming subsequently rebranded The Sound of Applause.

[228] This agreement had its genesis in a $100,000 CPB grant[229] 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.