The station's studios and offices are located on Mainstream Drive north of downtown Nashville, which are considered among the finest radio production facilities in the U.S. WPLN-FM is simulcast on two low-powered repeaters on the fringes of the Middle Tennessee area: WHRS (91.7 FM) in Cookeville and WTML (91.5 FM) in Tullahoma.

WPLN-FM offers nationally syndicated public radio programs with local news updates.

Weekdays feature Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, 1A, Here and Now and overnight, the BBC World Service.

Its HD-2 digital subchannel offers the BBC World Service and co-owned 91.1 WNXP plays adult alternative music.

Nashville Public Radio holds periodic on-the-air fundraisers and seeks donations on its website to support the services.

In most cases, libraries usually operate radio frequencies only for radio-reading services for the blind and visually impaired, signals that are available only on special receivers.

Schedule and programming expansion continued at a steady pace throughout the 1980s and 1990s, while WPLN's physical plant did not expand beyond a block of rooms in the library building.

In order to rectify the space shortage and provide more extensive services to the community than was possible under the budgetary and bureaucratic constraints of the public library system, the library board decided, in 1995, to begin proceedings to release the station to an independent community board.

The success of this move may have prompted the Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County school system, which operated public television outlet WDCN (channel 8), to follow suit three years later.

[5] WFCL became WNXP (with the call sign actually having changed in early October) and classical programming was replaced by an eclectic music format, largely revolving around the adult album alternative genre.

In June 2011, following the launch of Classical 91 One, 90.3 HD-2 switched to carrying time-shifted programming from WPLN's main channel.

This lasted until May 22, 2014, when WPLN discontinued WRVU from its HD3 signal (due to low ratings) and replaced it with XPoNential Radio.