The first real steps toward the building of what would become Wisconsin Public Radio began in 1947, with the sign-on of WHA-FM (now WERN) as a sister station to WHA.

During the week, the WPR News airs Morning Edition, All Things Considered, On Point, 1A, Science Friday, along with a mix of national programs including Reveal, Latino USA and The Moth Radio Hour, and overnight, the BBC World Service.

Higher Ground, a program of world music hosted by Dr. Jonathan Overby, is broadcast on Saturday night on WHAD, WPR's Ideas Network station in Milwaukee, and otherwise heard on WPR's News & Classical Music stations around the state.

The network carried old time radio programming on weekend evenings, but discontinued doing so in June 2020 due to the racial and sexist views of the era proving outdated and offensive to general audiences.

On the typical weekday, the Ideas Network broadcast over seven hours of live, Wisconsin-produced call-in talk shows.

In addition to the programs above, this network carried Fresh Air, Weekend Edition, APM's Marketplace, the BBC World Service's Newshour, and Live from Here.

The app includes in-app readers of local and national news articles from WPR and NPR.

Two high school radio stations (one, WEPS, is located in the northwest Chicago suburb of Elgin, and its signal does not reach the Wisconsin state line) carry the network outside of school hours and summer periods, providing a form of license protection to those stations (WEPS began to program the Ideas Network in order to fend off a license challenge due to being off-air after school hours), while WLBL-FM in Wausau shares time on its frequency with WXPW, a repeater of independently owned NPR member WXPR in Rhinelander.

[6] At the time of the announcement, no information was provided by WPR on changes to the All Classical Network or any of its HD radio services.

WPR noted on their website, "We are encouraging people to use online audio instead of HD because it is easier to find for most people" [7] Gateway Technical College's WGTD affiliate confirmed its general alignment to WPR News, but stated all local programming would be preserved with slight schedule adjustments.

[3] Stations with this HD-2 service included WERN Madison, WHAD Milwaukee, WHRM Wausau, WPNE Green Bay, WHHI Highland, and WHLA La Crosse.

W272CN, originally W275AF/102.9, was no longer needed after WPR constructed two full-power stations in the Chequamegon Bay area and was discontinued in June 2016 [5].

On October 19, 2020, WPR discontinued HD service on KUWS Superior, WHSA Brule-Superior, WUWS Ashland, WHBM Park Falls, WHWC Menomonie, WHAA Wisconsin Rapids, and WHDI Sister Bay, due to low listenership.

[9] Listeners and the broader public are invited to share their views of programs, topics and guests during radio broadcasts, on social media and wpr.org web forums and through WPR's Audience Services phone and email contacts.

[10] The guidelines are enforced through call-screeners during broadcast programs and online forums are regularly monitored by WPR staff.