KOPN

KOPN

City	Columbia, Missouri
Broadcast area	Columbia, Missouri area
Branding	Community Radio
Slogan	It's not just radio, it's community radio.
Frequency	89.5 MHz
First air date	March 3, 1973
Format	Variety
ERP	36,000 watts
HAAT	72.0 meters
Class	C2
Facility ID	48674
Transmitter coordinates	38°59′53.00″N 92°11′48.00″W / 38.9980556°N 92.1966667°W / 38.9980556; -92.1966667
Affiliations	National Public Radio, Public Radio International
Owner	New Wave Corporation
Website	kopn.org

KOPN (89.5 FM) is a non-profit community radio station in Columbia, Missouri which from its start was modeled on the progressive format of KPFA in Berkley, California. The station relies heavily on volunteers for programming and also carries programming from National Public Radio, Public Radio International, and Pacifica radio network.^[1]

The station that when it came on the air it was the eighth open-access, listener-supported station in the U.S. and the first to serve an audience of less than 100,000 people.^[2] It now claims to be the oldest community-owned station in the country (its predecessors are group owned mostly by Pacifica or have ceased to exist).^[3]

The station has long been a rival of the broadcast stations of the University of Missouri and its Missouri School of Journalism. It has placed Columbia in the unusual position of having two NPR stations just four blocks from each other in a small market community.

History

The station traces its roots to a November 1971 meeting at The Issue, an alternative newspaper in Columbia. They picked the call sign KOPN to commemorate its openness to all. Patricia Mae Watkins and her life partner David Taylor were listed as the driving forces behind the founding.^[4][2] Steve Dreher was named the station's first manager.^[2]

The station went on the air as 10–watt station on March 3, 1973. It broadcast a monaural signal and operated out of a space from a food cooperative on the second floor of 915 East Broadway (it still broadcasts from the address even as the food cooperative left the building). In its first 2 months it had $340.81 in cash and $200 in subscriptions.^[2] It s broadcast from atop the newly opened 15-story Paquin Tower adjoining the University of Missouri campus and Columbia's second tallest building (after Jesse Hall).^[5]

In the planning stages the radio received assistance from KPFA personnel Jeremy Lansman and Lorenzo Milam who had started similarly formatted KDNA in St. Louis. KDNA had already financial failed by the time KOPN went on the air. KOPN acquired the KDNA transmitter and in 1974 began broadcasting at 40,000 watts and moved its frequency from 89.7 to 89.5.^[2]

From nearly the start the station has hosted locally produced radio plays. In 1979 it began hosting the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop

In 1979 the station sought to start a public television in Columbia. It initially got a license to re-broadcast the public television station signal from Kansas City, KCPT, via a Broadcast relay station. Its signal only reached an 11–mile radius from its tower. When it abandoned it the station, K56AU became a repeater for the Trinity Broadcast Network.^[6] The University of Missouri station KOMU is a commercial station and not a public television station.

In 1980 the power was reduced to its present 36,000 watts after an assistant professor at the University of Missouri campus which was next to the tower requested the change after he claimed the powere was affect his cancer research.^[7]

While most of the station's offerings in the 1970s tended to be leftist/progressive, it was one of only two stations in Missouri to carry the conservative 5 minute daily program "This is Liberty Lobby" which concluded with an invitation to get the group's "America First" publication.^[8]

In February 1981 the station received extensive publicity after escapees from the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri called the station's Zebra Sunrise show aimed at inmates to complain about prison conditions.^[9]

In a wink to its leftist history the station on April Fools' Day in 1981 joked that it would cancel "Zebra Sunrise" which had been deemed moral trash by the Moral Majority and station would begin producing anti-Communist programs, have a 50 percent increase in religious programming and offer Paul Harvey, Phyllis Schlafly, William Buckley and Jerry Falwell as commentators and that "Liberty Lobby will be aired morning, noon and night."^[2]

In 1996 the station became associated with National Public Radio. While this brought some federal grants to the station it also put it in direct competition with the University of Missouri-owned NPR radio station KBIA (which is just four blocks from KOPN) for the same subscribers and division of federal grants.^[3] The NPR affiliation also meant increased costs for membership. At the time KBIA did not broadcast the entire NPR offering particularly talk shows as KBIA broadcast classical music instead. This led to an initial scheduling battle as KBIA increased its talk time.^[10].

The station has perpetual economic issues including in 1984, 1991 (when it almost lost its lease), and in 1994 (when it lost its bingo fundraiser). In 2017-2018 it is going through another crisis because of proposed cuts in federal grants to public broadcasting entities particuarly its main grant source from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.^[11] Estimates in the small market of Columbia is that it has "2,000-3,000 listeners per week and roughly 800 listener-sponsors"^[10] In 2018 its budget was $200,000. Its finances are currently being assisted by the Kiva (organization) which specializes in funding entrepreneurs in the developing world.^[12]

Records and audio recordings of its programs from its founding through 1999 are now housed at the State Historical Society of Missouri in St. Louis.^[13]

References

External links

• Query the FCC's FM station database for KOPN
• Radio-Locator information on KOPN
• Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KOPN