KDSU (91.9 FM) is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

licensed to

Fargo, North Dakota Fargo is the List of cities in North Dakota, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County, North Dakota, Cass County. The population was 125,990 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, which was e ...

. The station is owned by

North Dakota State University North Dakota State University (NDSU, formally North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fargo, North Dakota, United States. It was ...

, but is operated by

Prairie Public Radio Prairie Public's radio service is a network of ten radio frequencies in North Dakota. It is a service of Prairie Public Broadcasting based in Fargo. Prairie Public maintains active studios in Fargo and Bismarck. It is a member station of Nati ...

. It airs

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

news and talk programming for most of the day, but simulcasts

KFJM KFJM (90.7 FM) is a public radio station in Grand Forks, North Dakota airing an adult album alternative format with news in the mornings, jazz in the late evenings and blues and folk on the weekends. It carries programs from NPR and Public Ra ...

's ''Roots, Rock and Jazz'' programming from 9 am to 3 pm and from 8 pm to 4 am on weekdays. The rest of the main Prairie Public Radio network airs

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

during these times. KDSU shares its coverage area with

Moorhead, Minnesota Moorhead ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Clay County, Minnesota, Clay County, Minnesota, United States, on the banks of the Red River of the North. Located in the Red River Valley, an extremely fertile and active agricultural region, Moo ...

-based

Minnesota Public Radio Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, KNOW-FM, News & Information, KSJN, YourClassical MPR and KCMP, The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper ...

outlets KCCD and KCCM, making Fargo/Moorhead one of the smallest markets with competing NPR member stations.

History

In 1952, students at the then-North Dakota Agricultural College signed on a very low-powered campus AM

carrier current Carrier current transmission, originally called wired wireless, employs guided low-power Radio frequency, radio-frequency signals, which are transmitted along electrical conductors. The transmissions are picked up by receivers that are either conne ...

station. It adopted the fictional call letters "KDSC""; since the station didn't need a license, this was never officially assigned by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

. The station began using "KDSU" as an identifier sometime in the early 1960s, after the college became North Dakota State University. It went off the air in 1964 due to technical difficulties. It returned in 1966 as a fully licensed FM station, now officially assigned the KDSU call letters. It originally tried to satisfy all tastes, airing jazz, blues, folk music, classical music, rock and opera. By 1981, however, it had evolved into a more traditional public radio station, airing news and jazz during the week and specialty programming on weekends.

External links

Prairie Public radio websiteKDSU Schedule
* DSU DSU NPR member stations Radio stations established in 1966 1966 establishments in North Dakota {{NorthDakota-radio-station-stub