KOPN FM 89.5

KOPN (89.5 FM) is a non-profit, listener-supported community radio station in Columbia, Missouri, founded on the model of progressive community radio pioneered by KPFA in Berkeley, California. When it launched on March 3, 1973, it became the eighth open-access, listener-supported station in the United States and the first designed to serve a community of fewer than 100,000 people. The station's origins trace to a November 1971 meeting at The Issue, an alternative newspaper in Columbia. The call sign KOPN was chosen to reflect the station's commitment to openness. KOPN was incorporated as a project of the New Wave Corporation, with founding officers including Patricia Mae Watkins as program director, Gerald Keliher as first manager, Harry Pearle as chief engineer, and Kathy Bierbach as news director. The station received its FCC Construction Permit and initially broadcast at 10 watts from a shared space with the Columbia Community Grocery, a natural food cooperative, at 915 East Broadway — an address from which programming continues to originate. The early transmitter was sited atop Paquin Tower, a 15-story building adjacent to the University of Missouri campus. In its first two months of operation, the station had collected $340.81 in cash and $200 in subscriptions from listener support. KOPN relies heavily on volunteer programmers and also carries content from National Public Radio, Public Radio Exchange, and Pacifica Radio. The station received planning assistance from KDNA personnel Jeremy Lansman and Lorenzo Milam, both of whom were instrumental in the early community radio movement in the United States.