KSTX FM 89.1 Texas Public Radio

Texas Public Radio (TPR) is a public radio organization based in San Antonio, Texas, operating a network of stations that delivers NPR programming and related public radio content across south-central and West Texas. The organization's service area encompasses San Antonio, the Texas Hill Country, and the Big Spring region. In San Antonio, TPR operates two distinct program services: classical music on KPAC at 88.3 FM, and NPR news and information on KSTX at 89.1 FM. Most of the organization's outlying transmitters function as satellites of KSTX. Funding comes through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and listener contributions. Studios are located in the Irma and Emilio Nicolas Media Center in downtown San Antonio. The organization's roots trace to two separate initiatives. KPAC began broadcasting on November 7, 1982, as an all-classical, non-commercial station founded by arts patron Wilford Stapp under the Classical Broadcasting Society of San Antonio, which was chartered in 1977. Its impetus was the gradual disappearance of classical music from commercial station KMFM, which had carried the format since 1964 under oil baron Harry Pennington before being sold after his death in 1975. Meanwhile, efforts to bring a public radio station to San Antonio dated to the early 1970s. A construction permit for what became KSTX was issued in 1979, but internal disputes and funding difficulties delayed its launch. Eventually, the KSTX permitholders merged with KPAC's operating organization, enabling KSTX to begin NPR broadcasting in 1988. Additional stations in the TPR network were built or acquired between 1997 and 2017.