KRNI

KRNI (1010 AM) is a radio station licensed to Mason City, Iowa, United States. The station is owned by Iowa Public Radio, Inc., and carries the network's "News and Information" service.

KRNI was established as KSMN, the second local station in Mason City, in 1948. KSMN provided news and, ultimately, country music until it was switched to a simulcast of KLSS (106.1 FM), the FM station previously started by KSMN, in 1985. When the owners of KLSS-AM-FM acquired another AM station in 1990, this station was divested and donated to the University of Northern Iowa, who converted it into a public radio station as a simulcast of its main station, KUNI. It remained a public radio station after Iowa's state universities merged their radio operations into IPR in 2004.

KRNI operates from a single-tower facility east of Mason City. It operates at 750 watts during the day. Even with its modest power, the region's flat land and near-perfect ground conductivity allow KRNI to provide at least secondary coverage to most of north-central Iowa and parts of southern Minnesota. At night, the station greatly reduces power to 16 watts in order to protect two Canadian clear-channel stations on 1010 AM, CFRB in Toronto and CBR in Calgary, rendering it all but unlistenable even in Mason City.