Jefferson Public Radio

Jefferson Public Radio

Type	Public Radio Network
Country	United States
Broadcast area	Oregon California
Programming
Affiliations	National Public Radio Public Radio Exchange American Public Media
Ownership
Owner	Southern Oregon University
History
Launch date	1969 (1969)
Links
Website	www.ijpr.org

Jefferson Public Radio (JPR) is a regional public radio broadcasting network serving over a million potential listeners in Southern Oregon and the Shasta Cascade region of northern California. Owned by Southern Oregon University, the network is headquartered on the SOU campus in Ashland, near Medford. It is named after the proposed State of Jefferson, an area which roughly corresponds to its vast and mostly mountainous coverage area of 60,000 square miles (160,000 km²).^[1][2]

JPR's flagship station, KSOR in Ashland, signed on in April 1969 as a 10-watt station operated by students at what was then Southern Oregon College. It began moving away from its college radio roots during the 1970s, becoming a full NPR member by the end of the decade. In the early 1980s, it began building a massive system of translators covering large portions of Oregon and California, and now claims one of the largest translator network of any public radio station in the country.^[3]

At first, KSOR was not familiar with the history of Jefferson. However, by the time KSOR began to build full-power satellites later in the decade, it realized that its service area was virtually coextensive with the State of Jefferson. It rebranded itself as "Jefferson Public Radio" in 1989, feeling that name was more than appropriate for its growing network and the area it served.^[3]