Most likely the first transmission from Iowa State took place in 1912. Newspaper reports from 1913 indicate station 9YI was regularly sending and receiving weather reports by morse code. In 1915, the engineers packed up their equipment and went to the Iowa State Fair to demonstrate the amazing new technology. The following April, the Commerce Department issued a license for station WOI and the first regular broadcast took place on April 28, 1922. One of the station's first regular features was market news.
Announcers read commodity prices gathered by ticker tape and morse code.
But there were other programs, too. In the fall of 1922, the station broadcast its first Iowa State football game. Another long-time favorite, The Book Club began in 1927. Broadcasting was exclusively on the AM band until the late 1940's. Always pioneering new technologies, WOI-TV began broadcasting on channel 4 in 1954.