Iowa’s three university-based public radio stations will soon be working together to improve statewide coverage.

Iowa State’s WOI, the University of Iowa’s WSUI/KSUI and the University of Northern Iowa’s KUNI/KHKE plan to merge later this year.

“It’s really about greater service to Iowa Public Radio’s listeners,” said John Hess, station manager and director of broadcasting for KUNI/KHKE.

The consolidation was recommended in December by the independent company Bornstein and Associates, LLC in order to both increase radio coverage and reduce overhead costs.

The company’s final report proposed creating an executive director position to head consolidation efforts, as well as direct Iowa Public Radio itself.

Arthur Neu, member of the Iowa Public Radio Executive Council and former member of the Board of Regents, said the search for the position is behind schedule but is coming to a close. He said the committee hired Tom Livingston, president of Livingston Associations, to evaluate applicants and select the top five candidates for the job.

The committee will meet Thursday in Iowa City to plan the interview process before having candidates visit the stations involved.

In its evaluation process, Bornstein and Associates interviewed 165 key Iowa Public Radio stakeholders of the three university-based public radio stations and used information gathered from these interviews to produce a series of recommendation reports.

According to the final report, the stakeholders discussed developing a plan for increased coverage of the state, sharing staff and programs, producing more local programming, joint fundraising activities and reducing administrative overhead.

“Initially, it will cost more because we’re going to be operating the same three stations,” Neu said. “Gradually, there will be some savings.”

He said eventually positions within individual stations will be eliminated, reducing costs in the process.

“The idea was to provide better and more effective service to listeners as opposed to saving money,” Hess said.

Hess said it is difficult to estimate the amount of money saved in the long run because of increased initial costs as well as future consolidation of fundraising efforts.

“The impact on Iowa State may be to modify some of the university budgets,” said Warren Madden, vice president of business and finance at Iowa State.

“We’re in the process of moving ahead and hope to complete it this summer.”

Neu said not all Iowa universities are merging into Iowa Public Radio — Kirkwood’s KCCK and other community college radio stations aren’t participating in this consolidation.

Iowa State’s KURE is not a public radio station and will not participate in the merger.

Neu said Iowa does not have a radio news station that covers the entire state, and current stations are vying for listeners.

“We have enough competition,” he said.

“We don’t need to be competing against ourselves.”

No one from Iowa State’s WOI and the University of Iowa’s WSUI/KSUI were available for comment.