The station has had that swath of the region available to it as a broadcast area since its inception but has been unable to reach any ears south of the mountain range, limited by geography. As a result, KCSN has been missing about one third of its licensed area, or about 400,000 listeners.

The expansion was funded by a $109,781 matching grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), as part of a pilot program in which monies were awarded to public radio stations in the top-13 markets to equip them with HD Radio technology. The grant to KCSN is the only one that incorporates broadcast expansion with the new digital technology and it is being used as a landmark test case.

With a recently invented format titled "Arts and Roots Radio", KCSN add a distinctively unique format to the local airwaves, with a mix of classical music "from the last thousand years" (aired weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and a potpourri of programs offering country, bluegrass, movie soundtracks, Beatles, classic R&B, Broadway, folk and more during evening and weekend hours.

For early morning listeners, KCSN continues to carry the BBC World Service from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. daily.

While many public radio stations have been turning to numbers crunchers to build audiences and financial support, KCSN, under the aegis of Cal State Northridge's College of Arts, Media, and Communication, is run by musicians. General Manager Fred Johnson is a working musician and Programmer Martin Perlich is an accomplished pianist.

Rather than considering what programming will appeal to the largest number of listeners, they select music they consider worth listening to. The result is a station that sounds original, daring, and interesting, closer to what public radio was originally intended to be. The format is garnering ever increasing numbers of listeners and supporters.

Perlich has a special interest in contemporary classical music, which he feels is sorely under-represented in the L.A. radio market. He also regards relating the playlist to the local concert scene as an important function of public radio. Host of an award-winning interview program and author of the book "The Art of The Interview", Perlich's probing interviews with artists appearing locally are a regular feature on the radio station.

The Roots portion of the programming is described by Perlich as "Americana before it became a commodity". "Twang" with Cowboy Nick playing country/western, is followed by "The Swingin' Years" hosted by Chuck Cecil. Bluegrass and country/western precede swing and early jazz, and Jazzbo, the Grateful Dead, and the Beatles each have their own dedicated program. The station also offers opera, hip-hop, blues, and surf music.

A community affairs/talk segment provides news from the student-produced, multi Golden Mic award-winning KCSN News Department and a variety of interesting half-hour programs including "The California Report" and "Pacific Time", as well as "Focus", a report on current university news.

Simultaneous to the installation of their new booster transmittter, KCSN has also begun broadcasting a digital signal, referred to as "HD Radio". The technology is still in the testing phase, but when fully implemented, it will radically enhance the sound quality, eliminate hiss, distortion, and other types of interference. In addition it will permit the utilization of other technologies down the road, such as digital radio tuners at home and in the car.