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KNLE, The Candle 88.1, Round Rock

A

Anonymouse

Guest
Anybody else heard KNLE 88.1 north of Austin?
I've been listening a little bit every time I come up to Austin, ever since I first heard it about 4 years ago. It's indipendent Christian music. I've heard everything from Christian pop to Christian rap to Christian Spanish music to Christian soft rock. All of it's un-signed artists. KNLE plays music done by small-time artists who don't have a chance to get played on other stations. The station's a Christian ministry not an industry, so to speak.
Financial problems have however continued to hit KNLE, and hard. The station makes it very clear on the air that it desperately needs your support to keep going, yet they are still lit up after all this time. I think that they have some serious detication to KNLE. I know that running a radio station costs a lot of money, and I respect them a whole lot for continuing to hold onto The Candle and keeping it on the air.
For now, indipendent Christian music in Austin lives on. But for how long?


If you would like to support it, the phone number is (512) 996-8336. The website is http://www.knle.org. Yes it does say that "Candle88.com is coming soon", but I expect that's only because the domain was recently changed. I heard a message on air back in June announcing they had a new web address.
 
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Just for fun, I looked up KNLE. The latest I found was the 2010 IRS Form 990. Don't quote me here, but I think if you have a non-profit and do not generate at least $25,000 in a year you don't have to file an Form 990 for the fiscal year. If that would be correct, that would seem to indicate the annual revenue was under that $25,000 annual threshold at least since the, most likely, June 30, 2010 end of the fiscal year. The latest filing would be the July 2013 through June 2014 which would have been due perhaps by the end of October 2014 if postings are any clue.

On the Form 990 for 2010, KNLE showed an income of $52,126 or about $1,000 a week in revenue. That's really lean for running an FM. When you figure in the office space, utilities, tower site, engineering work and other things we seldom include on the list of bills that every station has, that means the manager might get at best a tiny token salary. At under $25,000 it would be really, really tough. The truth is rent is usually never discounted. You wouldn't rent a $2,000 a month office space for $500 when you'd have plenty of folks trying to give you $2,000. Tower companies don't care; you pay the going rate regardless. Same goes for phone, internet, electric, water, sewage, trash pick up, etc. If they play copyrighted music add in music licensing fees too and that's determined by the market, income and type of station you are.

Look at what has happened in Austin. KNLE had it all at one time when there was only the Christian talker for competition. Now they have more powerful competitors after the Christian music audience. They are certainly the underdog in the market and had to be unique to grab a small share. There's the former Contemporary Christian in Georgetown, the LPFM. I heard they went to a secular format.

I hope they hang on.

I'd hate to see them go under.
 
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