An article on Radio Insight is saying that River Radio Ministries is buying WQKT & WKVX for around 3 million dollars from Dix (last assets of the company). The buyer already owns other radio stations in Ohio with the "River" Christian AC branding and expected to flip both stations soon.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
WQKT 104.5 FM & WKVX 960 AM sold to River Radio
- Thread starter tblanks
- Start date
Very sad to see local radio go away in Wooster overnight with this sale. Also soon to be considerable holes in network coverage for the Guardians, Cavs and Buckeyes.
Wow. I was not aware that they flipped to country. Used to listen to WKVX AM 960 once in a while but not often as I'm in the fringes of their signal. They were one of the last AMs left that programed an oldies music format. So I guess this means more religious talk radio on the AM dial?
I’d be surprised if River Radio didn’t turn in WKVX’s license.
The AM is classic hits, the FM is country/sports. The FM will become the "River" Christian AC format ( think the Fish 95.5 for comparison). The AM may just go away or simulcast the Christian AC music.
Unless they see something in placing brokered Christian teaching or something there I think the AM will go away - I suspect that given the stations were the last Dix owned that they had to purchase that AM stick to get the FM (which is really what they wanted).
FM will no doubt go to a simulcast of 104.9 The River in Columbus. (The River's other stations 89.3 WZCP Chillicothe, 89.3 WZNP Newark, and 90.9 WFCO Lancaster OH simulcast 104.9's programming but insert local IDs and non-commercial friendly spots when 104.9 is in ad breaks). They will no doubt run 104.5 WQKT the same way except given it's a commercial license they can insert full ads during the breaks.
104.5's monster signal covers to the NE of Columbus and to the north of Newark, OH and gives "The River" a strong entry into NE Ohio. I would not be surprised if EMF is thinking "dang wish we had been able to buy that" while KLove is in the area their signals in Wooster, Akron and Canton are not as monster as WQKT. The Columbus, OH market (The River's hometown) is one of the areas without a KLove.
Last edited:
Well, WKVX comes off my presets. No great loss; over the last couple of years when I could reliably pick up the signal in Akron during daytime, it has faded to be nothing but a buzz during the day. Nighttime, if I was in the Southern Medina county area I could get them fairly well till recently assumed they either gave up on maintenance or reduced power.
Decades ago, WKVX was known as WWST [I still have some cassettes of them that I taped back in the early 70s]. A legendary west coast DJ, Robert W. Morgan got his start at WWST in 1955.....known as Bob Morgan back then. By 1959 he was in California.
It’s not unheard of for a CCM outlet to have a steady diet of sports programming; WNPQ did it for the longest time when James Natoli owned it. Ditto when the long-gone WZLE in Lorain (now WCPN) was owned by local interests and Vernon Baldwin. It’d be insane for River Radio to just give that all up.
There had been a rumor long ago that Clear Channel had considered purchasing WQKT as a replacement home for WKDD before using 98.1 instead, which would have further complicated that already July 2001 station sale/asset swap.
Adam Jacobson has noted that 1) WQKT will continue to be run commercially and 2) WKVX will be simulcast as a WQKT HD subchannel, so take from it what you will.
rbr.com
There had been a rumor long ago that Clear Channel had considered purchasing WQKT as a replacement home for WKDD before using 98.1 instead, which would have further complicated that already July 2001 station sale/asset swap.
Adam Jacobson has noted that 1) WQKT will continue to be run commercially and 2) WKVX will be simulcast as a WQKT HD subchannel, so take from it what you will.
Guy Helps Dix Family Spin Last Two Radio Stations | Radio & Television Business Report
An AM/FM combo serving a college town due west of Canton, Ohio, is being sold. Pending FCC approval, and the closing, the Dix family will conclude their time as owners of radio stations.
rbr.com
It's not uncommon (Salem's The Fish down in Columbus runs Indians Baseball) but truthfully, it's not standard MO for River Radio to run sports programming - when the owners took 104.9 down in Columbus 100% CCM they stopped even doing High School sports which they used to do years ago when they were a more traditional full service Christian format. I foresee 104.5 being a 100% simulcast of "The River" programming outside of the ad breaks which they will localize via Wide Orbit's ability to have different liner/content (this is how they run noncommercial friendly content on their noncom FMs in Southern Ohio).
Cash deal? Or will they have issues getting financing a la the failed WRFD deal.
Only reason that The Fish carries the Tribe/Guardians down here is iHeart has de-emphasized its sports coverage steadily over the years. The Bengals and Reds are relegated to a classic hip hop station, and the Reds' full schedule doesn't even clear in this market. It is a far, far cry from even 15 years ago. Even the Indians games in the late 2010s were only carried on an HD2, and that was a straight simulcast of WTAM down to the liners. The Fish got the games around 2019 or 2020. Can't remember exactly which season at the moment.
Cavaliers games air on a gospel station that doesn't even cover the entire market.
(The strong signal of WLW negates many issues when it comes to Bengals and Reds games here, but my example still shows how local radio is hesitant to carry the Cincinnati and Cleveland teams that have long been popular in this market.)
I assume WQKT would have to honor its Buckeye contract through at least the rest of this football season. I have no inside sources in Wooster so I don't know anything for sure. Do affiliate stations typically go year to year with, say, the Guardians and Cavaliers, or sign multi-year deals?
The total news vacuum in a city like Wooster will be damning nonetheless. I can’t imagine many businesses wishing to do business with a station that will have abandoned the market.
For all the cheering that the radio industry wants to do about itself being a "vital link" to the cities they serve, a sale like this happens and leaves a community all the poorer.
Last edited:
But most of those local stations in tiny markets are struggling to survive and do little even now in the way of local service.
Those stations are not commercial, so they don't care about markets and ratings. They project donations and revenue based on how many people their usable signal covers and analyze donor response based on that.
The Dix family founded these two stations in 1947 and owned them up to now. If they’re seeing their woodworking side business as being more valuable than radio station ownership, then something is indeed very wrong.
I doubt it. FMs are so shoehorned in together and built around each other that it makes it almost impossible to do such a thing without creating new interference.
Talk about a high price to pay. 104.5 does not reach cleveland why the high price tag?
- Status