They are have / are moving most of their headquarter staff and operations to just south of Nashville. Plus a lot of CCM music is recorded in Nashville. New head quy running the show. What is the largest populated area where they don't have a decent signal? It's all about number of people in the 60 db when they buy something. I believe they still have a large pile of cash should the opportunity come up.
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Air-1 and K-Love
- Thread starter johnbasalla
- Start date
They don't have any signals in St. Louis. They used to have Air1 there but shut them off. I believe they own some translators there but lease them to other operators. As a practice, they usually did not put K-LOVE on the air in markets with an existing Non Commercial CCM station. Air1 would go on instead. I believe that changed, but KLJY is that station for St. Louis. Air1 went off not long after Boost Radio (Which they carry on some of their translators) went on the air in St. Louis. K-LOVE was never on in St. Louis as far as I know.
They have backed down on buying stations because donations have been down because of inflation from what I have heard. This happened once before during the great recession in the late 2000s. They'll still buy stations, but they won't pay big amounts for them. Excess donations go toward buying new stations. This is common in non profit radio. Right now they probably need the money from the excess donations if they eased up on buying.
All of their financials are posted on the websites. You can read over that here. It's not really a secret. Finances | Positive Encouraging K-LOVE
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They have picked some of Salem's Fish stations in the last couple of years. Of course Salem is in need of cash.
I just took a quick look and it appears there are no EMF properties in the St. Louis metropolitan area.
EMF is also a willing buyer in many cases where a merger creates an oversized cluster and the new owner wants the excess station to become non-commercial.
On the other hand, radio revenues in the market don't decline and that can mean more per remaining commercial station and more left for salaries.
Yes, they don't pay corporate income tax. But the market revenue remains and is redistributed and taxable if the commercial stations make a profit.
EMF is simply the first and really the only group in the US to follow the European (and much of the rest of the world) model of national stations with hundreds of frequencies but one program format.
EMF's all music formats are popular. Air 1 and K-Love survive off of donations. They don't sell Underwriting, leaving those dollars to other non-comms and commercial stations. Simply put, if the listeners don't kick in with donations, Air 1 and K-Love cannot exist. It appears there's a percentage of the population substantial enough for their stations to survive and possibly flourish.
EWTN and several others like American Family Radio provide national programming. Some stations add some local content. The difference with EWTN is they don't own stations but American Family sure does.
EWTN and several others like American Family Radio provide national programming. Some stations add some local content. The difference with EWTN is they don't own stations but American Family sure does.
They own 101.9 K270BW. It used to be on 101.5 and it ran Air1 for awhile. They lease it to another broadcaster. The modern day Boost Radio launched there in 2014 with a similar format to Air1 at the time, Christian CHR. Air1 was on 89.5 WARW in Dorsey, and a translator elsewhere. That station signed off at the end of 2014.
I missed that one. I see the city of license is "Bellefontaine" which does not exist. Nor does it exist as a CDP. Bellefontaine Neighbors is the name of a city just north of St. Louis city proper.
I had never even heard of Dorsey, Illinois, even though I spent several years in the St. Louis metro area (on the Missouri side)!
I don't know why WWLV took Air1 off co-owned WLXN. I think Air1 is on HD. I don't actually know if EMF actually owns those stations, but WLXN, a small AM near Greensboro NC, was Air1 and it has translators. Now WLXN is Southern gospel, and when there were complaints about no local content, it brought back local church services.
EMF does accept money from labels at times for promotional purposes (I've heard the tag sometimes when they are promoting a concert tour etc..) But yes, a large majority of their operation is funded by listener or business donations.
There is not necessarily an exchange of money in those concert tour announcements; they can be simply recognition for credit purposes of the contribution of an artist's label for making their talent available for an EMF event.
In other words, somewhat like those screen credits after game shows where merchandise and things of value are given to winners and which acknowledge that those prizes were given in exchange for promotion.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Well, I still don't have to like it.
But since the overwhelming opinion here is that I am incorrect in my judgment, I will simply exit the thread, stage right (with apologies to Snagglepuss).
But since the overwhelming opinion here is that I am incorrect in my judgment, I will simply exit the thread, stage right (with apologies to Snagglepuss).
I’m a bit late to this party, but wanted to add my $.02 on this…
At one point, I was pretty irked that EMF was buying up so many independently-owned Christian stations. Then I realized, most of the sellers were not planning to keep the stations much longer, and in all likelihood, another buyer would not have kept a contemporary Christian music format. And in some of those markets, it would have meant the end of any kind of contemporary Christian music format at all. Also, EMF has brought contemporary Christian music radio to many smaller markets.
So yeah, most of EMF’s OTA programming doesn’t appeal to me that much personally (though the streaming decades stations have some good music). But they serve a purpose, and I’m not going to fault too much what they’re doing.
680 in Atlanta has a COL of North Atlanta which doesn't exist. Translators' City of licence is kinda joke. There is no coverage or "local public issues programming" requirements. Some of these things have "hop scotched" with construction permits many miles from their COL. 101.1 in Atlanta is an example.
IMHO stations should be able to use the Census Bureau' MSA they are located in for a COL if they want to. The "local public affairs" 5am or 6am Sunday shouldn't be a requirement either for commercial stations either
K-Love and Air1 not being in St. Louis might be by plan. There may be entities established there that EMF prefers not to take on. In non-commercial radio, especially Christian formats, some groups would not enter markets where there was an entity already who had virtually the same mission statement or their analysis was if they entered the market both themselves and their competitor would suffer financially. EMF might simply feel what is there is doing a good job. Then again they might be ready to pounce at the right offer.
That's how it used to be. They would avoid trying to compete directly with other non commercial Christian music stations. KLJY and Boost Radio have that market covered. If they got a station where a non commercial Christian AC existed, usually Air1 would be the network they would put on the air. It would be more like complimenting the existing station by adding the network with the different format instead of going directly up against them.
They since stopped doing this and are putting K-LOVE on anyway.
Looked at their year ending 12/31/23.
Contributions/Donations: $220,279,531
Business Underwriting/Grants: $4,577,380
Interesting in that they show $6,137,456 from Concert Tours
So, exactly how many stations & translators is EMF operating? I'm thinking that's not a bunch of money when you divide by stations.
Contributions/Donations: $220,279,531
Business Underwriting/Grants: $4,577,380
Interesting in that they show $6,137,456 from Concert Tours
So, exactly how many stations & translators is EMF operating? I'm thinking that's not a bunch of money when you divide by stations.
North of 1,000. Some 20 years ago it was probably in the low 100s. In the Early 2000s Air1 was less than 50.
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Yep 100% now. This is why we recently got K-Love in Columbus, OH which has for years had a very successful Christian CCM station. If EMF could get a signal for the right price in St Louis with the coverage they would want - I would bet you they would happily launch K-Love there.
Does WCVO have commercials? In that case they would. Only non commercial stations did they try to avoid competing with. They would put on K-LOVE if a station had any preaching shows mixed in. KSBJ is non commercial as far as I know, but they went on in Houston anyway so that leads me to believe they stopped avoiding them directly. For years it was only Air1 in Houston.
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