Delilah turns in the license due to lack of advertiser support. Not surprising given the small town and that massive 50kw's mustve been a giant power bill and other stations out that way have faltered.
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K-DUNE is K-DONE
- Thread starter SomeRadioGuy
- Start date
As I mentioned on a local OR board, it's not like she didn't know this going in. I wonder what changed. She bought it after Covid had ravaged economies, not before. And she certainly knows radio...
She wanted to give her hometown station once last chance... few would do what she did
It's where she started in radio.
Probably should have been deleted before Delilah put it back on. But nobody complained to the FCC about KDUN being off the air for years.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of here. Delilah gave it a try, and probably gave KDUN a few extra years that it otherwise would not have had. But that doesn’t mean that she should continue to chase after bad money with good money.
I’ve always had a soft spot for AM radio (and oldies in particular), but oldies on the AM dial is not a great recipe for success in 2025. As I recall, the KDUN playlist was also focused more on the 70’s and 80’s. Those tracks are better suited for FM.
It’s a shame, but it was time.
I’ve always had a soft spot for AM radio (and oldies in particular), but oldies on the AM dial is not a great recipe for success in 2025. As I recall, the KDUN playlist was also focused more on the 70’s and 80’s. Those tracks are better suited for FM.
It’s a shame, but it was time.
RIP KDUN
I remember reading a story decades ago about an underwater volcano off the Oregon coast near Reedsport, the Axial Seamount (located right smack in the blast of KDUN's 50,000 watts.) They say sometime in the next few thousand years, it's going to break surface and become new land. And if that were to happen and KDUN were still on the air, it would be the first land to get radio service before humans ever stepped on it.)
And what a top-hour ID that would be "KDUN, Reedsport-Axial Seamount"
Delilah had quite the team of industry pros working with her. If they couldn't do a miracle, no one can.
I remember reading a story decades ago about an underwater volcano off the Oregon coast near Reedsport, the Axial Seamount (located right smack in the blast of KDUN's 50,000 watts.) They say sometime in the next few thousand years, it's going to break surface and become new land. And if that were to happen and KDUN were still on the air, it would be the first land to get radio service before humans ever stepped on it.)
And what a top-hour ID that would be "KDUN, Reedsport-Axial Seamount"
Delilah had quite the team of industry pros working with her. If they couldn't do a miracle, no one can.
Translator, while a good idea, still wouldn't have saved it. KNPT Newport had a translator, and a stream, and it still went off the air.
Reedsport (and Florence, which was also within the signal's reach) is a small market, and such small markets a tough sell for radio these days.
Sad to see. That and KGRG-1, which I used to listen to. Radio is a tough sell these days, whether its to businesses, or even college students. Reedsport is a small market, and just wasn't enough to keep a station going. The Oregon Coast is a popular tourist destination, although the northern half sees more visitors (being closer to Portland, Salem, Corvallis, and even Seattle). The southern Oregon Coast is sort of like Washington's coast -- not exactly thriving economically, save for a few small exceptions.
It's just the reality of the business climate, and we all know how the business climate is for radio in general these days.
It's just the reality of the business climate, and we all know how the business climate is for radio in general these days.
Reedsport is a small town with a declining population. With only about 4,300 people.. The economy is terrible, with small businesses struggling to survive. A paper mill, now shuttered, was the big employer.
I cant think of a worse place for a 50 kw AM to try to survive in.
I cant think of a worse place for a 50 kw AM to try to survive in.
There was a long thread on here when Delilah bought KDUN and that was our basic conclusion at that time. The power level wasn't all that important - it probably would also have failed if it had been a standalone C2 FM in Reedsport.
Same with Newport, though, which is just 20 miles south, and had a sister station in Lincoln City (along with an FM translator and stream) -- KNPT (and the others in its small cluster) still failed. Tourism apparently doesn't pay the bills for radio and other local media enough to keep more than just a few stations on the air.
Florence, about 20 miles north and within the signal area, had another 8000 and KDUN's signal undoubtedly reached Coos Bay, an area with maybe 20+K, but even that extra reach wasn't enough to keep the station on the air. There just weren't enough local businesses to support the station. Even suburban AM's and FM's in metro areas can have trouble with advertising in today's business climate.
In smaller cities, it's even worse.
Tourist attractions have always been a tough sell. Tourists generally have some things on their hit list before they arrive, based on online research, guide books, or even generative AI, so a lot of their money is already committed before they arrive.
The other problem is that the radio stations that serve these tourist areas are usually part of a larger market.
For example in Pigeon Forge, TN, most of the radio stations serve the Knoxville market. Pigeon Forge tourist attractions are wasting their money if they advertise to the whole Knoxville market. People who aren't on vacation would not drive to Pigeon Forge specifically for those attractions, and only a small percentage of listeners to Knoxville radio on any given day are tourists.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Right on the mark. In fact, I think that's a universal truism for any vacation destination. The tourists generally have their own plans for their trips, and "listening to the radio" is rarely -- if ever -- in those plans.
A good example of how this even extends to PPM markets is Las Vegas. There have been attempts several times over the years to create programming aimed at the tourists: Interviews with the acts at the hotels, ads for the casinos, etc. Every single time, it failed ... because the intended audience didn't listen, and the locals certainly weren't motivated to tune in. Radio in Las Vegas is entirely programmed for the year-round residents.
Even the "highway radio" experiment of the 1980s and 1990s, which was AC music and Vegas promotional announcements simulcast on two frequencies close to each other at both ends of I-15 as its route took it through a long stretch where terrain blocked outside signals, was far from a long-term success; the casino ads dried up within the first decade or so, their revenue dropped after the beginning of the century to the point where they dropped the 24/7 live air talent to go fully automated in 2009, went Chapter 11 in 2017, and the station at the north end now has an EDM format programmed by the operators of the Franken-FM station in Vegas itself (with the I-15 simulcast now relegated to the HD2 channel). They have also held a CP to move closer to Las Vegas proper since 2023 but AFAIK no progress has been made on that.
They have other combinations of signals running Country, Hot AC and Rock, but the concept of targeting tourists fell by the side of the Interstate long ago.
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Here's an interview with Smokey Rivers (former KDUN PD). The last line sums it up...Delilah did everything she could for KDUN, but couldn't fix the Reedsport, OR part of it.
radioinsight.com
Delilah’s Station and the Friday Night Miracle
Two years ago, Delilah Rene’s KDUN Reedsport, Ore., was a good news story for the business—an AM station purchased by
radioinsight.com
I worked summers at WCCW in Traverse City, MI, a very tourist-based economy at the time. While there was some "summer advertising" there was really no huge increase in radio revenue from tourism. There was a "pitch" to advertisers about tourists, most of whom came in cars, listening and hearing ads, businesses knew that the most effective media was the collection of tourist newspapers, magazines and the like that were handed out everywhere.
I can't see that this has changed much over the 6 decades since I worked there! (except that now tourists can type in "steakhouse" and click "Allow to use your location" and, voilá, a list of 'em.