I think the board members of KJMC were part of an older generation and their method of fundraising and prominence in the community as an original black community contingent had faded. There are more younger blacks around now and the younger generations are just different and don't have that same community connection the generation in the 60's-90's had in Des Moines.
I found a
Register article from 2015, of all places, focusing on the development of "classic hip hop", which also generally got into the topic of why that form of music wasn't on radio in Des Moines. It quoted Larry Neville of KJMC:
"We'll play some hip-hop sometimes at nighttime, but a lot of hip-hop doesn't fit in with what we're playing," Neville said. "We're old schoolers ourselves, so we aren't going to try to tap into something we don't know a whole lot about."
Which, I think, points out the generational differences right there.
Interesting that, except for a glancing mention in a 2019 article, that was the last mention I found of KMJC in the
Register.
Yes...the KUCB history was quite wild. I remember some of it as a kid!
Including the pirate operation, no doubt, which got busted. The part that floored me was the fact that there was a Des Moines Black Panther Party. I knew there was one in Kansas City; in fact, I wrote a paper about it for an eighth-grade social studies class in Centerville, of all places. As much as I paid attention to current events...probably as much as I do now...the Des Moines Black Panthers escaped my attention.
Btw...for a time back in the early 2000's KJMC broadcasted from Alleman with 9,000 watts at 450 feet. Gave it a really nice 60 dbu signal from Ames all the way down to the south side of Des Moines. I recall they had to stop that because some unforseen interference was caused to neighboring stations I believe? But that was their peak if you ask me. This was likely 2001-2003 or so.
That seems to be when it got the most attention in the
Register, with several interview shows on the station regularly making news.
It's probably impossible to find from the current FCC online record the full story of KJMC's need to move. My guess would be an IF issue (89.7 + 10.7 = 100.4, next to 100.3, what's now KDRB, originally WHO-FM). But I thought colocation on the same tower was one of the remedies for such an issue. Could it have been that KJMC was on the KCCI tower instead of the WOI/KDIN/WHO tower?
I don't know the breakdown of Des Moines, but I've always gotten the impression that the market is mostly local direct and has a relatively small percentage of agency buys. I can't imagine that percentage has gone up over the last 15 years with auto dealers and cell phone providers/retailers contracting like they have. In order to get national buys, you have to get numbers, and I'm not sure a lazily programmed rhythmic-CHR would get much in way of numbers. Having said that, I've thought for a long time that urban gets undervalued as an option in markets that are perceived as white. If urban is programmed well, it can get an audience that's between 25 and 40% white. Not sure what it would be like today, but, prior to the Great Recession, that would've been enough audience to sell in most places. Granted, it tends to be a heavily male audience, and that can be difficult to sell, but the numbers to support it exist if it's programmed for its market.
Des Moines, as a radio market, may be flirting with a line regarding market size that may make it too small for some agency buys. I don't know the extent of the Des Moines radio TV; the TV market goes all the way into one or two counties in Missouri.
They've been feeling pain for a long time. Two of the three largest operators in Des Moines have had bankruptcies in the last 10 years. Both have also seen massive upheaval in their C-suites. The other one has also had a change in leadership. I don't know how much worse you want it to get for them, but it can't get much worse for them than it already has. If the past is any indication, it's not going to drive much in way of programming changes. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
From all indications, Saga is run locally. iHeart, of course, is kind of robotic and Cumulus is an also-ran.
Most Des Moines media have declined in quality over time, in my opinion. (Of course, people like Russ Van Dyke, Jim Zabel, Bob Wilbanks, etc. are living memories for me.) Gannett hasn't been good to the
Register. The one commercial outlet that still seems to care about quality programming is KCCI, and that's TV. I have to give credit to IPR, which produces quite a bit of local programming, though its focus is statewide, or at least 2/3 of the state, and its financial pressures aren't commercial in nature.
