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KGSP License Cancelled

R

RF101

Oh no! There goes another CONUS Class D campus station. I remember hearing it across the Missouri River in Lansing, Kansas. Park University has transformed over the the years with remote offerings at US military bases and now broader, virtual classes. It must have been hard to justify the economics of a radio station for the small home campus.

Someone should have grabbed the license.
 
RF101 said:
Oh no! There goes another CONUS Class D campus station. I remember hearing it across the Missouri River in Lansing, Kansas. Park University has transformed over the the years with remote offerings at US military bases and now broader, virtual classes. It must have been hard to justify the economics of a radio station for the small home campus.

Someone should have grabbed the license.
Click to expand...
Really? Ninety-nine watts under the cheek of 100,000-watt KKFI? At best, that's more suited for an LPFM than a primary-service station. I'm surprised it hung on this long.

In my years in Kansas City, I never heard it once, not even when driving around Parkville.
 
I was on KGSP for a hot minute in ‘97/‘98. It turned out a few good talents (and I include myself in that) who went on to better things. Nick McCabe, the PD at the time, went on to work for WHB and was involved in the music formats at 97.3. Robert Moore, who McCabe replaced, did a specialty show on Sundays nights at either 96.5 The Buzz or 90.9 The Bridge.

I briefly went to The Bridge's predecessor, KCMW-FM, but Ex #1 told me giving it up was essential to her moving to KC for me. She said she already had to share me with my real job, and she wasn’t about to share me on weekends, too. I ended up getting on commercial radio when I moved to Mid-MO. So, it ended up working, but I wondered if I had made the right decision after we split up!

Sorry to hear KGSP handed in its license. I wonder if it has a broadcasting program at all. I've heard lack of interest is a real problem at student radio stations. And, yes, hearing it used to be a problem. You used to be able to pick the station up at the city limit sign coming into town on Hwy 9, and you could hear it in downtown Parkville and English Landing Park. It was otherwise mostly inaudible. I don’t think it ran stereo audio either when I was there.

I can’t imagine anyone wanted the license.
 
Looks like Todd Nixon was the adviser according to the FCC cancelation which I can't find a reason for... KGSP has been off the air for a while now.

The guy also owns some commercial radio stations like 97.1 The Lake in Warsaw which is on and sounding good online.


They still have the website up and the stream was on a few days back. Pirate Radio
 
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SnottyNose799 said:
Looks like Todd Nixon was the adviser according to the FCC cancelation which I can't find a reason for...
The guy got into commercial radio and owns 97.1 The Lake in Warsaw, forgot about the class D or gave up?
Click to expand...

I thought that name was familiar. Todd was PD & host at KBEQ for a while, and then started his own radio ownership company. As you say, he owns The Lake, and also bought a station in Lompoc. I think he now owns four radio stations. His LinkedIn says the KGSP gig was as a volunteer, and he left last month.
 
An idea, maybe they're selling broadcast equipment. One of the new LPFMs around who filed in the last window could go ask Park Uni if they want, but it might have already been sold or scrapped for copper money.
 
TheBigA said:
I thought that name was familiar. Todd was PD & host at KBEQ for a while, and then started his own radio ownership company. As you say, he owns The Lake, and also bought a station in Lompoc. I think he now owns four radio stations. His LinkedIn says the KGSP gig was as a volunteer, and he left last month.
Click to expand...

He also owns a station or two in upstate New York. A friend of mine in Glens Falls says one of his stations sounds really good.

I know he's looking to buy more (or at least was around the first of the year).
 
Kent said:
He also owns a station or two in upstate New York. A friend of mine in Glens Falls says one of his stations sounds really good.

I know he's looking to buy more (or at least was around the first of the year).
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His company is Sticks Media, and he has three stations, one each in New York, California, and Missouri.

Sticks Media :: Broadcast and Digital

Radio station and digital broadcast company
sticksmedia.com sticksmedia.com

The listing for KAYQ (Warsaw, Missouri) gives its corporate address at Parkville, so it's likely Mr. Nixon is still in the area.

Want to guess which Kansas City station originally had those call letters?
 
Mark Roberts said:
Want to guess which Kansas City station originally had those call letters?
Click to expand...

Seems like it was 1190, though I don’t know which format it ran.

The old Premier Group in Mid-MO hired a person or two from the current KAYQ and its crosstown competitor KBUG over the years.
 
Kent said:
Seems like it was 1190, though I don’t know which format it ran.
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KAYQ came on the air September 1, 1971, owned by Denver interests, including Ed Scott. Scott had been a kid's show TV host in Denver before
getting into politics and station ownership. Scott bought KLAK (now KEPN) in 1961 and programmed it as Denver's first country-music station. As for KAYQ, his first station outside Denver, Scott said the station would:

play three types of music (but "zero rock and roll"): Current tunes, hits from the recent past, and, occasionally, popular music from years ago.

(Kansas City Times, September 1, 1971, p. 3)

KAYQ also had a four-person news department, including traffic reports. Scott sold the station in 1975 for $750,000; the station retained the KAYQ call letters until Wilton Osborn bought it in 1978 for $850,000 and flipped it to all-disco later that year. In 1975, KAYQ was the CBS affiliate for Kansas City; that CBS radio affiliation didn't seem to stay on any station very long in the 1970s.

An obituary of Ed Scott, who died in 2020, is here: Edward Smith Scott Obituary April 28, 2020 - Newcomer Denver

I didn't know of his involvement in Kansas City radio until I started researching for this post!

(edited to add station sale prices)
 
I think that someone probably had the decision to yank it last minute, the site is still up with a stream that had been playing music the weekend before the license was pulled, along with a message saying updates coming soon for 2025.
Contacting them's open to students only apparently.
 
SnottyNose799 said:
I think that someone probably had the decision to yank it last minute, the site is still up with a stream that had been playing music the weekend before the license was pulled, along with a message saying updates coming soon for 2025.
Contacting them's open to students only apparently.
Click to expand...
Reading the Park University media policy, four pages of it!, I get the impression that Park’s administration is unusually paranoid for a university or college. Sure, it’s a private institution, but academic institutions usually don’t try to imitate some of the worse parts of corporate America, either.

 
Mark Roberts said:
Reading the Park University media policy, four pages of it!, I get the impression that Park’s administration is unusually paranoid for a university or college. Sure, it’s a private institution, but academic institutions usually don’t try to imitate some of the worse parts of corporate America, either.

Click to expand...
I've never heard of a university discussing the scope of an interview or providing potential questions to a journalist (both on page 2) who wants to interview faculty or staff before this. Anybody worth their salt isn't going to use the questions provided, anyway. Also I have no idea why they forbid people from taking wedding photos on campus.
 
radiofan2023 said:
I've never heard of a university discussing the scope of an interview or providing potential questions to a journalist
Click to expand...

It happens. They're called "talking points." Park is a small private university. I doubt they get a lot of journalists asking to do interviews with their employees. The wedding photo rule is also related to it being a private university.
 
TheBigA said:
It happens. They're called "talking points." Park is a small private university. I doubt they get a lot of journalists asking to do interviews with their employees. The wedding photo rule is also related to it being a private university.
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I know what Park is, I've seen some of their faculty interviewed on various KC news stations.
 
I just figured it was a shame if they let the equipment go to waste, they've already deleted the license but they could sell off the gear as there are LPFMs in KC which, well, aren't doing great.
 


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