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Religious Radio Organization Cheers Upcoming Opportunities to Acquire More Signals

CTListener said:
What was the dollars-and-cents impact on an average American taxpayer of the annual subsidy to the CPB? A buck or two? Even less?
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davideduardo said:
The expressed intent of the current administration is to cut "everywhere possible" to create an impact on "the average taxpayer" of thousands of dollars.
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Yes. But what this administration fails to see is making thousands out of $2 is a trick that only works for OnlyFans creators in 2025. Not for "the average taxpayer". Who is now looking in their mirrors and seriously pondering an OnlyFans gig, on top of their Uber and DoorDash driver side hustles, just to break even on the price of everything these days...

Bear in mind, the full impact of the cuts to public radio/TV, tariffs, and a host of other slashed gov't programs hasn't even started. It will start to really hit everybody in September/October, just before the holidays when gov't/corporate projections and budgets are made.

I mean, seriously; Who has the money to afford the expensive things that keep the economy going (to say nothing of public radio/TV) when they have to help needy senior/disabled people in their own families with basic mere survival expenses now? Expenses once paid by SNAP/Section 8/Tribal and other programs now cut. And has anyone seen the price of food, rent, etc. lately?

Because if one is thinking everybody will just goose up the donations, they are right. For now.

But Fall pledge drive may hurt. Spring certainly will when the added expenses take their toll. Because the cuts to public media are actually in concert with the other cuts. And the stated goal was to end NPR. You need indirect ways to do that on top of the direct ones. One way is to make it so hard financially for many, it's literally going to be either Grandma or NPR.

And that's not a bug. It's a feature of this bill, if you look at what's cut the most.
 
Thank you cc333. I dislike those, like you, who likely are more about identifying as Christian than actually being Christian. Working at a station that sold minisries for a few years I sure saw the worst and the best.

The only thing I would disagree on is that they are crowding out other buyers (secular formats). Anybody can buy these stations for sale. Brokers shop these stations nationwide subject to non-dosclosure agreements. So anyone could buy. Granted that broker, like any real estate agent, makes more money by selling for the highest price. They could have a preference to go after the highest dollar figure the secular broadcaster that wants to pay less. It's just that outside the ministries, very few are interested in buying.
 
b-turner said:
The only thing I would disagree on is that they are crowding out other buyers (secular formats). Anybody can buy these stations for sale. Brokers shop these stations nationwide subject to non-dosclosure agreements. So anyone could buy.
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First, we do not know that the owners made a conscious decision to put their stations up for sale. Although there are indeed non-disclosure/proprietary information restrictions, there are ads that run in the daily e-newsletters from Inside Radio and Radio Ink, as well on their (and others') websites which will describe a station that has been listed without giving too much information. Much more often than not, sales to EMF hit us "out of the blue" without warning. That leads me to suspect that in some cases, EMF may have been approached by an owner who need the cash infusion -- and it's always cash; you never see an EMF deal have terms -- more than they needed their weakest station in the market.*

It is also probable that EMF itself goes sniffing around to find stations that the owners will part with without regard to the usual billing multiple as the asking price. Their offers are generally higher than that standard, so they would be safe in making those offers unsolicited.

Which brings me to your second statement of "anybody can buy these stations". No they can't if (1) EMF has already made an offer that no one will match, much less exceed, because they always have this huge pile of cash from listener donations, not lessened by those pesky people at the IRS, to make overvalued offers (and what station owner will say no if they believe they are in a weak position in their market?)* and (2) how do you bid on a station if it didn't get listed through the usual brokerage channels, even if you did have the money?

I know of one situation where VCY bought a station out of bankruptcy by bidding nearly twice as much as the next highest bidder. You can't tell me EMF doesn't have a similar tactic.

This is not Christian-bashing, but it is calling out a situation where the playing field was made uneven years ago and there appears to be no stopping them now.

---

* - And I consider a commercial broadcaster who does not try something cost-effective (and we all know there are options for that) before selling out to be equivalent to Judas Iscariot selling out Jesus for his 30 pieces of silver. Okay?
 
KUSP in Santa Cruz received a 600K offer to remain a public broadcaster, with the resources of an established public broadcaster (KCRW) to maintain and grow a new, diverse music service for the market that had started to gain traction after years of financial woes.

EMF was entitled to make a higher offer to counter and secure the station. They countered at 605K and got the station.

They already had two signals in the market.
 
Andy Travis said:
KUSP in Santa Cruz received a 600K offer to remain a public broadcaster, with the resources of an established public broadcaster (KCRW) to maintain and grow a new, diverse music service for the market that had started to gain traction after years of financial woes.

EMF was entitled to make a higher offer to counter and secure the station. They countered at 605K and got the station.

They already had two signals in the market.
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This is what I mean!

Hoarding signals for the sake of hoarding signals is greedy and excessive, especially when they already have so many. And surreptitiously snatching stations away from secular buyers like that is, as I mentioned earlier, ethically questionable (though, unfortunately, perfectly legal I'm sure).

A secular public radio station would have been much better than yet another K-LOVE outlet, especially if they already have two perfectly adequate signals.

c
 
cc333 said:
This is what I mean!

Hoarding signals for the sake of hoarding signals is greedy and excessive, especially when they already have so many. And surreptitiously snatching stations away from secular buyers like that is, as I mentioned earlier, ethically questionable (though, unfortunately, perfectly legal I'm sure).

A secular public radio station would have been much better than yet another K-LOVE outlet, especially if they already have two perfectly adequate signals.

c
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Sometimes what the FCC considers a radio market, what the ratings agencies consider a radio market, and what you can actually hear in that market if you visited or lived there are very different things. The Santa Cruz-Monterey, California, radio market is a good case in point. While I was last in the area during the 1990s, I can tell you that not all of the stations licensed to Santa Cruz make it to Monterey and vice versa. The terrain is partially to blame for this. While both cities are coastal towns, there are some mountains between them and mountains east of both of them dividing them from the valley beyond.

I bring all of this up because of the comments about K-Love having three stations serving the market. (It now has two with a couple of translators but I'll get to that in a moment.) Also, before anybody accuses me of being a christian apologist, I am, as I stated in another thread, an atheist. I think the Bible and Christianity are a bunch of baloney because neither are historically or scientifically accurate.

With that out of the way, Educational Media Foundation did, as Andy Travis noted, purchase KUSP-FM, one of those Santa Cruz noncommercial outlets that could reach Monterey from Santa Cruz. At the time of purchase, Educational Media Foundation also owned KLVM licensed to Prunedale at 89.7 mHz which really covered the areas around Salinas and Hollister. Educational Media Foundation would later purchase KRTY at 95.3 mHz, licensed to Los Gatos, CA. That station could not be heard in any of the areas around Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Salinas, mainly because of the mountainous terrain and therefore does not make another entry in this post.

Now, Educational Media Foundation did sell KLVM to a community group based out of Santa Cruz that was running a station with the callsign of KSQD-FM. That station couldn't be heard in Monterey or Salinas and the 88.9 signal was serving all three areas very well. So the 89.7 frequency was sold to Natural Bridges Media in 2017 and became a satellite to KSQD known as KSQT.

KSQT - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

(I believe the Wikipedia posting is accurate.)

While KSQD/KSQT are not NPR-affiliated, they are affiliated with the left-leaning Pacifica Foundation (both carry "Democracy Now,") and that's probably a smart thing given what happened to the CPB a week ago.

In closing, while I do agree with K.M. Richards and others that religious outlets like Educational Media Foundation, AFR, and others sometimes engage some ethically reprehensible practices, I did think that the record should be set straight as to how many signals K-Love is using to serve the Monterey-Santa Cruz area. And, oh yes! There is still a (mostly) full-time NPR news-talk outlet serving the area, KAZU-FM licensed to Kalifornia State University-Monterey. At this point, I have no idea whether or how it will survive the CPB cuts.
 
b-turner said:
And when it came o LPFM NPR trid to get it booted as did the NAB and many others. They even presented a bogus recording to Congress of interference LPFM would cause full power broadcasters. Later they said it was bogus. And so you know, LPFM was to be a 1,000 watt commercial entity for small broadcasters to super serve smaller areas. And you could have more than one. All of tht was nipped in the bug to arrive at 100 watts at 100 feet and only one to a non-profit organizaion making them non-commercial.
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This statement has half truths and mis-sequencing of events.

Claim: A 1000 watt LPFM service was proposed by the FCC.
Fact: This is true. This was in the original MM Docket 99-25 NPRM. It was never adopted though.

Claim: Multiple ownership of LPFM stations was proposed.
Fact: This is true and there's a mis-sequence of events. It was not only proposed, but it was adopted. However, the first window limited to only one station. The current "one to a customer" rule came along in 2007 with the Third Report and Order. It was requested by the community radio movement and REC supported the change.

Claim: It was NPR & NAB that put the kabash on a 1000 watt commercial LPFM service.
Fact: This is a half-truth. NPR, NAB and the community radio movement all opposed a 1000-watt service class and commercial operation. These were requested by Rodger Skinner, an LPTV entrepreneur who was the author of RM-9242 who envisioned LPFM to be an LPTV-like service.

Claim: A recording was submitted to Congress to demonstrate interference by LPFM stations to try to prevent LPFM.
Fact: This is a mis-sequence of events. The recording to Congress does exist and did happen. I have a copy of it on my YouTube channel. The recording was submitted to Congress after the FCC adopted the LPFM service in MM Docket 99-25. It was instrumental in getting Congress to pass the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act of 2000, which rolled back the Commission's novel (at the time) concept of not requiring LPFM stations to protect third-adjacent channel stations. The RBPA ordered a technical study on the claims made in the recording. That study was done through the construction of experimental stations by Comsearch on behalf of the MITRE Corporation, and the requirement that LPFM stations protect third-adjacent channel stations was removed by Congress in the Local Community Radio Act of 2010.
 
Only thing I have to say: My dog knows that Nexstar and Sinclair had to be forced to comply with a legally binding affiliate agreement or there would have been football fans without games on their screens
 
gr8oldies said:
Only thing I have to say: My dog knows that Nexstar and Sinclair had to be forced to comply with a legally binding affiliate agreement or there would have been football fans without games on their screens
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Did you post this in the wrong thread?
 
sdwulfdawg said:
Jesus "cleansed" the Temple in Jerusalem, driving out those buying and selling, overturning tables of money changers, and declaring the Temple a "house of prayer" that had become a "den of thieves".
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It's an interesting thought. I've never thought of radio as a temple. If you saw what happened at some of the stations I've worked at, you wouldn't either. Then again, I once worked for a boss who told me the airwaves are sacred. So there you go.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
There is nothing "religious" about using the Holy Bible for unending peddling to fill the coffers so that more unending peddling can take place.

Jesus "cleansed" the Temple in Jerusalem, driving out those buying and selling, overturning tables of money changers, and declaring the Temple a "house of prayer" that had become a "den of thieves".
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And, as I keep saying, God is omnipotent and doesn't need transmitters to speak to His faithful.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
rolls eyes. what about those places where even if every listener donated its still just not enough?

A station with 1 part time, 1 full time announcer and 2 remote/contract/pt people, combined with internet and electricity and other costs... its about $15,000 a month to run.
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Sounds about right. I was talking to an acquaintance who owns an AM is a small, but not too small, market. He's a "one man show" except for engineering, and he says his monthly expenses run about $5,000.
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
Sounds about right. I was talking to an acquaintance who owns an AM is a small, but not too small, market. He's a "one man show" except for engineering, and he says his monthly expenses run about $5,000.
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I think my figure quoted was actually low.

But take a gander at just how I know that figure? lol
 
TheBigA said:
It's an interesting thought. I've never thought of radio as a temple. If you saw what happened at some of the stations I've worked at, you wouldn't either. Then again, I once worked for a boss who told me the airwaves are sacred. So there you go.
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I will NEVER forget being hostage with a Lyft driver who insisted to play a local K-LOVE on a 45 minute ride with the on air hosts hawking Walmart gift cards during what seemed to be an unending pledge-a-thon "to keep K-LOVE on he air."

WAY worse than a local PBS pledge-a-thon.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
I will NEVER forget being hostage with a Lyft driver who insisted to play a local K-LOVE on a 45 minute ride with the on air hosts hawking Walmart gift cards during what seemed to be an unending pledge-a-thon "to keep K-LOVE on he air."

WAY worse than a local PBS pledge-a-thon.
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If I were a Lyft or Uber driver, it would be old-time radio I'd play more than anything from K-"Love".
 
sdwulfdawg said:
I will NEVER forget being hostage with a Lyft driver who insisted to play a local K-LOVE on a 45 minute ride with the on air hosts hawking Walmart gift cards during what seemed to be an unending pledge-a-thon "to keep K-LOVE on he air."
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I would politely ask that the station be changed, and if the driver didn't comply, I'd be on app accessing the "problem with your ride" function.

Of course, there are drivers who don't understand the concept of providing transportation as a paid service; I had one driver who got caught in heavy traffic less than a mile from my house, and when I offered to route him around it (after all, it's my neighborhood and I use the geography) he pulled over and sternly advised me that he was the driver and it was his car and he didn't need my "help".

He got no tip and I reported him as soon as I got to where I was going; I actually considered asking him to drop me off right then and there and arrange for a new driver.
 


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