• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Iowa KDPS Des Moines for sale

Agreed, Air 1 for sure. Given that it was assessed at 750K that's quite a price drop.

K-Love probably has an agreement with iheart since they are on KKDM HD2 and on the two translators 95.3/103.7.
 
Ryan Williams said:
I wonder if the crowded market of religious networks is one of the reasons the sales price seems depressed based on population covered.
Click to expand...
Per the article linked below, the district had valued the station at $750,000. That seems a little high, given the market and the condition of the station, but $175,000 seems quite low, too.

bluewaterhealthyliving.com

Des Moines Public Schools' long-time radio station sold to Community Broadcasting Inc.

Iowa - KDPS 88.1 FM's decades-long run at Des Moines Public Schools has officially come to an end after the school board approved selling the station's spectrum
bluewaterhealthyliving.com bluewaterhealthyliving.com

American Family Association is paying more than $1 million for KJMC, but that includes the tower and transmitting facility.

K-Love appears to have three translators in Des Moines; two covering the central and eastern part of the metro; the other, located in Urbandale, covers the west part of the metro, which also is where there's been a lot of growth in recent years.
 
There are really no local entities (groups, organizations, etc) that have the determination, energy and money to be able to operate full class stations independently anymore here in Des Moines. Further, even the big 3 commercial operations basically run sound services that are very passive radio stations, out of their respective clusters.

Des Moines just doesn't really have much of a 'radio culture' especially now given the state of the industry. The market is very bifurcated in terms of the population and who listens to the radio and who doesn't. Largely the audiences that have more tailored content (morning show, specific personalities) that is leftover here are a couple adult demos (Country, Classic Rock) and then a handful of low effort programmed mostly automated Top 40 and Hot AC....on the commercial side. (Star Has Jimmy and a morning show) On the NCE side its pretty much now all religious with a couple miscellaneous LPFM and a few IPR outlets.

There is a huge population in the market that is otherwise literally not serviced. And because of that they don't participate in the book or just check off a couple random stations.

So, in reference Mark to your worry about this happening, I'm not shocked at all. It actually makes alot of sense.
 
radiorobert said:
Looks like Community Broadcasting has applied to change the call letters to KCVD effective October 17th.
Click to expand...

“Christian Voice of Des Moines.”

Most Bott stations have a “CV” in their calls for “Christian Voice.” Don’t know how often you hear that as I never listen to Bott, but a friend of mine worked there for a few years and told me about it. He couldn’t stand the programming himself, but he said the Botts paid better than his previous job and always had the best engineers they could get.
 
Kent said:
“Christian Voice of Des Moines.”

Most Bott stations have a “CV” in their calls for “Christian Voice.” Don’t know how often you hear that as I never listen to Bott, but a friend of mine worked there for a few years and told me about it. He couldn’t stand the programming himself, but he said the Botts paid better than his previous job and always had the best engineers they could get.
Click to expand...

Bott is a very good broadcaster. They do things by the books and follow the FCC rules. Their stations are well engineered and they use top-shelf consultants. The people I have interacted with over the years who work there seem to be high-quality individuals with good character.

They also have a strong record of having integrity on programming. They will NOT air any program just because that ministry has the money to sponsor the time, which is more than you can say about many of "religious" spoken word stations. They are very strict. They also, to my knowledge, don't air other infomercial-type paid programs (at least on the network stations I am most familiar with).

No station can satisfy all listeners or employees and spoken-word stations are niche relative to the market, but Bott does an exemplary job as a broadcaster overall.
 
Kent said:
“Christian Voice of Des Moines.”
Click to expand...
Which will be one of twelve, counting upgrade CPs and translators, as well as the AM at 940. A couple of them are explicitly Catholic, but the rest are Protestant of a certain lean. That's a lot.
Kent said:
Most Bott stations have a “CV” in their calls for “Christian Voice.” Don’t know how often you hear that as I never listen to Bott, but a friend of mine worked there for a few years and told me about it. He couldn’t stand the programming himself, but he said the Botts paid better than his previous job and always had the best engineers they could get.
Click to expand...
I still think it's somewhat irregular for a commercial broadcaster to set up a noncommercial subsidiary to camp out on frequencies in the NCE part of the FM band. Bott did this with KSLH in St. Louis. Sure, the St. Louis school board neglected that station and decided to go for a quick sale, but it seems a shame to have lost such a well-placed legacy frequency to yet another outfit trying to jam their narrow-minded ideology down my ears.
 
Looks like this has been formally approved by the FCC. Nothing is on the air yet. Before the shutdown Bott requested temp authority to remain off air and stated they would be broadcasting as soon as possible. With the shutdown that likely only pushed things back.
 
radiorobert said:
Looks like this has been formally approved by the FCC. Nothing is on the air yet. Before the shutdown Bott requested temp authority to remain off air and stated they would be broadcasting as soon as possible. With the shutdown that likely only pushed things back.
Click to expand...
Reading the STA extension request, filed November 25 by the school district, I interpret it as indicating that the sale hasn't closed yet.

Link: https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076ff39a751998019abd0dd9810ffc
 
Mark Roberts said:
Reading the STA extension request, filed November 25 by the school district, I interpret it as indicating that the sale hasn't closed yet.

Link: https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076ff39a751998019abd0dd9810ffc
Click to expand...

I don't think it has closed yet.

The call sign request of KCVD has an effective date of October 17th, but because of the shutdown it doesn't look to have happened yet.

I see no consummation notice that the deal has closed.

I would expect it to happen soon though.
 
With all this Christian Talk, someone's presentation will lead to an overkill. I believe in what Bott's doing but seriously, does this market need another station that's Preaching to the Choir. I don't think so. If an independent player were the ones buying it out, that would be exciting. What this market doesn't need is another canned talk satellite fed presentation that won't have mass appeal. Just my two cents.

Dan <><

P.S. I believe that doing local styled programming, is the best way to go. You stand a much better chance of making it, when you go that route.​
 
Last edited:
Given all the tools available now in terms of research and the opportunities that have become available with these stations, if someone or something else was going to work or be done it would have happened.

There is a huge evangelical element in Central Iowa and Iowa in general so Christian programming works very well here.

One of the main Christian contemporary outlets here KNWI, often shows up in the top 5 in the books and usually is always in the Top 10 stations (When it’s tested. Some months there is no available data).

Overall Des Moines just isn’t a big radio town. People don’t interact with it or care much about it here. And we are on the downside of traditional radio now anyways.

If there are all these different types of programming in demand, it seems like it would be happening.
 
R.D.P. said:
With all this Christian Talk, someone's presentation will lead to an overkill. I believe in what Bott's doing but seriously, does this market need another station that's Preaching to the Choir. I don't think so. If an independent player were the ones buying it out, that would be exciting. What this market doesn't need is another canned talk satellite fed presentation that won't have mass appeal. Just my two cents.​
Click to expand...

I think this is all going to work itself out. Des Moines, like many sizable markets that far away from other sizable markets is over-radio'd. That's true broadly and in terms of Christian radio.

There is some listener overlap between CCM (music like Life/K-Love) and the Christian Talk format, but not as much as you would guess. Looking at the non-catholic, Christian Teaching and Talk stations... Currently there are :

Saga's KPSZ 940 AM (no presence on FM)
VCY's KVDI 99.3 FM (airs a substantial amount of non-ccm music)

These two actually have very little programming overlap. I only see one 30 minute weekday program shared.

Incoming:

Bott's KCVD 88.1 (no music)
AFR's KJMC 89.3 (likely no music).

Bott and AFR do share a number of the same national programs with each other, but Bott produces little in-house while AFR's flagship programming is internal created. Generally speaking... Bott is more focused on Bible-teaching and AFR more on current issues and talk.

Bott does have some overlap with KPSZ and VCY. AFR has a little overlap with with KPSZ and VCY.

For what it is, Bott does a very good job. They carry most all of the best national teaching programs. The presentation is sincere and serious (some might say too dry), but it is not amateur hour and they have very strict standards about which ministry programs they will air, which is a lot more than you can say about some other similarly-formatted stations.

There are also some CSN satellators which I won't address since those are secondary services.

I think what looks likely is that KPSZ seems to be the odd one out... long term. Kind of similar to KAAY in Little Rock. Owned by a secular, commercial broadcaster surrounded by a cluster of very different, non-complimentary stations with local labor expenses and only available on AM.

R.D.P. said:
P.S. I believe that doing local styled programming, is the best way to go. You stand a much better chance of making it, when you go that route.
Click to expand...

For a large market talk or sports station you are absolutely correct. For Christian Talk, where we are primarily talking about 30 and 60 minutes blocks of programming at a time, you probably have a worse shot at making it because your cost structure is going to be a huge disadvantage, especially if you are "competing" against Bott, who will have all the top national programs and only a local engagement person, if that. There are not enough local ministry programs of similar viability to go all local.
 
You are right about AFR. The station you're getting will lean heavy on Talk and most of their flagship talk shows will originate from Tupelo. I once announced on their Selma relay and that's what they did when I was there.

Dan <><​
 


Back
Top Bottom