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KHAV 107.1 Sabinal

B

b-turner

I see KHAV 107.1 licensed to Sabinal at 100 watts on a 33 foot stick at 26 feet above average terrain with the moniker "Tequila FM".

Sabinal is a small town of about 1,700. The 60 dbu would be around 2,000. Business Sales (those businesses that tend to use media for advertising) is about $18 million. Even in a best case scenario, such a station might bill about $30,000 a year but $24,000 might be more reasonable.

The owner has several stations located in Trent, Cotulla, Big Wells, Hebronville and Sabinal. There may be others. It seems the owner lists a San Antonio address.

My question is, given the station is licensed and is staying up on FCC filings, has anyone heard the station? If so, could you share some details? I love details. If you say it's playing county music, great, but I'd love to know more, such as what else you heard (commercials, liners, if just music on a computer or whatever). I'm guessing they might share programming with other stations.

Thanks in advance.

To my understanding Sabinal has no newspaper (The Leakey newspaper has a page dedicated to Sabinal if it is still published...newer issues not found and years back about 1990 the Hondo Anvil did a 2 page paper with the inner two pages being from the Hondo Anvil). Thus, it is fair to say the community has no media of it's own except this station.
 
Ahhh yes...

KHAV and KOTX are owned by a company called 35 Communications. KOTX is in the process of being sold to a Laredo doctor and I have no clue why. 35 is majority owned by José Antonio Aguilar Arellano and minority owned by El?*as Navarro Páramo.

I have written extensively on the Aguilar Arellano media presence, because it includes a lot of new noncom awards in Mexico. This is a group of people, some of whom have dual citizenship and have related stations and filings on both sides of the border.

KOTX is much more of a known quantity. That's because it is the tail that wags the dependent translator dog. K281CB Laredo North is programmed by Grupo Gape (which has a US subsidiary that owns the translator) as a news/talk station much like the ones it owns in Reynosa and Matamoros, "NotiGAPE Nuevo Laredo".

Aguilar Arellano also owns KEWP Uvalde Estates, KCOT Cotulla, and KGDL Trent (Abilene). Trent went silent in February as part of a sale process; it was apparently being run by a "Moreno Media Group" related to some music venues in town. (Who knows if the sale is still on.) A related party owns a translator for KGDL in Abilene and an Air 1 translator there too. The KGDL public file is very, very empty: no issues and programs lists in 6 years.

KHAV is the one I know the least about, honestly, so...
 
Very interesting. Thank you for the info.

I wondered what was going on in South Texas especially. I have noticed towns with small populations and very little retail activity with 100 to 500 watt FMs. I figured this was a ploy to capture the theoretic class A coverage at a certain spot to block upgrades of more important stations or to eventually open up move ins to larger communities. In other words, the ploy is not to play radio as much as it is to get paid to go away. Such a station is a small place lacking a local economy to sustain a commercial station would have to be a feed via a Barix box at the tower site, all built on the cheap and run the cheapest way possible to not incur unneeded debt.

KHAV in Sabinal is a minimal operation. 100 watts from a 30 foot stick. Sabinal has enough of an economy to produce a living for an owner/operator bent on community service but as I recall the community as a history of being unable to support a local weekly newspaper. While big city papers are dying, many small town weeklies are flourishing. In fact the Leakey, Texas paper has a page or two of Sabinal news.

KOTX going to a Laredo doctor could potentially be a small player in the group being utilized to extend the layers that must be peeled to reveal the core. I knew a guy that set up his company by utilizing about a dozen company names that all leased from one another to pay less in taxes and to be more difficult to sue. He was not a guy that was trying to get one over on people...he was honest, but he knew some people went after anybody they thought had money.
 
Forgot to mention that KEWP, KCOT and KGDL are/were all known quantities: franchise stations of the La Mejor Regional Mexican format.
 
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