KMRI 1550 is a sad story

[nd2023]

The situation with KMRI 1550 in the Salt Lake City market is quite sad. It used to be owned by Alpha, then they went bankrupt and AASAA got it. Barry Wood loaned Nicolas Vicente from AASAA the money to buy it. He defaulted on the loan and Barry Wood moved to foreclose on the station.

Unfortunately, the earth shook on 3/18/20 and the tower was knocked down. The station has been silent ever since.

A receiver, Jacob Hibbard, was assigned by the court, to assist with running the station while it’s in bankruptcy. Vicente ignored communication with Hibbard and made it hard for the receiver to do his job. The station was then sold at auction to Barry Wood.

A certain broker tried to seize control of KMRI back, but eventually was unsuccessful. He fought hard against the sale to Wood. Eventually, the bankruptcy was dismissed and control was given to Barry Wood.

The station was silent the whole time that the receiver Hibbard was in control, because he didn’t have the funds to rebuild the tower. The bankruptcy process dragged on in court, and while that was going on, no one wanted to spend the money to rebuild the station. It supposedly ran for one day a year on a long wire to save the license.

The FCC is punishing the new owner Barry Wood by only giving it a 1 year renewal, even though it isn’t his fault that the previous owner and the broker were fighting for control.

The silent STA is a very interesting read https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076ff38638916f01864e9eac7d0307

 

[Gregg.]

According to Radio-Locator.com, KMRI is licensed to West Valley City and had a single non-directional tower. By day, it ran 10,000 watts covering the Salt Lake City market well. But at night it was only powered at 340 watts. 1550 is a Canadian clear channel frequency, so increasing the nighttime power would require a complex tower array to protect Canada.

I'm not sure there's much to be salvaged here. If you had the money, would you rebuild an AM station high up the dial that powers down to 340 watts at sunset or would require an expensive tower site?

It would be better to resurrect 630 in Sandy, which signed off in 2017. That was 1,000 watts days, 500 watts nights. Lower on the dial and more power at night.

 

[AmyMegan]

The situation with KMRI 1550 in the Salt Lake City market is quite sad. It used to be owned by Alpha, then they went bankrupt and AASAA got it. Barry Wood loaned Nicolas Vicente from AASAA the money to buy it. He defaulted on the loan and Barry Wood moved to foreclose on the station.

Unfortunately, the earth shook on 3/18/20 and the tower was knocked down. The station has been silent ever since.

A receiver, Jacob Hibbard, was assigned by the court, to assist with running the station while it’s in bankruptcy. Vicente ignored communication with Hibbard and made it hard for the receiver to do his job. The station was then sold at auction to Barry Wood.

A certain broker tried to seize control of KMRI back, but eventually was unsuccessful. He fought hard against the sale to Wood. Eventually, the bankruptcy was dismissed and control was given to Barry Wood.

The station was silent the whole time that the receiver Hibbard was in control, because he didn’t have the funds to rebuild the tower. The bankruptcy process dragged on in court, and while that was going on, no one wanted to spend the money to rebuild the station. It supposedly ran for one day a year on a long wire to save the license.

The FCC is punishing the new owner Barry Wood by only giving it a 1 year renewal, even though it isn’t his fault that the previous owner and the broker were fighting for control.

The silent STA is a very interesting read https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076ff38638916f01864e9eac7d0307

Its back on now. Barry Wood is a super nice guy. He has been through a lot on this.