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KRWP Radio Stockton, MO is closing

KRWP appears to be the only radio station licensed to Stockton, MO, in a very small, rural and poor town. Hopefully an operator can purchase the license from Cumulus and put it back on the air, but this station was never a good fit for a consolidator like Cumulus.
 
I worked for Cumulus in Mid-Missouri for a few months in 2004. I wasn't in a high enough position to know the full plans about all of the stations involved in the deal that got them the former KRLK (now KRWP), but I can tell you bits and pieces of what I remember. I may or may not remember everything exactly accurately and don't remember all of my specific sources. So, take this for whatever value you believe is appropriate.

As you may have read from other sources, Cumulus had plans, at one time, to move KMAJ-FM 107.7 from Topeka to Shawnee, which would make it a Kansas City station. It was to be moved from its Topeka area tower to one near Tonganoxie, KS. I'm thinking KCHZ either used that tower or had looked at using it at one point in time. In order to make that move happen, Cumulus spent roughly $1.5 million on KRLK and KCVK 107.7 in Otterville. KCVK was owned by Jim McDermott's Lake Area Christian Broadcasting. Cumulus knew it was overpaying for those stations, but it had to make changes to them in order to move KMAJ-FM far enough east to become a KC station, and $1.5 million plus engineering and legal expenses would've been considered cheap for a Kansas City FM.

I had been told Cumulus never intended to keep KRLK. It was going to downgrade it to a class A signal and supposedly sell it back to the previous owner at a huge loss. At the time Cumulus bought KRLK, my understanding was that the previous operator was still running the station, and Cumulus only had the one management level employee required by law there. I'm not sure when Cumulus took back operation of the station from Galen Gilbert. I was surprised to find Cumulus had been running the station at all. When I saw that Cumulus was planning to run the station out of Kansas City, I figured it would just keep on going with Gilbert still operating the station. I'm not sure why Cumulus never ended up selling the station back to Gilbert as I heard had been originally planned.

KCVK out of Otterville was an interesting problem. The plan was to directionalize the antenna away from KC so it wouldn't interfere with KMAJ-FM's new signal, and a contingent application was filed to do exactly that. We had been told it would most likely be operated out of our Columbia studios. I never heard any programming plans. One of the engineers, not sure if it was one who worked for Cumulus or one who was contracted out, told me he had been looking at how to move KCVK closer to Columbia. He didn't tell me if he had been told to do this by Cumulus or if he was just doing it on his own figuring he would be asked about it in the not too distant future. He figured KOQL could replace KCVK in Otterville, and KOQL could easily be replaced in Ashland with one of the existing Cumulus stations in either Columbia or Jefferson City. No tower moves would be required; it would be a change on paper only. KCVK, though, was a lot tougher of a move. It couldn't be moved closer to Jefferson City because it was already as close to KCLQ 107.9 in Lebanon as it could get. Moving it south or due east was not possible without finding a way to downgrade or move KCLQ. Moving it north or northeast was also difficult because of KLTE 107.9 in Kirksville (which had a tower southwest of Kirksville) and co-channel KSLZ out of St. Louis. Ultimately, the sale of KCVK from McDermott to Cumulus was dismissed, and McDermott substituted his company in the contingent application for KCVK. I don't know if the deal was canceled because KCVK couldn't be moved closer to Columbia or if there were any other reasons.

When Cumulus bought Susquehanna, it got a full compliment of Kansas City FM's as Susquehanna had three to add to the two Cumulus owned. It could no longer own KMAJ-FM if it moved it to Shawnee. So, it substituted KCMO-FM for KMAJ-FM at Shawnee and proposed relicensing KMAJ-FM to Carbondale as a C1 (instead of a C at Topeka). Shortly afterward, Cumulus applied to move KMJK 107.3 further west and relicensed it to North Kansas City. I believe the downgrade of KMAJ-FM from a C to a C1 made the KMJK move possible.

I'm not sure what the original plans for Topeka were, but I had heard several years later from a friend still at Cumulus that KMAJ-FM's programming would've moved to another stick in the market had 107.7 been moved to Shawnee. I don't know how much knowledge of the situation that person had or who supplied said person with that information. I seem to remember Cumulus Columbia/Jefferson City had a market manager who transferred in from Topeka, but he didn't have a reputation for socializing with employees (or much of anyone, for that matter) very much.
 
If memory serves me right, that Tonganoxie site is the tower for channel 38 in Kansas City and my old friend Jerry Case, a local area tower guy was killed during repairs to it about 12 years ago.
 
SOURCE:
http://www.insideradio.com/features...cle_57905ef6-1a18-11e9-a8cf-e35c70bdc088.html

Information states this station was transferred via sale for 100,000 $.
I would have thought more... ? Or, is Stockton a REALLY SMALL TOWN and
is 107.7 only available in the car in "nearby" Springfield ?
I am only looking at maps on radio-locator.com and using tools such as Wikipedia to
estimate the vibe of the town. I have never been to Missouri..... *yet !*

WHO AM I
Eric Vee, from Niagara falls/Buffalo and have a passion for radio and broadcasting.
I am 45, and kept up on the trend of radio after a short uneventful "career" ended
around the events of Sept. 2001. Since then, been a caregiver in the human services field
playing the Mega Millions each week.... holding onto a dream!! thanks for the info and follow up.

If I ever define the odds and win the jackpot, would $100,000 dollars be over paying for this signal.
What formats would fly if a new owner took over, as it stated on the

http://www.insideradio.com/features...cle_57905ef6-1a18-11e9-a8cf-e35c70bdc088.html

website no local content will be generated.
that sucks.... imagine... Groove 107
puttin' Stockton on the map !!!

Cheers.
 
In the past, you could hear the station on a car radio or good home stereo in Springfield, but it definitely wasn’t a Springfield station. I don’t believe it ever showed in the ratings there.

I think it has the same facilities it had 10 years ago, but, with more translators and LPFM's hitting the air, I don’t know if you could still hear it in Springfield.

Cumulus is getting $100,000 for it; it was prepared to get nothing. It was going to simply sign the station off and turn in the license. Since it was sold to a non-commercial religious entity, it might be able to get a tax deduction for any value that was lost.
 
Information states this station was transferred via sale for 100,000 $.
I would have thought more... ? Or, is Stockton a REALLY SMALL TOWN and
is 107.7 only available in the car in "nearby" Springfield ?
I am only looking at maps on radio-locator.com and using tools such as Wikipedia to
estimate the vibe of the town. I have never been to Missouri..... *yet !*

The only "useful" coverage contour on radio-locator is the innermost red one. That is where any regular listening will take place. Very little listening today takes place outside that contour, even in rural areas.

For better maps and information, try https://fccdata.org/?call=krwp&facid=&city=&state=&ccode=1&country=US
 
Cumulus is getting $100,000 for it; it was prepared to get nothing. It was going to simply sign the station off and turn in the license. Since it was sold to a non-commercial religious entity, it might be able to get a tax deduction for any value that was lost.

A business gets to expense any operational cost to offset income. They are taxed on the difference between income and costs which is the profit. However, a loss on the goodwill and license value is a deduction only to the extent that the book value was greater than the sale price.

In the case of an asset which may be on the books for a greater value, the loss on the sale impacts the balance sheet if the asset was overvalued.

In most cases, companies that realize that an asset is overvalued... such as most AM stations... will write down the value, resulting in a lesser value for the assets of a station... in this case the license and goodwill. That means that the company is worth less. Suck a change in valuation, now required annually, is called an impairment charge.
 
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