Owning translators in sparsley populated areas is a much less expensive way to get a signal on the air and cover what counts in terms of population without wasting signal on tumbleweeds
Paul, I really wish you would stop acting in this thread as if you were a Denver resident. You're not. I am. Richard is asking how locals perceive ECCS. That's not a question you can answer.
It seems like that was a lot of work to post all of that. Thanks.
The data-gathering was most of it. Spreadsheets may be a lowest common denominator when it comes to data analysis, but they're still useful and flexible. It also helped that the board software was smart enough to translate a screen-scraping cut-and-paste to a tabular format.
I'm tempted to do the same thing for a couple of the public radio networks, but not right away.
Stepping back from the waiver discussion, I'm curious how folks in Colorado view the ECOCS network. I plotted out some of the better signals on RadioLand. It seems they can cover most of the population centers along I-25 and many of the larger communities around the state with about half of their signals. It obviously isn't the same as owning a network of full power FM's, but the total population coverage seems substantial.
Is it generally viewed by locals as an impressive statewide build-out, or more of an unwieldy collection of translators and small market full power FM's?
ECCS is based in Colorado Springs, which historically has been a center of evangelical activity. You'll note that the second and third KTLF networks are mostly based in southern Colorado, though not exclusively so. I think the Denver-area operations are a relatively minor addition for them, but they clearly want to have a presence here. The K292FM translator covers some suburban areas where there might be an interest in KTLF's genre of programming. It also covers areas in Denver where there's likely to be very little such interest (LoHi, Berkeley, and so on, possibly even Capitol Hill or City Park if you have a good receiver).
Aside from that, the contemporary-Christian marketplace in Denver is almost as saturated as the market for sports talk. (There's an idea: Christian sports talk. You heard it here first!) Just among full-power stations, there's K-Love, Way FM, and Pillar Media (three stations). K-Love's Air1 is on a translator, as is KTLF "The Light". So I think it would be hard for any one such station to be predominant in this environment. The Light probably has its listeners, and it appears they would like to expand based on their recent purchases, but most people aren't going to know about the extensive network, even if they hear the full TOH ID. When you listen to the audio of that ID, you'll notice that, aside from the parent KTLF, the first stations that are mentioned are both Denver.
Some of the ECCS outstate stations are full-power stations that are just a little more powerful than a translator. That guarantees they won't be displaced (unlike the situation in Brush, which seems to have an uncommon amount of broadcast activity for a community its size).
But I think the core ECCS audience is in Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Other locations, even Denver, are a nice addition for them but not as central to their mission. But it's enough for them to acquire a couple more translators (one of which is to be reconfigured for better Boulder coverage, though Boulder also seems like a community where there wouldn't be that much interest in KTLF's programming) and to lease an HD channel on a full-market FM.
