KUHA off the air

[JimTexBell]

I'm curious about how much of the locally produced and syndicated programming will remain on the station.

I'm pretty sure the classical music and arts programming will stay pretty much the same. It will just go back to piggybacking on one or the other of 88.7's HD channels and streaming online. That's what the news release says. We shall see. They apparently don't want the expense of maintaining a transmitter and space on the tower. Like someone else here has said, I don't believe they'll get anywhere $9.5 million for the frequency. Buying KTRU was a bad decision and a bad investment from the very start. They're gonna take a bath on this.

 

[b-turner]

The Performance Today, etc. are syndicated and are plug and play unless there are a few local programs dealing with the local arts community, which I presume there are.

As for KJIC grabbing 91.7, I'd say that's impossible. Their lean operation does fine for the signal they have but add the sort of debt 91.7 would incur and, well, no way. Then consider the time spent building that audience and convincing them to support the station, not to mention the staff needed to sell Underwriting. Southern Gospel usually is not a big moneymaker as well. Most Southern Gospel formats make it by selling time to ministries. Then, when you figure what ministries can pay (donate) you quickly realize you'd need 240 hours a day to sell to handle the debt service. Remember, the 'top 40' ministries (as I like to call them) don't buy but give you a share of donations from zip codes in your coverage area (and donations are few and far between for most, even the big boys).

At one point I looked that the IRS Form that KJIC filed. I admit they do really well in the format. Still their income is akin to a small town station and I mean, say a town of 5,000. KJIC has a good funding base and is wisely managed which is why they do so well.

 

[Anonymouse]

DAIJ Media is a commercial operation, so not a buyer candidate. Radio Aleluya itself is the non-profit.

Wait, something doesn't seem right. FCC Info shows DAIJ MEDIA, LLC owns KMIC 1590 Houston. Now, someone in Houston will have to correct me on this, but doesn't 1590 play Spanish Christian under the name Radio Aleluya..?

 

[b-turner]

Yes but technically DAIJ can be a for profit entity leasing to Radio Aleluya. Sometimes a non-profit entity creates a for profit entity complete with all the legalese. I am not sure but that may be what is happening.

 

[JimTexBell]

Getting back to selling KUHA, here's some background from someone who was there. Until the merger of KUHT TV and KUHF FM into Houston Public Media, funding for both operations was completely separate. Even though they are in the same building, both had to raise their own money with separate on-air pledge drives. KUHF did it twice a year, KUHT more often.

KUHF always made its goal, which at the time I retired in 2010 was a million dollars per drive – 2 million a year and the technology obsessed station manager spent every dime of it. He had to have all the latest IT bells and whistles, like installing HD, computerizing all on-air programming and buying KTRU from Rice. Station overhead was very high.

KUHT on the other hand, never made its goal and was always laying people off. By 2010, more than half the entire TV staff had been let go, and the TV offices on the first and second floors of the Melcher Center were mostly empty. Walking those halls was like exploring a cave. Seriously.

This is why KUHT had been begging UH for years to combine its funding with KUHF’s and they finally succeeded. I don’t know all the ins and outs of that, but it appears the Association for Community Television, which raises money for KUHT and includes a lot of important people around town, finally persuaded UH to merge radio and TV into a single entity named Houston Public Media, and support both from a single fund.

In a classic example of unanticipated consequences, KUHF’s corporate donations and memberships went down, which meant less money to pay for its very expensive overhead. Mergers always create redundant positions and lead to layoffs. TV was already down to a skeleton staff, so the newly hired and very overpaid President of HPM started laying off radio people, including the beloved station manager Debra Fraser and others.

The layoffs just made things worse, and KUHF and KUHT haven’t met a combined pledge drive goal since the merger. I’m sure this is what has forced HPM and UH to find ways to cut costs, and selling KUHA’s frequency and transmitter seemed like a good place to start.

The bottom line: merging KUHF and KUHT has done nothing to help either of them, and it has effectively killed over-the-air classical music in Houston.

 

[TheBigA]

The bottom line: merging KUHF and KUHT has done nothing to help either of them, and it has effectively killed over-the-air classical music in Houston.

Interesting, because in many markets, the TV station is able to raise more than radio.

I just wonder how the fundraising for KUHA had been going. Because in Miami, they never met their goal, which was why those stations were just sold.

 

[JimTexBell]

It has been reported that HPM is in a very deep financial hole. How deep is it? It has lost money for years, with deficits ranging from $656,809 in 2012 to $2 million in 2014.

HPM bought KUHA from Rice University in 2010 for $9.6 million, supporting the acquisition through a long-term bond issuance. HPM paid more than $400,000 on the debt service per year in fiscal years 2013 and 2014.

All that combined with reduced income from donors and memberships has put HPM and UH in the embarrassing position of having to sell something they bought at a premium price just a few years ago, with no hope of recouping that price.

 

[b-turner]

I'm not saying the folks that were running things when all this happened didn't know what they were doing, but I asked them once how one might determine if a community might be a good spot for a Public Radio Station. I asked if there might be a certain criteria for determining if the support might be there before you jump in. I was told nobody had heard of such a thing. I know that in commercial radio we can look at nearby stations, analyze the business community, examine other media and get a fairly good educated guess of what a station might do if programmed and staffed correctly. I even consider the ability or inability of a community to come together for everyone's benefit, especially in smaller communities. The person I spoke with (fairly high up there because my boss at the time had a building on the U of H campus named after him) told me there was no such indicators to determine what a station could expect to do in a market. I asked, then how do you analyze how the station is performing and if it is doing what it ought to? I was told they didn't know. Quite frankly I though they were not being straight with me. Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that call was interesting.

Could such an operation be so 'by the seat of your pants' or is it a well oiled machine where actions have goals and results in number of listeners and number of dollars gained? I'm not talking sacrificing content for the almighty dollar but rather that everything you do has a solid reason, not just something that's a pet project someone just wants.

 

[TheBigA]

The fact that Houston has lost all-news and classical, two formats mainly enjoyed by older white people, indicates to me that they're not the people who I'd be wanting to target with a radio format. That would also go for Oldies, which is another format often talked about on this board. If older whites won't support a station when it's available, there's no motivation for anyone to want to go out of their way to serve them. Just my humble opinion as a businessman.

 

[JoeFM1]

The fact that Houston has lost all-news and classical, two formats mainly enjoyed by older white people, indicates to me that they're not the people who I'd be wanting to target with a radio format. That would also go for Oldies, which is another format often talked about on this board. If older whites won't support a station when it's available, there's no motivation for anyone to want to go out of their way to serve them. Just my humble opinion as a businessman.

Take a good look inside the Loop. We're a minority now...

 

[DJboutit3]

The fact that Houston has lost all-news and classical, two formats mainly enjoyed by older white people, indicates to me that they're not the people who I'd be wanting to target with a radio format. That would also go for Oldies, which is another format often talked about on this board. If older whites won't support a station when it's available, there's no motivation for anyone to want to go out of their way to serve them. Just my humble opinion as a businessman.

Ratings for these stations have been really bad for last 5 yrs time for something else. People get the news form the internet radio is the last place they get the news

 

[TheBigA]

People get the news form the internet radio is the last place they get the news

Yet all-news is a very successful format in lots of other places. Just not Houston. Same with classical. People will support it in other markets.

 

[Mediafrog+]

KUHT on the other hand, never made its goal and was always laying people off. By 2010, more than half the entire TV staff had been let go, and the TV offices on the first and second floors of the Melcher Center were mostly empty. Walking those halls was like exploring a cave. Seriously.

You're not kidding. I visited KUHT last fall and it was very evident that it was a stripped-down operation, with virtually no local production and barely enough operations staff to keep it on the air. WGBH it ain't. I know a few people who have had on-and-off employment there over the years.

The bottom line: merging KUHF and KUHT has done nothing to help either of them, and it has effectively killed over-the-air classical music in Houston.

Could be that KUHF's pre-2011 combination of Classical Music along with the morning and evening news blocks was the ideal programming model.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Yet all-news is a very successful format in lots of other places. Just not Houston.

If you are thinking of WCBS/WINS/WBBM/KNX: Those are blowtorch 50kw legacy AM's that have been in the format for half a century. But as discussed elsewhere on these boards, the audience is getting pretty old. Younger demos are getting their news elsewhere.

Same with classical. People will support it in other markets.

A lot of commercial Classical stations have vanished in recent years. The two biggest that remain are unusual situations: Chicago's WFMT is owned by the local PBS station, and DFW's WRR is owned by the City of Dallas. Aging demographics will put pressure on the remaining non-comms, just like KUHA.

 

[TheBigA]

But as discussed elsewhere on these boards, the audience is getting pretty old. Younger demos are getting their news elsewhere.

Sometimes "elsewhere" means NPR, and KUHF gets a respectable 2 share. As JimTex said, KUHF has been raising the majority of the money. So perhaps news on the radio is OK when it's presented in a certain way.

Aging demographics will put pressure on the remaining non-comms, just like KUHA.

For non-coms, the age of the demographics doesn't matter as long as they have a pulse and they're willing to donate money. I think the reason HPM wanted to give the classical and news formats their own stations was to see which format could pay for itself. I guess we found out who won.

I'd say there are quite a few successful public classical stations around the country. WCRB and WQXR found new lives when they were bought by WGBH and WNYC respectively. Of course NYC and Boston have very active arts communities. Perhaps Houston isn't as sophisticated as it thinks it is, and its richer residents are less likely to spend their money on 400 year old music.

The fact that HPM is putting the station up for sale rather than trying a different format shows how big the problem is. They simply can't come up with a format that'll raise enough money to cover the cost of the debt. That's a pretty sad story.

I find it interesting that up in Seattle, some very rich people have bankrolled the local public radio station, KEXP, so that the station is building new $15 million studios that will include a music recording studio and theater. Meanwhile, the public station in Houston can't cover a $400K annual debt. Aren't there some rich people in Houston who could pool less than 1% of their fortune to fund a radio station that would play something other than the same Top 40 hits? That's all it would take.

 

[JimTexBell]

Format isn't the problem. The audience for classical music is small to be sure, but the station has always been dedicated to serving that audience. The problem is the massive debt and reduced income that came about after KUHF bought KTRU. HPM's income fell when they started dividing the funding three ways instead of two. What were they thinking?

KUHT does get a little support from UH, but, for reasons I've never understood even though I worked there 17 years, state law doesn't allow public funding for public radio. KUHF has always had to raise 92 percent of its funds from private donors and corporate underwriters. 8 per cent comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That worked pretty well for KUHF as long as it didn't have to share its funding with TV.

 

[salemjedi54]

Sometimes "elsewhere" means NPR, and KUHF gets a respectable 2 share. As JimTex said, KUHF has been raising the majority of the money. So perhaps news on the radio is OK when it's presented in a certain way.



For non-coms, the age of the demographics doesn't matter as long as they have a pulse and they're willing to donate money. I think the reason HPM wanted to give the classical and news formats their own stations was to see which format could pay for itself. I guess we found out who won.

I'd say there are quite a few successful public classical stations around the country. WCRB and WQXR found new lives when they were bought by WGBH and WNYC respectively. Of course NYC and Boston have very active arts communities. Perhaps Houston isn't as sophisticated as it thinks it is, and its richer residents are less likely to spend their money on 400 year old music.

The fact that HPM is putting the station up for sale rather than trying a different format shows how big the problem is. They simply can't come up with a format that'll raise enough money to cover the cost of the debt. That's a pretty sad story.

I find it interesting that up in Seattle, some very rich people have bankrolled the local public radio station, KEXP, so that the station is building new $15 million studios that will include a music recording studio and theater. Meanwhile, the public station in Houston can't cover a $400K annual debt. Aren't there some rich people in Houston who could pool less than 1% of their fortune to fund a radio station that would play something other than the same Top 40 hits? That's all it would take.

That's interesting, because up here in D/FW the "Friends of WRR" make sure that City of Dallas will not sell the 101.1 stick to anyone, even though at one time that stick was worth about 60-100 million.

 

[CTListener]

If you are thinking of WCBS/WINS/WBBM/KNX: Those are blowtorch 50kw legacy AM's that have been in the format for half a century. But as discussed elsewhere on these boards, the audience is getting pretty old. Younger demos are getting their news elsewhere.

Or consuming opinions they agree with (from the right or the left) and thinking that they're "getting the news."

 

[Mediafrog+]

Diverting from the KUHA sale thread for an update; appears the new antenna is being installed Wednesday 8/26 (weather permitting, I presume.)

From the HPM website: "The new Classical 91.7 antenna has arrived. Starting Wednesday, August 26, Classical 91.7 will be off the air for up to 24 hours while the new antenna is installed and tested. While these repairs are happening, Classical 91.7 is still available on TV 8.5, KUHF 88.7 HD-2, and streaming online via our player, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn. If you are in the loop near the Medical Center, you can listen on 91.3 FM. Thank you for your patience during this time, and thanks again for listening to Classical 91.7."

I'm sure they want to get things fixed ASAP while shopping the station to potential buyers.

 

[Mediafrog+]

And a further update from HPM: "The new Classical 91.7 antenna has arrived and repairs are underway. While the new antenna is installed and tested, you should expect interrupted service, including extended outages throughout the day Thursday, August 27. We expect regular service to resume Thursday evening."