I once lived in Kansas City and my parents had friends in St. Louis. This was in the late 1960s. As the radio addict I am, I perused the listing of radio stations in the newspaper and tried to listen to as many as I could each time we got close to the golden arches. I had a little notebook where I took notes. One station I checked was KXEN, then licensed to Festus. later it would upgrade to 50,000 watts daytime and 500 watts at night. They ran a religious format. I always heard preaching/teaching programs.
I would class KXEN as a cash cow religious station back in the day. There were few religious stations and ministries purchased their airtime at rate card. When you could sell an ad or two, you slipped them between paid programs and maybe tossed in a church announcement.
Things changed. National religious networks sprang up, especially on the non-commercial FM band. The biggest ministries quit paying for airtime and shared revenue with stations on their 'special offers' for listeners. The funny thing, you needed the big ministries to attract the smaller paying ministries. And the dial became heavy with numerous Christian radio choices. Eventually the dollars just didn't jive with the cost of operations. That's likely KXEN's story, at least somewhat.
A few years back KXEN sold. More recently they moved to talk. There was some issue with the tower site, I think.
Like a few AM stations, KXEN managed to get an FM translator.
Today KXEN is 1010 AM at 160 watts days and 14 watts after sunset. Considering, they reach a good number: over 1 million in the 5mv. At night that drops to just over 100,000. KXEN is non-directional.
Why would this happen? For KXEN to be 50,000 watts daytime and 500 watts at night you had to be directional, meaning multiple towers and a good number of acres like valued higher than the station itself. With the onset of the FM translator, the value of the land and the high cost of running and maintaining that 50kw signal, it only makes sense to drop to 160 watts days and 14 watts at night. Most will listen on FM anyway.
The big expense now is a center of Saint Louis tower lease.
This seems to be a likely trend for especially directional stations. What you lose versus the lower expenses make it a smart option.
If KXEN can hang on to it's translator, they should do alright. Surely the dollars they need to cover the bills each month is much less.
The recent sale of KXEN came with the sale of 920 WGNU that also dropped to 450 watts days and 500 watts nights. Included with the sale were two translators, one for KXEN and one for WGNU. The price was $450,000, a $200,000 discount from the original purchase agreement. This is a testament of the value of AM signals (even with a FM translator).
While some want to see the AM dial cleaned up, stay patient. It might happen but not in the way you think. There may be many, many more low wattage AM stations that were once much higher power directional stations.
I would class KXEN as a cash cow religious station back in the day. There were few religious stations and ministries purchased their airtime at rate card. When you could sell an ad or two, you slipped them between paid programs and maybe tossed in a church announcement.
Things changed. National religious networks sprang up, especially on the non-commercial FM band. The biggest ministries quit paying for airtime and shared revenue with stations on their 'special offers' for listeners. The funny thing, you needed the big ministries to attract the smaller paying ministries. And the dial became heavy with numerous Christian radio choices. Eventually the dollars just didn't jive with the cost of operations. That's likely KXEN's story, at least somewhat.
A few years back KXEN sold. More recently they moved to talk. There was some issue with the tower site, I think.
Like a few AM stations, KXEN managed to get an FM translator.
Today KXEN is 1010 AM at 160 watts days and 14 watts after sunset. Considering, they reach a good number: over 1 million in the 5mv. At night that drops to just over 100,000. KXEN is non-directional.
Why would this happen? For KXEN to be 50,000 watts daytime and 500 watts at night you had to be directional, meaning multiple towers and a good number of acres like valued higher than the station itself. With the onset of the FM translator, the value of the land and the high cost of running and maintaining that 50kw signal, it only makes sense to drop to 160 watts days and 14 watts at night. Most will listen on FM anyway.
The big expense now is a center of Saint Louis tower lease.
This seems to be a likely trend for especially directional stations. What you lose versus the lower expenses make it a smart option.
If KXEN can hang on to it's translator, they should do alright. Surely the dollars they need to cover the bills each month is much less.
The recent sale of KXEN came with the sale of 920 WGNU that also dropped to 450 watts days and 500 watts nights. Included with the sale were two translators, one for KXEN and one for WGNU. The price was $450,000, a $200,000 discount from the original purchase agreement. This is a testament of the value of AM signals (even with a FM translator).
While some want to see the AM dial cleaned up, stay patient. It might happen but not in the way you think. There may be many, many more low wattage AM stations that were once much higher power directional stations.