Yesterday, the Fort Worth Weekly reported North Texas Public Broadcasting, Inc. (operators of public radio station KERA FM) announcement that it has purchased the non-commercial radio license for 91.7 FM, a 100,000 watt full-market station with broadcast coverage in the greater Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton areas of Texas. The announced purchase price is $18 million. The frequency is currently used by KVTT radio ("The Truth"), a Christian broadcasting non-profit. KVTT's current operator, Covenant Educational Media, also owns and operates 98.5 KAAI in Palisade/Grand Junction, Colorado. In 1996, KERA's format dropped music in favor of news and information programming. KERA press release said:
During two radio audience focus groups in 2008, the loss of the music programs was still remembered. Nothing similar has taken its place on free, non-commercial radio in the North Texas broadcast area.
KERA has a news and public information station at 90.1 FM and plans to use the additional fequency to broadcast Adult Album Alternative (AAA) material iverse, with "adult-oriented playlists covering a broad spectrum of music such as folk, acoustic, world music, alternative and indie rock and country" The new format is schedule to debut in Fall 2009. The press release also said:
The opportunity to purchase the station was presented to KERA in 2007 by PRC (Public Radio Capital), a national nonprofit organization that works to strengthen public radio. “Rarely do non-commercial radio licenses become available,” according to Erik Langner, Director of Acquisitions at PRC. “The greater Dallas/Fort Worth/Denton area has only three full-market FM non-commercial FCC licenses: KERA 90.1 FM, 91.7 FM, and one other. The availability of 91.7 FM was an extremely rare opportunity and we immediately thought of KERA.
So almost five years since the sale of the WCAL assets (100,000 watt license and broadcasting tower), we see example after example that terrestrial non-commercial radio is still going strong and is becoming more and more valuable as an asset in all sorts of ways.
Who was giving the St. Olaf leadership and board of regents the information that they presented to others in Fall 2004, such as:
Satellite radio is starting, which is a threat to non-commercial radio, especially classical. The value of the station and value in 10 yrs will be less than value of $10.5 million in the endowment in 10 yrs.
Really??
