16 January 2008

New FM station for Colorado Public Radio

By Joanne Ostrow
Denver Post Television Critic

Colorado Public Radio has found a home for news and information on the FM band.

CPR will purchase Christian-formatted 88.1 FM in Denver and this spring move KVOD, its classical-music station, there. Under an agreement announced today, CPR intends to move KCFR, currently at 1340 AM, to KVOD's old home at 90.1 FM. The 1340 AM frequency then will be offered for sale.

The deal represents the fulfillment of CPR's seven-year push to buy another FM station in Denver.

Pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission, the transaction will locate both CPR's news/information and music formats on FM in the metro area, expanding the coverage area and boosting the sound fidelity. Many listeners were disappointed when the news and information channel ended up on AM in 2001 because some National Public Radio shows feature music that is much lower quality on AM.

"It's great news for public-radio listeners," said CPR president Max Wycisk.

The purchase price for California-based Educational Media Foundation's 1200 watt 88.1 FM, which currently simulcasts the "K-Love" Christian format, is $8.2 million. EMF's K-Love will continue on 91.1 FM.

The changes will be implemented in late April-early May.

CPR expanded from one station that shoe-horned news and music into one unsatisfying format to two stations in 2001.

"The intent was always to have two FMs," Wycisk said. The nonprofit EMF has had 88.1 FM on the air for two years, broadcasting the Christian format from Mount Morrison and duplicating its main signal at 91.1 FM. That frequency is unaffected by the deal.

"It works out very nicely for us," Wycisk said.

Wycisk promised that the purchase of the new station "will not involve a heavy on-air fundraising drive. We did not seven years ago; we won't now."

The challenge, he said, will be educating people to change their media habits.

Wycisk said the switch could mean regaining some listeners who were lost when KCFR went to AM. "Some people don't think of public-radio news being anywhere but at the left hand side of the FM dial."

CPR plans to continue to build news staff and add locally produced programming.

With two FM stations, CPR's primary coverage area will be 2.6 million listeners.

While the two FMs signals will cover metro Denver well, 90.1 FM is the stronger signal. The 88.1 FM signal will not reach very far north, for instance. Fort Collins classical-music lovers may be disappointed.

"Increasingly, 5 to 10 percent of our audience is listening online, mostly to KVOD," Wycisk said. "High-end audiophiles think online is the best signal. We're putting a lot of effort into streaming and archiving."

Various financing options are being pursued, according to Marc Hand of Public Radio Capital, a nonprofit organization representing CPR in the transaction. The likeliest is "some form of tax-exempt bond funding, typical of public radio," Hand said. CPR was one of the first public-radio outfits to receive investment-grade bond ratings several years ago.

Over the years, public-radio competitors KCFR, KGNU (88.5 FM-1390 AM) in Boulder and KUNC (91.5 FM) in Greeley have battled over signal strength that penetrates the Denver market. KUNC this summer increased its coverage area by boosting its signal throughout the metro area. While public radio's infighting is historic and colorful, industry experts note that the combined public-radio audience is only 5 percent of the total radio audience.

"We've yet to find a market where expansion of an existing public-radio service has taken away from size of the listening public-radio audience," Hand said. "The bigger issue is that commercial radio is serving less and less of those needs."

KUNC station manager Neil Best said, "88.1 FM was dangled in front of us," but he and his board of directors determined that "we'd much rather put our energies and efforts into programming with the facilities we have, rather than spending the next 5 to 6 years trying to raise $8 million. We live in a different world (than CPR). Their business model is different than ours."

Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com