IHeart launches 24 hr/day Pride station in Minneapolis / Saint Paul
You won’t find a call sign in most of the news stories. This is one of those “stations” (W244CS) that is really a low powered FM Translator being fed by an HDx channel that nobody can hear, but makes the translator legal – and allows an extra FM station that doesn’t count against the owner’s market cap on how many stations they can operate. Christian radio operators who got free FM translators from George Bush about 10 years to spread the love of Jesus are making a ton of cash by selling them to commercial radio for arrangements like this. An FM translator with a good tower can still cover a major city fairly well.
First we had an all pot station, now an all gay station. What next? 24 hour a day evading immigration news talk? 24 hour a day Islamic music? One of my memories as a child was playing with my Dad’s shortwave radio and hearing these odd stations from the Middle East that seemed to exist only to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer, which our President Obama surely has stored on his iPod
Doing further research, this station is not “new”. IHeart bought the license for $300,000. What changed is an increase in power and a better tower location. The translator had mostly been silent since the license was issued in 2004
The original owner was an attorney from Woodbury, MN. Nice payday.
Mr Cornwalls’s prior connection with radio is he served as a director on Rochester (MN) Public Radio
http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/411/411949121/411949121_200412_990EZ.pdf
KRPR-FM is the station owned by Rochester Public Radio. Its non-commercial Educational purpose is to play Classic Rock Music.
https://www.facebook.com/krpr89.9
It’s interesting that all the Public Radio people in MN seem to get rich.
It’s because they are all above average. 😉
For those who don’t know the story, how MPR and Amerucan Public Media got flush with cash is an interesting story
http://streamingradioguide.com/blogradio/?page_id=1989
MPR had a very cozy deal with the state of Minnesota, building up a statewide network of “emergency” towers, then signing 15 year leases to let cell phone companies use their towers. The other accidental source of cash was from selling merchandise based on Prairie Home Companion.
There is a back and forth between NPR and APM over who “controls” Public Radio. NPR now produces very little programming and is mainly just a distributor. That provides protection against the recurring threats by Republicans to “shut down NPR!”, which is music to the ears of APM.