As part of our report about the then upcoming launch of Hot AC “Live 95.5” KBFF Portland, we noted that Alpha Broadcasting had registered a few domains for the pending move of 97.9 KNRQ Eugene, OR into Portland.
Those domains, 979TheVibe.com and Arrow979.com were registered in April for what is now Cumulus’ Active Rocker in Eugene.
Since then a number of other domains have appeared. At first all of these had a splash page for “PDX Rock Fest“, but now redirect to GoDaddy’s site.
These domains are 98RockPortland.com, 979ArrowFM.com, 979Rocks.com, 979SamFM.com, 979TheArrow.com, 979TheMix.com, 979TheSpot.com, 979YourFM.com, and 979KUFO.com. A number of these are similar to the decoys registered prior to 95.5’s format change.
How does this PDX RockFest tie in? Prior to this year, the festival was known as “KUFO RockFest“. This years event to be held on Sunday, August 28, does not have a radio station sponsor but is being branded with the tagline “Save The Rock”. With all these domains in place, could Alpha use this year’s festival to announce the return of Rock on 97.9?
KNRQ has a Construction Permit to move to the Portland market 10kw licensed to Aloha, OR from the KGW-TV tower that houses a number of Portland FM’s. Nothing has been filed yet regarding Alpha leasing or purchasing KNRQ from Cumulus, but these registrations indicate Alpha at least wants us to believe that such a move is pending.
