In a what is unfortunately becoming a rare circumstance in this industry, there have been two occurrences this week of stations with different owners coming together to assist each other.
In Seattle, five non-commercial stations are joining forces on Thursday, December 19 for Public Radio Day. NPR News/Talk 88.5 KPLU, Dance “C89.5” KNHC, Alternative 90.3 KEXP, Community 91.3 KBCS, and Classical 98.1 KING are teaming together to donate a winter care pack to the United Way for every donation of $120 or more to any of the five station.
In Wisconsin, given just two weeks by the FCC to get his Construction Permit for 98.9 WEMP Two Rivers before it expired, Mark Heller got a boost from what may soon be his in-market rival. Seehafer Broadcasting’s “Lake 98.1” WLKN Cleveland signed off for a day in order to allow WEMP to use its transmitter and studios.
Heller was at the helm of WEMP for 24 hours with Beautiful Music; just long enough to reach the requirements necessary for the station to be granted its license before the CP would expire. Heller now has the ability to file for an STA while building his station’s own studios.
rather unfortunate indeed, but for those who are, they actually have the Christmas spirit. I’ve talked to many programmers this year who said what I’m about to say. “that’s our job as an industry, to help each other out. Sure we’re competitive, but our job is to serve the people, and to help cultivate talent.” with all the negative buzz radio got this year, it’s nice to see it ending on a positive note. screw measurement, p1s, market research, bottom line. The real bottom line is these airwaves are still public and free, and people are still listening, so to the companies who don’t care about their communities, they’re just making the relevance issue harder for the rest of us. as a young child radio was magic, and this puts the magic back into radio, what other industry is like this?
KPLU’s actual format is Jazz/NPR News.
Other than that, a nice gesture by those Seattle-area stations.