California State University – Northridge and Saddleback College have put out a Request for Qualification to find operators interested in running Los Angeles market AAA “88.5 FM” KCSN Northridge/KSBR Mission Viejo.
As first reported by Spark News, the two stations seek to lease their programming to another public media operator in order to grow “to the next level”. The two stations began simulcasting in September 2017 in order to remove the interference the two stations created are increase their coverage range of the Los Angeles market.
The RFQ seeks organizations to file Requests For Information by Wednesday, November 20 and responses by December 11. Full proposals will be due on January 10, 2020 with the plan to notify finalists by February 7 and intent to have the new operator take over by March 15. Interested organizations should email Deborah.wallace@csun.edu.
Spark News speculates PBS So Cal, American Public Media’s SCPR, KCRW and Mount Wilson Broadcasting as potentially interested bidders. We can exclusively add that American Public Media registered 885TheCurrent.org and TheCurrentLA.org in August 2018 with the belief that they were close to a deal then to operate the stations. American Public Media subsidiary Minnesota Public Radio operates the AAA “Current” brand based at 89.3 KCMP Minneapolis that is also heard on SCPR’s 89.3 KPCC-HD2 Pasadena.