Scathing Ark. Business story about Benton's KEWI and Grant Merrill's departure

Arkansas Business has a very detailed account of what led to the ouster of Grant Merrill as general manager and owner of KEWI-AM 690 in Benton, which is now off the air. At least one of his former business partners, Curtis Arnold, who provided some money for Merrill to buy the station, had very harsh comments and said he is considering litigation against Merrill. The article says that Merrill's partners began hearing of late bills, bounced checks and unpaid employees (sounds like when I worked there in 1989 when it was still known as KBBA). Arnold and silent partner Jeremy Hutchinson (a state senator) came in to look at the books and didn't like what they found, deciding Merrill wasn't who they wanted running the station. No details about a potential buyout of his part of the ownership were listed. Merrill told the paper he will be vindicated of accusations made against him. He acknowledged making rookie mistakes as a station owner, but said there was no criminal activity or any outright dishonesty. The low-power AM station has been working for years to get on the FM band, and those efforts will continue under new management, though this suggested it may just be a translator. The AM meanwhile is expected to be back on the air within a few weeks, the story says.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/art...e-countys-only-radio-station-kewi-am?page=all

I'm not trying to sling dirt at Grant. I've met him a handful of times over the years and he always seemed like a decent, ambitious person. And I'm sure it's hard as hell to make a small AM station profitable, though KEWI's previous owner Jim Landers was quoted saying he was in the black all 17 years he ran it and as for Merrill's departure, told the newspaper "good riddance."

The station has a long history in Benton, going back to the 1950s I believe, known as KBBA, with call letters that originally stood for Keep Building Benton Arkansas and was run by Winston Riddle, until his death. His son John was running it by the time I got my first radio job there in 1989, but as I said earlier, I had bounced paychecks and was glad to quickly move on to another station.

Great hearing again from you Goat Rodeo Cowboy and thanks for expanding on the history. Since the first post, I see MySaline.com, a social media website in the county, has a video interview from last week with Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson talking about the future of the station. Shelli Russell who runs the website didn't ask for details about Grant's departure, but did get lots of details about what Hutchinson wants to accomplish.

http://www.mysaline.com/profiles/blogs/an-interview-with-jeremy-hutinson-on-the-future-of-radio

Hutchinson said he hopes to have an FM on the air by the end of the year, if not sooner. As Arkansas Business noted, it will have a heavier sports presence. Finally one real interesting tidbit: he wants to change the call letters from KEWI to KWPS, which would stand for Woo Pig Sooie, referencing, of course, the Arkansas Razorbacks. There is already a station with those call letters licensed to Caddo Valley, Arkansas, but I got the impression that station is apparently owned by one of the new parties involved with AM 690, who will transfer the call letters over to the new incarnation of the station. Apparently the old call letters didn't refer to the Hogs, but was a nod to Oaklawn, standing for Win, Place, Show.

Apparently the old call letters didn't refer to the Hogs, but was a nod to Oaklawn, standing for Win, Place, Show.

that's not entirely true. I worked for that company for a while (thank god it's now past tense)

it started as wooo pig sooie. they then somehow thought they'd make a killing by partnering with oaklawn park and for that reason, changed it to win place show. it flopped.

I'm the Managing Partner of Southwest Arkansas Media, LLC. We own KWPS-FM 99.7 which is the area ESPN radio affiliate serving south central Arkansas.

The call letters of the station have always been referred to on the air as an acronym for "Wooo Pig Sooie". Jim Cutler, the official deep voice of ESPN, has always done our imaging and the station ID he cut for us has always clearly said "KWPS-FM, as in Wooo Pig Sooie". Any statement made by "hoss cartrack" or anyone else to the contrary is simply not true. We're also the local outlet for Arkansas Razorback Sports, the St. Louis Cardinals and NASCAR.

We did carry race results and some races for Oaklawn during the past racing season and were fairly paid for doing so. The marketing people at Oaklawn did tell us they thought WPS actually stood for "Win, Place and Show", which was fine if they thought so. We actually launched KWPS-FM 99.7 two days before the racing session started, so the comment "hoss cartrack" made about thinking "they'd make a killing by partnering with oaklawn and for that reason, changed it to win place show" is just another false statement. At the time we weren't even sure the station would be on the air by the time the races started.

I've been watching this story take it's second turn over the last week or so.

Let me preface this by saying I worked with Grant, consider him an acquaintance. He's a likeable guy - I think he likes beer and pills a little too much, but he has managed to get by. I also live in Bryant and still commute to Little Rock every day, so I pay attention to Saline County. The fact that he got in over his head on this thing is no surprise. Like a lot of us in the business, I don't think organization or strict attention to detail was ever his strong suit when we worked together at Citadel. He used to drive Neal and Sharon nuts when he did the morning show because he would literally walk into the studio either still drunk or hung over driving in from Russellville or Searcy or the house of some girl he was with, as they were throwing it to him for the news updates. I think he was about 19 when we all worked together, so I hope he has grown up a lot since then.

That article was about as much of a slam piece on a person as I've seen in a long time. There is no telling what Grant did to piss off Arkansas Business, but having known him since he was at KARN, there is probably about a 60% chance that he brought that article on himself with something he said on his statewide show or whatever.

His problem is that he wanted to own a radio station so bad, that he would have bought anything just to be a station owner. And I think that his desire to own a radio station made him ignore the fact that at the end of the day, he overpaid for and tried to make a go of a 250 watt AM radio station in a market dominated by FM signals and the debt and not having the money to compete came back to bite him.

His online stuff is fair at best, but it seems as if he is still keeping advertisers happy and making a living with the website he is operating. I would guess that his family in the nursing home business got him back on his feet and started up again.

On the current status of 690, this "ESPN WPS" is a joke. Driving to Dallas last weekend, I noticed that between 690, 1310, 100.7, 99.7, 106.9, and 1240 they have put sports on six frequencies. The same ESPN feed that you can get on 96.3 or 103.7 which are much better signals, and certainly better programmed stations. There are no local names on the stations that are recognizable to anyone. The guy they have doing the Benton broadcasts is so awful and negative on officials and such that I made it through about a quarter before I went to Grant's webstream. Despite whatever went down and his personal problems, Grant is still probably one of the best high school play-by-play talents in the state, and has some good local color guys in there with him. I don't think the new ESPN WPS people will be able to compete with the product on his website.

I wish the best to all of them. But based on whats out there right now, I suspect the sometimes drunk, unorganized play-by-play guy probably wins that local battle at the end of the day.

The new issue of Arkansas Business has an update on this, reporting that Grant Merrill is now being sued by former business partner Curtis Arnold.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/art...es-lawsuit-over-alleged-mismanagement-of-kewi

“Merrill systematically failed to pay company bills including taxes, FCC broadcasting fees, utility bills, and programming bills,” the lawsuit said. “All the while, converting company money for his own personal use.”

Merill responded by email in the story: “I’m hopeful and confident that I will be vindicated of all accusations.”

Landers wanted too much for that station to begin with. The antenna is in a river bottom, the fence around the transmitter needed to be replaced and there is so much more wrong with the place that it would probably take $50,000 to get it legal. It was a bad deal for anyone to get involved with.

You are right. That station was a death trap. I looked at it back in the late 90's when Landers first wanted to sell it and the top of the tower was twisted, and my investor said "no way". At that point, Landers wanted half a million or so. Grant thought he could make it work with the FM translator, but they wouldn't let him move the one he bought until all the LPFM stuff shook out. Even with the FM component it would have been a hard go with the majority of Saline County tuned into Little Rock. Most people that know Grant know he's a pretty decent person. He has probably bailed more station owners and managers out on things like running over and calling a ballgame for someone when there was no one else who could or even wanted to do it. He was always helpful to me on things like that when I was a program director and our hometown team was playing a game we couldn't get covered. I think when you look at the fact that he is still operating a media outlet that is competing with his former station, this lawsuit is more about the fact that his former partners are having a hard time competing with him for ad dollars in Benton than it is about him defrauding anyone. I bet he comes out okay.

It would appear according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette this morning, that Grant Merrill is firing back with a pretty big lawsuit of his own.

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2014/dec/22/ex-partner-sues-news-site-owner-2014122/

This is the most attention that little radio station has had since it went on the air.