Oh Jesus Chr.....
It's one of those things that really make me start to question why we give tax-free rides to billion dollar religious mega-conglomerates (NOT small, individual LOCAL churches that actually DO something for their LOCAL communities), but ginormous, overblown national religious mega-conglomerates like EMF that do nothing but hog up the airwaves at the expense of taxpayers for their own selfish gain. We already HAVE a decent religious station in KCMS (not my particular taste, but at least they're locally owned and operated. And as a commercial station, they do pay SOME tax - I hope.)
KCMS probably won't feel much from this, maybe a point or two off (at best.) But it's a wake up call on where the state of terrestrial radio is right now. And if too many religious stations glut the FM band here, you can be sure that's going to drive away the non-religious listeners as a whole once the FM dial here gets known as a "Jesus ghetto". Seattle flat out won't put up with it for very long if any full power stations sell out to the Bible thumpers. And if that's all who's buying these days, well.....
It's a textbook case of preaching to the choir. And why there needs to be sweeping changes to keep these religious radio conglomerates in check to make sure Seattle radio and other markets aren't wiped out by the tax-dodging, sat-cast holy-rollers. Because if it ever got to the point where they could buy up actual full power stations in a place like Seattle (which KMCQ and KXOT are really not thankfully), it's not going to look good for traditional radio as a medium (it doesn't look good NOW.) Remember, EMF got started with a handful of translators. Then more. And more. Then they started getting full power licenses in other markets and expanding FAR beyond California. And others began following the same methods. And so on.
Sports is the only thing keeping AM going. Once that fizzles out, it's pretty much over for AM. KCIS BARELY shows up in the ratings. The Salem stations and KBLE - Nada. The LAST thing you want to do is transfer that from Shortwave to AM and finally to FM because once that happens, traditional radio is history.
If they wanna talk about "prophecy", well, that's mine. And you can take that to the bank better than anything Harold Camping* could have dreamt up. And these religious zealots know no limits. I know. I've tried to reason with them. People just don't convert like that. But just sell out a medium of mass communication to them at the right price and they WILL buy. Lock, stock and barrel. And as long as they know they can get away with it, they will buy. No matter if NO ONE is listening. Look at all these worthless AM religious stations for a glimpse into what THAT would look like.
*Speaking of Mr. Camping's diminishing empire, you've got less than 48 hours to pick up 1460 kHz before it goes into the FCC wastebasket. Have fun.
