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KPLU Intent to sell to KUOW

CarAgencyGuy

CarAgencyGuy

Frequent Participant
This just in....

Pacific Lutheran University and the University of Washington have announced PLU’s intent to sell its broadcasting rights and facilities associated with KPLU to KUOW. A formal agreement is still being finalized, with the intent to form a larger unified radio, streaming and online destination. This will provide greater resources including two stations; one for NPR and Northwest news at 94.9 FM, and one for jazz music at 88.5 FM, to public radio consumers throughout the greater Puget Sound region and Western Washington.

Today, the University of Washington Board of Regents is voting on the transaction. Once a formal agreement between the UW and PLU is finalized, the UW will submit a request to the FCC to approve a transfer of the broadcast license for 88.5.

The Seattle-Tacoma market is one of the world’s leading and most dynamic jazz regions. KUOW is committed to provide jazz radio at 88.5 with a central focus on serving as a conduit and support system for local musicians, local businesses, music industry professionals, and furthering jazz music education. KUOW is excited and fully prepared to assume guardianship of this outstanding community resource, and continue the high quality and comprehensive jazz programming for which 88.5 is known.
 
Wow, bombshell! Guess this means KUOW gets an option of West Tiger/Cougar TX site after all. It will be interesting to see what the University will do to reorganize things to become now one large NPR entity. My guess some of the first moves will be to consolidate studios and offices to Seattle, giving PLU the real estate back and some change in their coffers.
 
Or maybe go Smooth Jazz with Pat Cashman and Pat O'Day mornings. They could call the morning show: Jazz with Pat Squared! The only thing that would be better is All Classic Beach Boy's B-side station.
 
Not surprised by this move...was kind of expecting it. It will be nice to have jazz 24/7 in Seattle. Now, if only KUOW would move their transmitter to the KPLU site so that all of the market can receive them.

I can hear it now..."Robin and Maynard in the morning on K-Jazz 88.5". (I'm still thinking of a way to fit Kokomo in the show!)
 
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Or UW can move the talk to 88.5, sell the 94.9 for another top 40 or religious format to a major corporate operator for a lot of money, move the jazz to HD-3, and everybody can still believe we're a wonderful radio market and consolidation is great! With the competition going away between KPLU and KUOW, their divergent ways of presenting local news and other content during the NPR newsmags, promises a really stale future, if it's all going to sound like KUOW now. God, I need an internet radio box for the kitchen and another one for the bedroom, if I'm going to survive this!
 
Goldilocks94941 said:
Or UW can move the talk to 88.5, sell the 94.9 for another top 40 or religious format to a major corporate operator for a lot of money, move the jazz to HD-3, and everybody can still believe we're a wonderful radio market and consolidation is great! With the competition going away between KPLU and KUOW, their divergent ways of presenting local news and other content during the NPR newsmags, promises a really stale future, if it's all going to sound like KUOW now. God, I need an internet radio box for the kitchen and another one for the bedroom, if I'm going to survive this!
Click to expand...

That certainly raises the cynicism bar, even in this forum.
 
What I posted earlier is fact, what I am about to say now is complete and utter speculation on my part entirely. Would it make any sense for the UW to move the Husky broadcasts to one of these channels and then they control that whole piece? Then Jazz or NPR on that channel to fill and NPR full time on the other. What do all the experts on this board think?
 
Why all the speculation about what goes where? KUOW has put its plan rather well on their web page, giving very specific answers on programming questions. Jazz on 88.5, all the talk programming goes to 94.9.

Husky broadcasts on either station make no sense, it's easier to sell them to KOMO and let them deal with monetization, etc.

Kelly A also makes a strong observation on the 94.9 signal. Depending on if they move the antenna, it might eliminate the need for some translators or repeaters (and some posters here can finally good night's rest).
 
Interesting coverage maps. I was semi correct... It shows that KUOW will be leaving their talk programming on 94.9 AND taking over all of the existing KPLU translators except Bellingham and Olympia which would remain Jazz.

I was looking at the perspective of KUOW leaving the translators licensed to 88.5 and still gaining a much larger footprint by moving there... Didn't think of doing the same thing by just changing the programming on the translators.

KUOW will greatly expand their coverage with this plan.
 
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Best thread on this board in ages. As usual the radio pros nailed it.

I'm just sad for those at KPLU who will now be fighting for what few news jobs are left in this market.
 
CarAgencyGuy said:
Would it make any sense for the UW to move the Husky broadcasts to one of these channels and then they control that whole piece? Then Jazz or NPR on that channel to fill and NPR full time on the other. What do all the experts on this board think?
Click to expand...

Unless you're an insider at the UW and willing to put your job on the line, I'd say anything said here is completely speculative. The University makes a boat load of revenue off selling the Husky broadcasts and the flagship/network off the spots. I doubt 'enhanced underwriting' and the limits enforced by the FCC therein, would come close to going over the the same bar as traditional advertising. And I don't think the Board would allow taking 94.9 to commercial, even though technically it's not a non-com channel.
 
If 88.5 and all of its network of stations and "business" are worth $8 million in todays market then what would just the frequency 94.9 be worth as a commercial frequency if all the big players were to have a bidding war?
 
notalent said:
If 88.5 and all of its network of stations and "business" are worth $8 million in todays market then what would just the frequency 94.9 be worth as a commercial frequency if all the big players were to have a bidding war?
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Well, seeing that KMCQ - which is not a full market signal in the way KUOW is - sold for $7 million, I'd say 94.9 might got for a couple of bucks more.
 
My imaginary money is on simulcast: 94.9 (HD1) and 88.5 (HD1) for news and NPR. HD2 channels will be Jazz. Talk about complete market coverage. Translators? We don't need no stinkin' translators! If I were KOMO or KIRO, I'd be concerned about this deal.
 
AQH said:
That certainly raises the cynicism bar, even in this forum.
Click to expand...

These kinds of sudden changes are rarely just what the press releases suggest they are. In non-comm radio we've seen some shady and quick sell-offs in Houston and Miami recently, that also sharply reduce the amount of non-comm programming, and make room for even more of the same ol' time religion you already hear from eight other stations. Remember, these are stations that thousands of people invest in as members. They are not considered by their listeners to be merely commercial real estate that the rest of the dial has become since deregulation of their public service requirements.

I suspect the majority of KLPU's listenership and revenue was not from its jazz programming, since they've been reducing it on weekends in the past year. So dropping the news and going fulltime jazz ("because Seattle is such as jazz mecca!") is a lot more cynical to my ears than anything I'm writing here. Like most hybrid music and news NPR affiliates, the bulk of the audience and underwriting support comes from the talk and NPR programming, and their local inserts in it - not from the music dayparts, nice as they may be.
As much as I personally welcome a fulltime jazz outlet, and perhaps some new air talent, I don't think UW would go to this trouble, and make such a sudden move an hour before the university regents met to vote on it, if everybody was being honest and transparent, and had the listeners' interests as their priority.

Competition between two full power stations with local newsrooms gives us better radio. The KUOW and KPLU audiences do not overlap as much as you commercial observers might suspect, from what the KPLU GM confided to me a couple years ago. And a recent trend showing gains most months in KPLU's audience share suggest a lot of it may be at the expense of KUOW, since KUOW started to chop up all of the national news programs to insert legal IDs and slogans every five minutes, and pretend to be hosting national shows, instead of letting the actual national hosts take care of the interstitials between the news features.
Just listen, for heaven's sake.
 
Goldilocks94941 said:
In non-comm radio we've seen some shady and quick sell-offs in Houston and Miami recently, that also sharply reduce the amount of non-comm programming, and make room for even more of the same ol' time religion you already hear from eight other stations. .
Click to expand...

While I disagree with almost all of your post, I'll respond only to this because it seems to be the sort of thing that slants your perspective on everything.

Miami: Nothing shady. EMF made a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the folks from Minneapolis. In other words, "we will buy the stations cash but we are not going to wait around while you look ofr other options". The owners were bleeding cash, and that jeopardized their other operations. They had found that predominantly Hispanic South Florida did not support public radio the way they do in Minnesota and that losses were likely to continue. So they sold, as is their right.

In Houston, the station had made major cutbacks many months ago, and was pretty much just maintaining the license. They could not get the kind of support needed to sustain the operation and the university could not apparently sustain it.

You can't expect programming that does not get enough listener support to maintain it on a non-commercial station to endure. Lacking any well financed and viable operator of stations like those under discussion, there really does not appear to be an alternative.

Referring to South Florida, K-Love and Air-1 are not "old time religion". They are very contemporary personality music formats, and very well executed. Not my personal cup of tea, but they fill a very important niche in each market.
 
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I'm not seeing what they are doing with that 250 watt West Seattle translator. Maybe they could spin off a couple of translators.
 
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