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KSTB-Crystal Beach

The FCC's website is up, but the letter isn't posted.

I've never seen informal objections posted, just the response of the FCC when it deals with it.

As for the tower still being standing and it would only take a few grand to restore it... based on their renewal application, I suppose it depends on how you quantify a "few grand":

ON SEPTEMBER 13, 2008, THE STATION WAS DESTROYED BY HURRICANE IKE. ALL OF THE EQUIPMENT WAS EITHER WASHED AWAY OR DESTROYED BY THE STORM. THE TOWER STRUCTURE SUPPORTING THE STATIONS ANTENNA WAS ALSO DAMAGED. THIS TOWER IS OWNED BY ANOTHER BROADCASTER. CUMULUS FILED ITS STA REQUEST TO TEMPORARILY REMAIN SILENT. THEN IT COMMENCED DISCUSSIONS WITH THE SITE AND TOWER OWNER ABOUT PLANS TO RESTORE THE SITE SO THAT CUMULUS COULD REBUILD THE STATION. THE SITE IS BEACH PROPERTY AND SUBJECT TO RECURRENT HURRICANES AND STORMS. IN ADDITION, IN 2008 THE ECONOMY WAS IN TERRIBLE SHAPE AND, AS A RESULT, IT TOOK A LONG TIME FOR A DECISION TO BE MADE BUT THE SITE WAS NOT RESTORED. AT ONE POINT, CUMULUS WAS ASKED TO EITHER TAKE ON THE EXTRA EXPENSE OF RESTORING THE SITE FOR THE LAND OWNER OR BUY THE PROPERTY AND TOWER. UNFORTUNATELY THE NEGOTIATIONS WERE NOT PRODUCTIVE.

CUMULUS ALSO LOOKED AT OTHER POSSIBLE SITES BUT THERE IS NO NON SHORT SPACED AREA FOR THIS CHANNEL. SEE ATTACHED MAP AND CHANNEL STUDY. STATION KSTB IS A CONTOUR PROTECTED STATION LIMITED IN ALL DIRECTIONS BY OTHER STATIONS OR BY THE GULF OF MEXICO. THE LICENSED TRANSMITTER SITE IS IN CRYSTAL BEACH ON THE BOLIVAR PENINSULA, A THIN STRIP OF LAND JUTTING OUT FROM THE TEXAS COAST NEAR GALVESTON. EVEN IF THERE WERE ANY LAND AREA AVAILABLE TO RELOCATE, THERE ARE NO EXISTING TOWERS NEARBY FOR A TRANSMITTER SITE RELOCATION. AS A RESULT, CUMULUS HAS FOUND IT NECESSARY TO CONTINUE TO REQUEST SILENT AUTHORITY WITH SHORT INTERVALS OF OPERATIONS.
 
jd said:
Here's an interesting (though not totally unexpected) development, appearing on the FCC website:

BRH-20130401AMK KSTB CUMULUS LICENSING Renewal of License 101.5 MHZ CRYSTAL BEACH, TX

Informal Objection Filed
07/01/2013 by Jerry J. Stern,
Chairman, Galveston Community Radio
Click to expand...

Presumably hoping for a license denial, to force a sale, or cancellation of the license so they can grab the frequency. Hope they are aware they probably won't be the only ones going after the frequency, despite the limited coverage area.
 
Actually KSTB's tower is done. Univision has a tower across the street, or more accurately across the path, from the KTSB tower site. Galvcomm did meet Cumulus's asking price of 175,000, but Lew Dickey turned it down, since Mr. Stern has on more than one occasion beaten Dickey, business wise.
 
Well by a few grand i meant 35k, that's what i spent to get 105.3 back up on the beach till the move to Winnie. If you cut corners you could probably do it cheaper.
Glad to hear they put up something to get it back on the air, just a shame the corp folks couldn't hammer out a deal to sell the old tower and land.
 
Here is what I no and I was right there when all this went down.
Mr. Irvin Davis was contacted By Cumulus broadcasting to Buy 101.5 KSTB in the agreement that it could be turned down. By doing this they had to move KSTB to a shorter tower from high island to Crystal Beach to keep city grade coverage over Crystal Beach. In other words they all but killed the coverage of the station to let them up grade 101.7 KAYD and Move to closer to Beaumont. They did this and it worked but ALL but KILLED KSTB, They repeated the signal of KAYD 101.7 until the hurricane hit and never brought it back up. The real reason I think they are doing this is because under FCC rules there would have to be a studio down there very near crystal beach not Galveston because city grade does no longer cover That area plus under the rules they would have to have a full time person at that studio daily even if repeating KAYD over KSTB every day. The FCC is getting very pickey today about this rule being followed. If you are living in the Galveston area and I mean a person in the area of that radio station coverage then send the FCC a letter and tell them what you no and trust me today they will look into it.The reason a studio must be there with full time person is becasue this is not a translator but a real radio station that has been all but killed by Corporate America and not serving the community.
 
Cumulus has approached Galvcomm about making an offer. The legal department of Cumulus claims they have to have an offer within 48 hours or Cumulus will forfeit the license
 
Stern posted over the weekend on Facebook that Galvcomm should launch online by the end of August and that a FM from Bolivar would follow provided they get the funding.

Whether that means they have a deal pending or not I have no idea, but they seem to be moving ahead with setting up a facility with the school district and teaching radio to students.
 
I have been told that an agreement has been reached to purchase KSTB, although I haven't seen anything filed yet. Stay tuned.
 
BarryATL said:
I still don't understand the benefit to Galvcom. KTSB's signal does not reach Galveston and according to the discussion here, there is no room to move or expand the pattern.
Click to expand...

While that's true, it's not going to put city grade over Galveston and you're not going to be able to move it anywhere, it still rimshots Galveston... and it's available. You're not going to find another signal that you can afford to give Galveston its own radio station that won't get hijacked to become a Houston rimshot.
 
I'm a little surprised that Siga and Galvcomm didn't reach an agreement to lease KGBC. That's what Galvcomm was originally after. It's true that KSTB is stuck right now, but what's stopping Galvcomm from applying for a frequency change for the facility once they have the station? It certainly wouldn't hurt, considering 101.5 hasn't had any real listenership in many years.
 
purpledevil said:
I'm a little surprised that Siga and Galvcomm didn't reach an agreement to lease KGBC. That's what Galvcomm was originally after. It's true that KSTB is stuck right now, but what's stopping Galvcomm from applying for a frequency change for the facility once they have the station? It certainly wouldn't hurt, considering 101.5 hasn't had any real listenership in many years.
Click to expand...

If there were an open spot on the dial to move 101.5 to get it closer to people and make the station remotely valueable, wouldn't Cumulus have made those moves as part of the shuffle to make 97.5 happen? If someone can shuffle allotments and nudge it over, more power to them, but considering the station has remained stuck on Bolivar and Galvcomm is the only group that seems remotely interested in it, that tells me that everyone did their due dilligence, saw it wouldn't work out, and all decided to pass. It's like that 92.5 in Bay City that was on the market forever. After you see that it's as good as it's going to get you find other things to do with your money.

As for Siga, we don't know how long their deal with CRI's reps runs for or how much it's worth. When you're brokering out a signal, money talks.
 
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Point taken, John. My question is, as a non-profit, couldn't Galvcomm move it to the low end of the band? Cumulus couldn't do that as a profiting corporation, but I believe Galvcomm could. Of course, a frequency in the non-comm band on the island is relatively scarce as well. Given the way KSTB was treated and neutered for the upgrade to then KLOI, I'm not completely convinced that Cumulus really explored every possibility available to move or upgrade KSTB. It's glaringly apparent the only reason it was bought was to get it out of the way of KLOI's upgrade to cover The Triangle.

FWIW, Siga began the C.R.I. contract on January 1st, and I've been told before that it is renegotiated annually.
 
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If Galvcomm acquires KSTB, I suspect they will get a translator or two to cover Galveston. Regardless of Rules and Regulations about feeding translators, I would think there is a strong case for a waiver not only for the main studio rule but also for feeding the translator. Just mention Ike and the 1900 hurricane and Galvcomm's purely local commitment. I'd suspect the FCC might be swayed.

I'm not sure if there might be any ability to grab a frequency in the 88-92 FM band. That seems to be pretty tight but picking up an existing translator CP or on air station might be possible.

At the worst, KSTB represents making lemonade from lemons and at least it keeps a frequency from the deletion list. Every business has a starting point but often it is not where they wind up over time.

Someone made the comment there was not enough business there to support a radio station in Galveston. If that was true, then there's certainly not enough in retail sales to support a radio station in virtually every small town in America yet there are thousands of stations, although not all are swimming in cash. Certainly if Galveston didn't have enough economic base to support a station, they sure couldn't support a newspaper either.
 
bturner said:
Someone made the comment there was not enough business there to support a radio station in Galveston. If that was true, then there's certainly not enough in retail sales to support a radio station in virtually every small town in America yet there are thousands of stations, although not all are swimming in cash. Certainly if Galveston didn't have enough economic base to support a station, they sure couldn't support a newspaper either.
Click to expand...

You know the answer to this question more than most. There's always money to be made if you look hard enough. But all of those dollars are local and difficult to extract. It's more profitable to lease an AM that covers the island to an agent for CRI than it is to spend money on a sales staff to battle against the Daily News to get those local dollars. Or, it's more profitable to move that signal closer to Houston and get a slice of a bigger pie. Outside of this community group, who is going to keep their eye on the ball?
 
Sales is never easy. I would say it is even tougher in a major market. Literally it takes so much time prospecting to find a client that can spend enough regularly to make it worth your while. Galveston alone might be fairly easy compared to being a Houston station.

It is easier to just sell the time to programmers. It's not that the money isn't out there; it is. The real trick is having a plan to operate until you can break even and eventually pay off that money you invested before breaking even. Keep in mind it takes more people to run a station that sells underwriting.

Certainly as much attention needs to go toward obtaining revenue (grant writing, underwriting, donations, etc.) as is given programming and operations. If they tie in with the schools that will really help. I don't know a single family that doesn't have a kid...imagine that.

Galvcomm has no cakewalk ahead of them but if they work smart and have some good plans in place they might pull it off. Nothing like several plans to succeed. Galveston has about $560,000,000 in retail sales only (Census Bureau). Once upon a time the national average was $4 in retail sales for every $1,000 in retail sales, but that was a number of years ago and it certainly varied by market. I suspect it is less now.
 
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