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| Rachael Anne Goodman |
Rachael
Anne Goodman is a terrific storyteller. According to her personal website
[link], the Peabody award winning documentarian has spent her career introducing
listeners to women musicians, poets, California Farm Workers and more.
Now
Goodman is telling a new yarn about a new community radio station that,
according to her, is about to go on the air in Santa Cruz, California. The new
station is designed to fill the void caused by the bankruptcy and sale of KUSP,
a station Goodman was involved with for many years.
Since
the demise of KUSP, Goodman has been organizing folks to bring KUSP 2.0 to the
Central Coast. She says things are moving fast. Here is an overview of what Goodman says is happening:
When
KUSP was sold to Educational Media Foundation (EMF) in 2016, Goodman and her
associates formed Central Coast Community Radio, an organization founded to
create a new station to carry on KUSP’s traditions. Central Coast soon learned
that best option for a station was to purchase KSRI FM 90.7 also owned by
EMF. KSRI currently carries EMF’s
satellite-delivered, automated Air1
music format.
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| KSRI COVERAGE AREA |
Central
Coast and EMF discussed $300,000 for the frequency. EMF reportedly was
interested, but said “show us the money.” Goodman formed a new 501c3
organization called Natural Bridges Media and began raising money.
Goodman
claims Natural Bridges has received pledges for around $265,000. She says
things have been worked out with EMF and Natural Bridges is only waiting for
FCC to approve the deal.
Goodman
claims to have “reserved” the call letters KSQD – K-Squid. On a new website is promoting K-Squid [link] she is soliciting volunteers to do shows and help
operate the station.
K-Squid is now raising more
money to build and operate the station for at least a year. Once another
$80,000 is raised, K-Squid will be
good to go.
THINGS MAY NOT BE AS THEY
APPEAR
We
fact-checked Goodman’s version of current events and found some major
discrepancies:
•
We could find no evidence that Natural Bridges actually has a deal with EMF to purchase KSRI. According to Goodman the purchase price was to have been $300,000. Now the price is $265,000. Goodman has
produced no paperwork (that we are aware of) to verifying EMF’s intention to
sell KSRI for either amount.
To
learn if a deal imminent, we contacted Tom Birch of Media Services Group, the
broker that handles most of EMF’s station transactions. We have not heard back
from Birch. KSRI is not listed as being for sale on the Media Services website.
This
leads to the question of whether their actually is a deal. If so, why can’t Goodman produce a letter of
intent from EMF?
•
Natural Bridges Media, the nonprofit organization Goodman claims will be the
licensee of 90.1, does not appear to exist. We checked with the State of
California Franchise Tax Board and the IRS and neither had any record of
Natural Bridges applying for nonprofit status.
•
Goodman claims that the call letters KSQD have been “reserved.” The FCC says it
has nothing on file saying this is true.
•
Goodman claims that her organization is waiting for FCC approval of the
transaction. However, the FCC says no pending transaction has been filed with
the Commission.
• Before granting a federal license, the
FCC requires the new owners of a station to verify they have the money to build
and operate it. No foundation support or line of credit is mentioned in the
station’s online business plan [link].
The
business plan does include the chart on the right. It is a dream sheet with no
indication of how these estimates were obtained.
KEN SAYS: We wish we could be more
positive about Goodman and her station plans. Goodman is very talented
communicator. But, based on what we’ve
seen, she is not prepared to operate a station.
PUBLIC RADIO NEWS/TALK
FROM A COMMERCIAL RADIO PERSPECTIVE
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| Mike Kinosian |
Mike Kinosian is a
commercial radio ratings guru who is also Managing Editor for Talkers Magazine
[link], a valuable source of information about the business of commercial
news/talk radio.
Recently Kinosian has
been analyzing Nielsen Audio results for NPR News/Talk stations and comparing
the results with commercial stations. Like Spark News, he is aware that in
quite a few markets public stations are beating heritage commercial station in
average-quarter-hour (AQH) share.
On the right is a chart
in which Kinosian compares the AQH performance of commercial and noncommercial
news/talk stations in the March 2018 PPM ratings.
You can see Kinosian’s full
report at [link].
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