Three radio outlets which account for a high percentage of daily listenership in Howard County are among 16 stations which have been sold by the Moberly-based Shepherd Group.
Sale to the Florida-based DeanRadio.TV LLC was formally announced Feb. 28. It is still pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The three stations serving this area — all known for vigorous coverage of local news and sports — are:
• KWIX-AM at 1230 k.c., based in Moberly;
• KRES-FM at 104.7 m.c., also based from Moberly; and
• KIRK-FM at 99.9 m.c., licensed to Macon but operating primarily from Moberly.
KWIX Radio, the original entity in the group and founded as KNCM in 1950, describes itself as the news and information voice for 100,000 people in more than 25 communities in nine North Central Missouri counties. Listeners have the chance to participate in several daily talk shows. Affiliated with the CBS Radio Network, it includes a number of local call-in and talk shows, in addition to several national talk personalities, mostly of a conservative political bent.
KRES describes itself as the news and sports leader in North Central Missouri, with a heavy diet of agri-news — in addition to claiming more market and weather information than any other station in the Midwest. The station covers 20 counties in North Central Missouri and is the home of the Truman State University Bulldogs.
KIRK is described as an adult contemporary station, in addition to featuring easy listening favorites from the 1960s to the present.
Currently the stations employ an estimated 50 persons in Moberly.
DeanRadio.TV is a newly-formed company owned by Dean Goodman, former president and CEO of ION Media Networks Inc., which specializes in television properties. He resigned from ION last October.
With the 16 Shepherd Group stations, all in Missouri, DeanRadio.TV will have purchased 22 radio outlets, plus an additional six stations in Iowa.
Goodman said he plans to move his base of operations in the future, but said he’s not sure where he will move. He stated that he long has been an advocate of small-market radio, which is what appealed to him about the Shepherd Group’s holdings.
“I used to live in Kansas City and I have a great appreciation for Missouri,” Goodman said in a telephone interview with The (Lebanon) Daily Record. “I’m really looking forward to getting back to Missouri and back to the radio business. I was in radio for most of my career, then in TV, and now back into radio.”
DeanRadio.TV will pay a reported $30.6 million. Sources report that the asking price was approximately $40 million.
While official announcements have noted that no staff changes are planned, knowledgable radio observers state that in such radio sales, staff cutbacks almost inevitably result.
Nonetheless, Goodman said he has no preconceived notions. “Frankly, we haven’t met the staffs and my idea is to enhance the staffs and the marketplace. We don’t have people to come in and take jobs or anything like that,” he commented.
He is said to be seeking additional properties.
Shepherd Group President David Shepherd has thus far not commented except to say that he expects FCC approval in about 90 days.
David Shepherd is the son of the late Jerrell Shepherd who in the 1960s pioneered and later refined what, at that time, was considered a unique and innovative approach to small-market radio.
Setting up shop eventually in a converted bank building at 300 W. Reed St. in downtown Moberly, Jerrell Shepherd — who died about eight years ago — expanded the power and operating hours of KNCN (which stood for North Central Missouri), moving the frequency from 1220 k.c. to 1230 k.c. In 1963, he changed the name to the more-trendy KWIX which originally had been assigned to a St. Louis station.
Shepherd in 1966 put KRES-FM on the air as a sister station to KWIX-AM. KIRK Radio went on the air about seven years ago.
Shepherd was known as a radio innovator. He refused to differentiate between news personnel and traditional disc jockeys and announcers, referring to all on-air personnel as Programmers.
He ultimately reported annual billings of $300,000 — this from a town of less than 13,000 population, a then unheard of feat.
Shepherd did this by selling nothing but 30-second live-read commercials, prohibiting jingles and other pre-recorded sound effects.
In addition, he aggressively marketed to dozens of small communities within the KWIX-KRES listening area, including Fayette. The “Red Rover” station wagons with the radio call letters prominently displayed were common sights on the streets of this community and elsewhere.
The stations would aggressively sell ad packages to promote news programming, sports and special events to local merchants and others.
In addition, the stations’ programmers would routinely follow-up these efforts with news coverage.
[This writer can vividly recall his stint in the early 1970s as president of the now-defunct Fayette Jaycees, and later the Rotary Club. No sooner than the morning after a meeting had taken place, a KWIX-KRES radio man would be recording my phone comments about what may have taken place as part of business proceedings the night before. This was sometimes not an easy matter to describe, since in — the case of the Jaycees — the most significant development was the consumption of beer at Mac’s, but I digress.]
Eventually the news of Shepherd’s success in small-market radio became known nationwide and he often was called on to consult or speak to groups who wished to emulate the operation’s ability to glean large sums of advertising revenue from areas relatively low in population density.
In later years, the stations’ percentage of listeners leveled-off as competitors learned many of the same techniques.
In addition to KWIX, KRES and KIRK, the Shepherd Group includes KJEL-FM and KBNN-AM in Lebanon; KJFF-AM in Festus; KREI-AM and KTJJ-FM in Farmington; KOZQ-AM, KJPW-FM, KJPW-AM and KFBD-FM in Waynesville; KAAN-FM and KAAN-AM in Bethany; and KMRN-AM and KKWK-FM in Cameron.
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Last edited on Sun Mar 18th, 2007 10:07 pm by mmrf
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