KDJQ sold… again
Don Day | April 27, 2008For the second time in a year – KDJQ-AM has a sale in place, according to FCC records. Current owner Robert E. Combs hopes to sell the silent 50kw station to Salt and Light Radio. Last year the station had a deal in place to sell to Churchill Media of Oregon – but that deal fell apart, leading Combs to list the station for sale on craigslist. Zions Bank later sued to recover the assets of the station because Combs had repeatedly failed to pay back money owed to the bank.
Salt and Light radio lists Keith Pettyjohn as its president – and all the board members have Boise addresses. Salt and Light Radio, Inc. filed for a business license from the State of Idaho on March 4th. The filing says the businesses purpose is to “operate a Catholic radio station.”
There’s also a Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation that operates a TV network in Canada – but it does not appear the entities are related.
It appears to be a good guess that it will go “Catholic,” being that Father Jesus Camacho is listed as a board member. He used to air a Saturday show on BSU’s AM stations in Boise and Twin Falls.
Will there be a Children’s Hour?
Good news: the new KDJQ owners staged an inaugural broadcast.
http://domid.blogspot.com/2008/06/catholic-radio-coming-to-boise.html
Bad news: the former owners don’t seem eager to let them start broadcasting until the FCC approves the license transfer:
http://domid.blogspot.com/2008/06/catholic-radio-non-event.html
Also: EWTN and Catholic Answers as the primary sources of programming until local programming sources are developed. EWTN and CA are both mainstream Catholic organizations on the conservative side.
The Dominican blog entry also refers to efforts to convert the station to 24 hour service, though it doesn’t meantion how they’ll do that. My guess is they’ll used post-sunset authorization with some very low power (50 watts or less) since they don’t have a directional array.
Also: their placeholder website, http://www.saltandlightradio.com, shows a logo for “Listener-Supported Catholid Radio”. That probably means pledge drives, though their license would allow them to play commercials if they wished.