Why So Secretive About The KFUO-FM Sale?

by Frank | Mon, 09/21/2009 - 6:43pm

Very reliable sources say the board of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod will announce the sale of KFUO-FM sometime in October. Why, you may wonder, is everything being done so quietly? After all, no information has been forthcoming on this since word came out the church was pursuing a rather irresponsible (from a business perspective) deal with a group that already has a couple Christian music stations in the market but doesn't have enough money to buy KFUO-FM.

Could it be that the board of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod underestimated the flack they'd catch from angry listeners? I don't think so. It doesn't appear the LCMS board cares what the listeners think.

Maybe they were taken by surprise by the anger that welled up within the church itself. That's more likely. In fact, it's possible a couple of very influential folks within the LCMS have let the board members know the push by two of them to sell the station and finance the sale was as stupid as it appeared. In fact, the purported buyer didn't have access to enough money to pay the amount it had bid. Red flag, anyone?

So why would the board of the LCMS even do something that appears to be so irresponsible? Maybe they believe a powerhouse FM commercial station with a classical format doesn't have much value. I guess they haven't heard about WCRB in Boston. They play classical music at 99.5 and they've just announced a sale for $14 million. It's a debt-for-equity swap with public broadcaster WGBH. There's no need to go into specifics. The point is, an imaginative, knowledgeable management group (even a not-for-profit group) can do this sort of thing right.

Meanwhile, most members of the Lutheran Church are completely unaware of the business that is being conducted involving assets owned by the synod - assets that have been supported by money the church members gave to the synod. They're going to be very surprised and angry when this deal involving their money is announced.

Don't expect to hear much about the KFUO-FM sale. A couple board members with singed tail feathers may want to keep this out of the papers.

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Comments

by Aredee (not verified) | Fri, 09/25/2009 - 1:01pm
This is definitely a sweetheart deal.  Unfortunately, precedent has treated the public airwaves as private property, despite the directive for broadcasters to serve "in the public interest, convenience, and necessity."  If I were a member of the LCMS, I would ask what business the church has serving as a money lender for a blatantly commercial venture as this one.
 
Miller's comments about "Jews, atheists, Unitarians and Episcopalians” is right on the mark, as well as the observations on "reverse snobbery."  I built a career on so-called "fine arts" and jazz radio (I'm now retired, thank God), but throughout my thirty + years in the business, the "reverse snobbery" aspect has been very real.  It costs more to attend an NFL game than it does to go to a symphony orchestra concert, yet nobody accuses NFL fans for beings snobs for shelling out that kind of money.  Without taking up more bandwidth than I should, I can tell you that those who complain about "snobbery" in the love of out-of-the-mainstream preferences like classical music, jazz, and show tunes usually want to substitute a snobbery of their own.
BTW, in addition to loving great music and theater, I am also a baseball and football fan.  I'm not alone.  We are all on a dangerous slope when we stereotype people as "snobs" or "hicks", because people are far more complicated than that.