KDEB 1470 Estes Park is off the air permanently

1/26/2014

The owner of the broadcast license for KDEB 1470 AM Estes Park has decided to call it quits. The license was turned in to the FCC on January 14th, 2014 and was promptly canceled by the FCC. Apparently Vic Michaels of Kona Coast Radio came to the conclusion that the station would not be viable and decided that it would be better to relinquish the license than go through with the renewal. Here is a copy of the letter to the FCC.

This means that the license cannot be renewed or acquired by a new owner. As a result, it is very unlikely that there will ever again be a radio station operating on 1470 AM in Estes Park (or probably on any other AM frequency). We are very sorry to see the end of AM broadcasting in Estes Park, especially since in its heydey, 1470 AM was one of the best sounding small town stations anywhere.

We will keep the memory of KSIR 1470 going here on our tribute web site and welcome contributions from former staff members and listeners alike. Don't forget, we also have a KSIR 1470 Facebook page where you can interact with several of the on-air talent.

2 Comments

Brian Schaefer

2/17/2014 08:21:39 am

I tuned in AM 1470 a couple of weeks ago and heard station ID's and music. Maybe they just did not get around to turning off the power.

Does seem a shame that a community this size could not sustain a local commercial station. One of my favorite stories from when the station was KRKI in 1991 goes like this: We had just finished running a very successful schedule of ads for a back to school sale for a local merchant. He called to cancel the rest of his contract. He was asked why. The GM asked him if the back to school campaign had brought people in. It had, by quite a bit. So why cancel? Because the owners friends didn't like the music we played!

That sums up a lot of why a commercial station struggled in Estes. We won numerous awards for our news coverage, on air contests and advertisements. But advertisers were too scared because we had taken away the Music of Your Life Format and replaced it with something that people in the 25-50 year old demographic would actually listen to.They missed the point that people who listen to rock music, country, classical, big band and so on buy groceries, hardware, jewelry, cars, etc. We proved that we could deliver an audience to the sponsors. They just couldn't see the forest for the trees.

In it's last few years, 1470 was unlistenable. Bad syndicated talk shows and a weak attempt at local programming made advertisers stay away in droves with listeners close behind.

Perhaps it is time to let AM 1470 go and realize that the radio world has changed so much that a local AM daytimer doesn't get to play with the others. Businesses have too many other options such as websites, Facebook and various social media platforms.

Robin Galyan

9/22/2014 06:09:09 am

5 generations of my family listened to 1470, and probably 4 of them bought or sold stuff over the Fair Trader. The old time music was wonderful and helped folks just relax and not be part of the hectic life found outside our piece of heaven.

Aside from the last couple years (ugh !) You are sorely missed.

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

Author

Edgar Reihl is the author of the KSIR1470.reihl.org web site and a former consulting engineer at the station. Comments are welcome but will be reviewed before being published.

KDEB 1470 Estes Park is off the air permanently

Leave a Reply.

Author

Archives

Categories