How community radio's KRFY was saved

Radio station KRFY 88.5 FM of Sandpoint, ID went on air January 25, 2011. Last year KRFY celebrated ten years of excellence. This is the true story of how the station was saved.

A little over nine years ago, I was putting together a jazz program for KRFY. I would often call Jeff Poole, who was one of KRFY’s founders and the station manager, for advice or when I had questions.

“One day I call Poole with a question and he tells me that KRFY’s board had met and decided to shut down the station in a couple of weeks. When my call to Poole concluded I immediately called Leon Atkinson and gave him the news.”

“Leon then calls Christine Holbert, whose 501(c)3 charter was being used by KRFY. The three of us got the word out and arranged a meeting at Monarch Mountain Coffee House in Sandpoint.”

(For some reason when the board made their decision to shut down, Christine had not been invited to the board meeting even though she was a member.)

The first meeting at Monarch was modest but managed to spread the word. The second meeting packed Monarch and served to create a plan of action for saving KRFY. It was at this meeting that Jefferson “Jeff” Burns entered the scene.

This from Burns: “I was on my way to a retreat in central Washington when I found out I had two tires ready to split and couldn't go. I decided to stop at Monarch for a coffee before heading home. When I walked in, Monarch was packed and I asked someone what was going on and learned that it was a meeting about the shutting down of KRFY. I didn't know much about KRFY except they had been trying to get it going for a few years and just when it had started broadcasting, they were threatening to shut it down because of a lack of funds. I didn't have anything else to do so I sat down to listen. Most of the conversation was about temporarily shutting it down, and when they raised enough money they could start broadcasting again. From my experience, I knew that was a flawed business plan for once they shut down the signal they had nothing to save except an idea, and ideas are hard to fund. So I volunteered to show up the following morning and keep the station running until it was financially stable. I figured if I could leverage the enthusiasm I saw at the meeting and the community spirit Sandpoint has always been known for, it wouldn't take more than a couple of months.”

The day after the meeting Burns showed up at KRFY at 6:30 a.m.

Burns’ description of the duties he took on: “The first order of business every day was to download Democracy Now and get it cued up on the daily play list so that at precisely 7 am the familiar lead-in music would start.

It was a couple of days before Christmas and I had just nine days to learn all the broadcasting equipment because Jeff Poole, the station manager, was required to leave his position on New Year's Day.”

Burns learned how to download programming from different websites and then load it into the automation software program. There was also the job of taking music off of CDs and loading it into the playlist. While Jeff was doing that, he thought it made sense to move from a single playlist "Otto's Eclectic Mix" and break the afternoon, evening, and weekends up into several different genres of music to see if KRFY could attract more listeners to different times of the day: blues, jazz, reggae, chill, dub, house, the '50s, '60s, '70s, 80's, gospel, kids hour and bluegrass.

From the very beginning, Burns knew the keyword to focus on was community, everyone likes something different, and the only thing KRFY didn't include was country. Burns also thought Sandpoint needed to sound like a bigger community than it is so he asked anyone who entered the studio to do a station ID. Within a month KRFY had 30 different voices doing short and long station IDs, underwriting spots and community announcements.

Burns realized you can't run a station without volunteers and money so he started working on both. “Getting volunteers was easy as many people were willing to volunteer.” Burns broke the workweek into two 60 minute morning shifts and two 60 minute afternoon shifts and then one shift on Saturdays and Sundays just to download content. “We really started to feel like a community at the station.

Next was fund-raising. Jeff Poole had implemented an underwriting fee structure that, although corresponding with industry standards, was just too high for the Sandpoint community. We didn't have much as a station right then, but what we did have was eight 15 second, four 30 second and two 60 second underwriting slots around the mandatory station ID's every hour 15 hours a day. Again we needed to generate a feeling of community and FOMO (fear of missing out), so for a set price (I think it was $1000) that worked out to $1 per spot.”

The whole program was very successful and when Jeff Burns left, after putting in two months time, the station had about $40,000 in the bank, a volunteer crew of 15 people, and a whole community of listeners.

Jeff Burns was never thanked or given credit for his huge part in saving KRFY. Being nearly ten years later, it’s now the time for KRFY and its listeners to correct that.

LEE SANTA

Sandoint