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email Bruce Bishop
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KZRP
WANTED:
YOUR INPUT
on Saturday, August 28,
2010 at 1:00 p.m.
at the 1st Fairly Annual
KZRP Burger Fest
Memorial Community Center
415 Wellington Place, Hope
We will gladly trade you a
hamburger for your thoughts!
History
In November of 2007, the FCC opened a one-week window for
noncommercial educational FM station applications.
In March of 2009, the FCC granted us a construction permit to build a small station in the Hope area, which will
broadcast at 90.7 FM, using the call sign KZRP.
Who will be able to listen?
Coverage prediction
is about twenty one thousand people. If you click on the link below,
you will see a map that shows the coverage of the Hope area,
Sandpoint, and the lakeside areas around Sagle. There would be
coverage as far away as the Athol and Heron areas as well. FM radio
is a line of sight medium, and so the map also shows where
the likely reception shadows will be caused by our mountainous
terrain.
Map
Now what?
Research shows that normally the construction of a station is a
complex and highly expensive proposition, requiring community
support. We don't believe this has to be the case. Our hope is to
put our station together and let it prove its value to the community
before asking for support. Low startup cost and low overhead are the
keys to sustainability, not only because of the small size of our
community and economy but also because FM radio as a medium is in a
state of decline due to satellite, computer, and iPod sources for
music and information. People have many choices these days for
national and global sources, but what we don't have is a truly local
source that provides increased community awareness.
Why Hope?
Hope is an amazing place to call home. We live in one of the most
beautiful landscapes in the world, and we have a population of
fascinating people who do widely varied things every day. We also
have an openness and creative energy that adds to the experience of
being here. There are millions of people out there who wish they
could experience what we have.
Our area has a rich and colorful history, providing stories that
should be told and heard. We'd like to provide the equivalent of a
comfortable old sofa in front of the wood stove and invite some of
the residents in to tell stories about the lives of our
predecessors.
No doubt KZRP will eventually become available on the web and will
show the Hope area in a very favorable light, attracting more people
to our towns. This can be both good and bad, but in today’s economy,
we have to rely on the all of the resources that we have, including
tourism.
Will there be commercials?
Like the NPR station in Spokane, there will be no commercials on
KZRP, but the FCC allows for sponsorship of programs and the
announcement of those sponsors or donors. We will be unable to
afford to carry the type of great programming NPR makes available.
Local content will be our strength. Also, another new noncommercial
station (KRFY) will be on the air soon and will carry many programs
of interest. They will transmit from Ponderay, so many Hope
residents should be able to hear them at 88.5 FM. Their studio is
located above Dan Hall's photo gallery in downtown Sandpoint.
Is FM radio a valid medium anymore?
I am obviously very interested in this question because creating,
maintaining, and programming even the most modest FM facility is a
huge undertaking. The opinions seem varied, depending upon the
sources. The FM broadcast world is trying to reorganize and update
itself to adapt to the new information world. One has to wonder if
it wouldn't be more prudent to simply put the station on the web.
Certainly a high powered FM station can cost millions to build and
must be questionable to any alert investor. It's easy to imagine
that many stations are stuck with their huge overhead and will be
looking for ways to hold back costs more and more until a
catastrophic equipment failure forces the doors to be closed for
good.
On the other hand, FM is a marvelous medium. It sounds great, and
it's very inexpensive to listen, indoors or out. Perhaps its most
potent and unique potential is as theatre of the mind, but
FM also provides a reliable and simple emergency alert system. It
does not require an Internet connection or even grid power. This is
very important, because in our area, we face the quiet threat of
devastating forest fires.
What kind of music will you play?
There will be preference for music recorded in real time played by
real people. The styles are less of a factor, and because there will
be a lot of time to fill, being too narrow seems unwise and not very
fun. I do shy away from negative and harsh music. The basic
consideration is, would this song fit the mood our area?
What about local musicians?
As a lifelong musician, I'm very interested in creating a platform
for our local musicians who, as a group, are outstanding and offer
the experience of life here in their own way. We will have the
ability to produce live radio music shows which could be recorded
and sold as a means of support for the performers as well as KZRP.
How many hours a day will you broadcast?
To safe guard our license from predatory entities who would ask the
FCC for time sharing access rights to our frequency, we will have to
be on the air twelve hours per day, seven days per week. Thanks to
the computer, this is not as hard as it sounds. Programs to automate
stations are in use everywhere as a cost cutting device. KZRP would
likely transmit large blocks of music time via the computer as we
work behind the scenes in the studio creating new programming.
Naturally this will be an ongoing process with the enormous amount
of potential time to fill. The station will at first be a constant
source of nice commercial free music with ever growing time slots
for original programming.
What kind of programs will you develop?
The content of our programs are limited by the FCC to some degree,
and the integrity of KZRP and its image will be overseen by our
staff and manager. Highly contentious, inflammatory, overly
polarized, and unsubstantiated material will have to be found
elsewhere. We have no intention of adding any more of that type of
broadcasting to the airwaves. To that end, most programs will be
pre-recorded and edited appropriately. One advantage of this
approach is the building of a library that could possibly be reused
on KZRP or its website. If you have ideas, we want to hear them.
Conclusion
We predict a coverage of over twenty thousand people, and once on
line, there will be limitless possibilities. We see a great value in
helping to develop and maintain the integrity of our community. The
parts are in place, and most of the work is done. As a tool for
organizing and implementing our vision of the future, we think KZRP
would be hard to beat. But we already know what we think, the
question now is what do you think?
Please let us know your thoughts.
email Bruce Bishop
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