Brief by Central Staff
Local Media – September 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
We can add our complaints to the chorus concerning how Salida’s radio station, KVRH, covered the returns from the Chaffee County Republican primary on Aug. 8.
Here was the hottest local election in years — one with the highest percentage turn-out in the state this year — and KVRH didn’t have live broadcasts from the courthouse or the candidates’ gatherings.
Instead, it was mostly music that Tuesday evening, though if you listened long enough, a brief announcement would emerge with the numbers. No announcing of each precinct, no interviews, no running totals — nothing like we used to get from a small-town radio station that cared about local news.
Perhaps competition will produce improvements. KSBV (“The River Rat”) is scheduled to go on the air at 93.7 FM on Sept. 4.
The studio will be in downtown Salida at 115 E. Second St., and the antenna will be on Methodist Mountain, right next to the KRCC repeater, and with the same power — so if you can get KRCC from the Salida repeater, you should be able to get KSBV.
Thus it should reach Moffat, Saguache, Buena Vista, and parts of South Park. As for Leadville, well, we know some people who live about 10 miles south of town, and they can get KRCC on one end of their house, but not the other — FM signals get tricky at that distance. On the other hand, KRCC comes in loud and clear atop Hoosier Pass.
The KSBV (SBV for Salida Buena Vista) music format will be “classic rock,” with local news three times a day. It will be on the air around the clock: live from 6 a.m. to midnight, with a satellite feed during the wee hours.
Mark Scott, who grew up in Fairplay, is the owner and general manager. Many of the staff are familiar in the small world of Salida radio: Mark Roman, Joanne Gleason, Bonnie Schwann, Norm Veasman, and Dino Mayes.
Meanwhile, back at KVRH, there are now three program arrangements.
KVRH-FM is “The Valley’s Mix” with “hot, adult contemporary music” 24 hours a day. KBVC-FM is “Eagle Country” with “continuous country favorites” running . KVRH-AM retains the old “All-Heart Radio” while offering “adult contemporary music,” as well as those well-known exemplars of the Liberal Media Monopoly — Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
In other words, Bill Murphy’s old radio station now broadcasts from Generica, rather than Salida.
