KCOU “Ownership” Change

Last Updated on October 26, 2008 by askcbiorg

According to themaneater.com the Missouri Students Association (“MSA”) “would also gradually give up ownership of the radio station” after it agreed to fund a new tower for its transmission facilities.  It appears that this means that the MSA will gradually stop funding the radio station operations, because the station license is actually held by the Curatoros of the University of Missouri according to the FCC web site and the article.

The article says that the MSA has a preliminary plan to decrease “KCOU’s yearly budget by 20 percent for five years until it is self-sufficient.”  It appears, according to the article,  that this plan is at least partially based on research done by the MSA President, Jim Kelley. According to the article, “Kelley said after talking to other student body presidents within the Big 12, he couldn’t find any other student government that owned its radio station. Because of this discovery, MSA wants to slowly decrease its commitment to KCOU until the station is able to survive on its own.”

As many CBI memebers know, college radio stations operate in many different ways, including where they find their source of funding.  It may be prudent for those involved in this situation to look closer at the stations within the Big 12 to discover how those stations are similar or different than KCOU.  It may also be worth seeking out similar operations and then looking at their funding sources before taking any final action in this matter.   General Manager John Dobson said something to this end in the article, “Dobson said KCOU is going to consult with multiple college radio stations across the country and set up a similar formula to follow.”