No guarantee for local bid to take over Salt Lake’s KCPW

The station manager charged with creating an independent nonprofit and viable financial plan to purchase KCPW in Salt Lake City launched a website appealing for public support. Ed Sweeney, who gave up his job at KCPW last week, established the Utah nonprofit Wasatch Public Media and is working with Public Radio Capital on a bid for the station. Even though Community Wireless, KCPW’s current licensee, gave Sweeney first pass at creating a plan for KCPW to retain its staff and its current NPR news/information format, there’s no guarantee that Sweeney’s plan will be chosen over those of other potential buyers, he writes on the website. “Although Community Wireless has stated their preference for our purchase of KCPW, at this point, we have nothing in writing that allows that to occur,” Sweeney writes. “We need to show Community Wireless NOW that there are others who support Wasatch Public Media’s purchase of KCPW.” Meanwhile, KCPW canceled a planned special broadcast on the station’s future, which was to have featured an interview with Sweeney,