Judge approves sale of KDHX to Gateway Creative Broadcasting
Tristen Rouse / St. Louis Public Radio
KDHX's studios.
ST. LOUIS — A U.S. bankruptcy court judge approved a Christian radio group’s purchase of the broadcast license and tower of St. Louis community radio station KDHX.
Gateway Creative Broadcasting, which already owns two Christian stations in the St. Louis area, bid $8.75 million last month to buy the assets in a bankruptcy court auction. K-Love, the competing Christian radio organization, had offered $8.5 million.
Double Helix Corp., the nonprofit that operates KDHX, had declared bankruptcy in March after a steep decline in donations due to conflicts between the station’s leadership and DJs who were either fired or resigned in protest. League of Volunteer Enthusiasts (LOVE), a group of former KDHX volunteers that attempted to block the sale, had filed a legal brief in the case but its arguments did not persuade Judge Kathy Surratt-States of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
“The most important thing is that the decision allows for us to continue to further the mission of the organization and that would not have been possible without the sale being approved,” said Gary Pierson, Double Helix board president.
More than $2 million from the sale proceeds will go toward paying off KDHX’s creditors, according to Robert Eggmann, an attorney representing Double Helix in the bankruptcy proceeding.
Double Helix intends to continue its mission of building “community through media,” but it’s unclear how it will accomplish that. Under terms of the sale, Gateway will provide the organization one HD Radio channel on 88.1, KDHX’s frequency.
Double Helix also programs a web stream through the KDHX website. After the organization dismissed all of its hosts in March, the stream switched to canned programming.
Roy Kasten, a spokesperson for LOVE, said the group hasn’t decided whether they will appeal the judge’s ruling.
“The former DJs and associates in the music community of St. Louis — and the community as a whole of St. Louis — is deeply disappointed,” Kasten said. LOVE had pushed for a “reorganization” rather than a sale of KDHX. “We believe that we had a vision and an argument and a plan for preserving and rebuilding and restructuring and creating a new healthy, vibrant community radio station.”
In a June 4 filing with the court, LOVE restated its argument from an April hearing that the sale violated the Double Helix bylaws in multiple ways, including that the board failed to notify an executive board member who opposed the sale of a pending vote. The board also did not seek approval from associate members, an official body of KDHX volunteers. Almost all these members were dismissed when the board decided to discontinue live programming.
“There is overwhelming opposition to this attempted coup — both within the KDHX community and throughout the St. Louis region. And because leadership didn’t have the votes, it broke the rules,” LOVE stated in the filing.
Judge Surratt-States ruled that the board had not violated the Double Helix bylaws or state laws.
“The sale is in good faith,” Surratt-States said during the Monday hearing. “It does not unfairly benefit any insiders or creditors of the debtor, and clearly maximizes the value of debtors’ estate. … This sale will allow the debtors to continue to broadcast and continue to serve the community throughout the Greater St Louis region and beyond.”
While Double Helix can program the HD Radio channel, those supplementary program streams have struggled to attract listeners.
Double Helix also must overcome a significant loss in community support. In addition to the steep drop in donations to KDHX, more than 90 local business owners signed a letter last year calling for a change in KDHX leadership.
Before the judge’s ruling, famed conductor Leonard Slatkin, a co-founder of the station, announced his opposition to the sale. A member of the Colorado-based jam band The String Cheese Incident, decried the proposed sale to loud cheers during a recent performance in St. Louis.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also weighed in with an editorial urging the judge to put off the pending sale.
In a statement issued after the ruling, KDHX said the decision “validates the integrity of our actions and affirms what we as an organization have known all along: that our efforts have been in good faith, in full compliance with our bylaws, and in service to our mission.”
In an interview Pierson maintained that “there are a lot of people that still support KDHX.” When asked to connect Current with a non-board member who supports the station, he said no one is willing to speak publicly because they fear harassment.
New programming for KDHX is “going to be different in some exciting and innovative ways,” Pierson said, though he added that it was “impossible” for him to answer what it would consist of.
“We will still have a radio signal, and we have not lost all the supporters,” he said.
Er, Gary, you don’t “still have a radio signal”.
I used to support KDHX and was a subscriber. I lost interest when their liberal, left leaning views became apparent. I miss the old KDHX so much. I could have told you but you wouldn’t have listened anyway!
I have been a listener & supporter of KDHX on 88.1 fm radio from 1989 up until Miss Kelly Wells & Mr Gary Pierson tore the station apart for some unknown agenda. I’m simply writing to make all aware of my plan for the future of the Double Helix Corporation and the $6-ish million that this 501-c3 has been awarded..
I WILL FOLLOW THE MONEY with an eagle-eye on foul-play. So, let us see what happens from here. -Jamie McP. St. Louis, MO
Let’s not forget one of the probable underlying administrative issues that began to naw away at the very soul of the stations ability to operate.. The “Hack” job on the “Tax Money” that found it very challenging to be where it was supposed to be, when it was said to be.
The downgrade of the station didn’t just happen overnight. Community media is basically allowed to broadcast on an unofficial honor and trust mechanism, with minimal oversight compared to the “commercial grade” media.. But never the less must abide by federal and local “live air” projection.. Community broadcasting stations manifest very committed new and experienced broadcasters from all walks of life and musical, art, multimedia backgrounds.
It takes a very special mindset to manage a body of artistically inclined, and in many cases volunteers and media industry students.. When the board hires a station manager, they feel they put their trust in the “right” person.. So the station managers are long term “fixtures”..
They become the whole attitude of the stations culture.. Sometimes it takes too many years to find out how “dug in” some station managers are.. Some manifest their own way of doing things and build the right kind of alliances in the community that have nothing to do with the whole “community radio” mission statement.. There are things that can not be justified but no one to help, and the all important community access is gated with other agendas.
A radio station without a clear “chain of command”, is just a jam session.