Owner of St. Louis’ KDHX proposes selling license and tower to Christian broadcaster
Tristen Rouse / St. Louis Public Radio
KDHX's studios.
The St. Louis nonprofit that operates community radio station KDHX plans to sell its license and tower to a Christian broadcaster, a decision that its board president blames on long-running financial problems and a campaign led by former volunteers.
Double Helix Corp., which declared bankruptcy earlier this month, announced Tuesday that it plans to sell the assets to K-Love, a Tennessee-based broadcaster with more than 600 stations across the U.S. It would use the proceeds to repay the $2 million it owes to creditors, according to Robert Eggmann, an attorney representing the organization.
In a post on its website announcing the sale, KDHX said its “future remains strong and community-driven. This sale is not the end of KDHX—it is a transformation that allows us to continue our mission in new and sustainable ways. While we don’t yet know all the ways we will do that, we look forward to a time of gathering input from volunteers, listeners, content creators, and industry leaders to help shape this future.”
A group of former KDHX volunteers who resigned or were dismissed say they will try to block the transaction in bankruptcy court.
“This board and this organization has tried to do the right thing in a very difficult situation,” Gary Pierson, president of Double Helix’s board, said Wednesday in a meeting with reporters. “We’ve tried to put the organization in a situation that it could have a future.”
Backlash leads to declining support
The announcement of the proposed sale, which a bankruptcy judge must still approve, comes about two years after KDHX leadership dismissed longtime host and station co-founder Tom “Papa” Ray, sparking backlash from station volunteers and community members. The board and KDHX Executive Director Kelly Wells said they dismissed Ray for “a long history of bullying, aggression and harassment.” Ray said he was taken off the air for criticizing Wells.
Station leaders then canceled 10 more shows and dismissed additional hosts who they said had hurt the station’s financial stability. At least 14 more DJs resigned in protest, and hundreds of volunteers, former hosts, local musicians and business owners signed letters and staged protests outside the station in an effort to oust Wells and Pierson.
In January, KDHX dismissed all volunteer DJs and content producers — who were also associate board members — and announced that the station would no longer air new programming.
Meanwhile, donations to the station plummeted. In 2022, the organization received $1.1 million in contributions and grants, according to a tax filing. In a February court filing, an attorney for the organization said it had less than $7,000 in cash. Station leaders have blamed the drop in financial support on “disparagement campaigns and senseless lawsuits.”
When asked whether he could have done anything differently to avoid the decline, Pierson, who became president in 2023, said the board could have provided more detail on why it dismissed DJs.
“We could have named more of the egregious behavior that the board was addressing in removing some of those people,” he said. “We’re talking about things that would not have been tolerated in any organization.”
The organization has faced financial troubles and internal conflicts for years. A station manager told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1992 that KDHX was programmed by “80 anarchists.” In 1997, amidst a search for the organization’s sixth general manager in 10 years, Ray told the Post-Dispatch that its behind-the-scenes culture was a “psychodrama snake pit.”
Since 2013, the organization has reported negative net income in all but two years, according to tax filings.
If a bankruptcy judge approves the sale, K-Love would purchase the license and tower for between $4.35 and $4.8 million, depending on how quickly the deal is completed, Eggmann said. That would leave Double Helix with a surplus, but Pierson said he expects the organization to incur other expenses.
Pierson said Double Helix still believes “there is a possibility of a future” for KDHX even if it no longer broadcasts. “The organization’s mission is to create community through media,” he said. “It doesn’t rely solely on a broadcast radio format.”
Challenge to sale
The League of Volunteer Enthusiasts (LOVE) of KDHX, a group of longtime volunteers, believes it can block the sale, said Roy Kasten, a spokesperson for the group and former volunteer host.
He pointed to Double Helix’s articles of incorporation, which predate KDHX’s founding in 1987. The articles state that the organization’s function is for the “operation exclusively for educational purposes of one or more noncommercial educational radio broadcasting stations” licensed by the FCC.
The proposed sale “is 100% contrary to that,” Kasten said. “A corporate conglomerate of radio stations having another outpost in the Midwest is not in the interest of the community.”
But that argument is unlikely to be enough to block the sale, particularly since the transaction would be between nonprofit radio groups, according to Keith Lundin, who was a U.S. bankruptcy court judge for more than three decades.
The concern that one group is a community nonprofit and the other is a large Christian broadcaster is “unlikely to overcome the interest of creditors,” Lundin said.
LOVE had offered to give Double Helix $200,000 if it agreed to leadership changes and to retain its broadcast license, but the board rejected the offer. The group does not plan to try to outbid K-Love, Kasten said.
The next bankruptcy court hearing is scheduled for April 16.
In the meantime, LOVE plans to hold a vigil March 31 outside KDHX’s offices.
“We believe in keeping KDHX live and local,” the group said in announcing the event. “We believe in preserving community radio — now and for generations to come.”
Gary Pierson’s arrogance is surreal and a testament to his character. RIP KDHX.
CPB Radio Community Service Grants General Provisions states in section 18, C, 2, a. If any recipient of a CSG effectuates a transfer of control, assignment, or lease of its broadcast license to a non-CSG-qualified organization, whether or not effectuated in accordance with Section 19, Assignment, CPB may require the recipient to return an amount not to exceed the greater of: (a) twenty percent of the sale price in the event of a sale, (b) . . . . .
We, the community, damaged by several years of secrecy and top-down takeover by two,…are working to investigate possible fraud, in addition to the obvious dereliction of fiduciary duties, and damages that seemed grossly negligent.
Soliciting donations to support the station, was money which was actually used to enrich the leader, who got a big raise, and pay lawyers who denied access to facts, and meetings, denied voting rights, helped defy judges rulings to reinstate board members, blocked communication, and represented things that were inaccurate,…along with the two in management paying large sums to a private PR firm, to do the same, seems like inurement and private gain, some possibile fraud, influence, and obstruction of an investigation, tampering with evidence and witnesses,….
The money that didnt go to responsible decisions that supported the functions of the station, were instead used for the salary, the lawyers, and the consultant firm…. far more than we could afford, and that excess was only needed to help protect management from any accountability for mismanagement of finances, and running up high-interest credit cards, interst on unpaid mortgage,
the damages from years of deferred repairs, and neglected, damaged sound equipment, building, transmitter..broken A/C in the heat of StLouis summers, and mold damage from the roof that was allowed to go undealt with that leaked.
Volunteers and staff were exposed to this with no concern for their health. Anyone who adked anything was punished or fired.. People were ordered to not talk with anyone who dissented or were fired if they did…
..Management, displayed a desire to avoid any consequences that the powerplays and mass firings of those who built the station were violated by, hence, the shut down of any communication or access to the building, voting rights,…and the expensive self-protection abd enrichment, to pay most of the money to a PR firm, who everything went through, lawyers to deny anyone access or rights, and that big raise for the director, as we were hemorrhaging funds..
The donating public was assured repeatedly, by management, while it clearly wasn’t factually true, that everything was great, so they gave money that was likely scarce…thinking they would get to continue to enjoy the music and connections to the community we built…
DJ, and anyone who asked questions or tried to assert any rights were responded to by being accused without substantiation, to be racist and sexist, …bullies, disgruntled…and blamed for troubles that long preceded and were documented to have nothing to do with any of the concerns they raised. Retaliatory firings and slander aren’t legal, but it’s much harder to assert those rights if the people harned were working for free, it turns out…even if the VALUE of their work snd time far exceeded the value that the paid ED contributed. The DJs had spent years creating this local gem, abd didn’t ask for financial rewards for their work.
There has been no due process, or opportunity to repair their reputations, or even communicate.
We lost a beloved man, who was young and healthy, right after he and his friends were disturbingly fired and slandered, all longtime creators of the station, unexpectedly passed away.
Simultaneously, to all of the harm to the assets, finances, equipment, and all the people who created the station,…secret alliances amongst well-paid forces were devising plans to sell it and all benefit by way of filing bankruptcy,… even offering (almost a bribe) a half million dollars to anyone who could speed up the processs by the buyer,, Educational Media Foundation, the deep pockets that are funded by huge donations for Christian radio…the same secretive entity who has scooped up all the other community radio stations across the country.
The rush, ostensibly, to avoid the very overdue and necessary investigation into the way money was handled, ethics, legal missteps, …the alleged improper dealings that appear to be the rule, not the exception. ..as well as the anti trust conflicts of one entity pursuing and appropriating every small radio station for their own (untaxable) gain.
Meanwhile, our once peronally curated LIVE, lovely radio station is playing recorded Christmas music in March, if they don’t have large spots of dead air, and still soliciting recorded requests for donations, while scheming to sell off all the assets…the frequency, the transmitter, the license,..and pocket big bucks from an equally curious group of people who seem to troll the country for hurting stations so they can take advantage of them, “bail them out”, control the debts, the assets, the narrative, and monopolize the control of what we hear on our “community” radio stations… taped pop music of one particular relgiious persuasion, with no attempt to have local or community involvement, connection or interaction.
Is that even legal?
Is benefiting from bankruptcy legal? When it’s your own malfeasance and colluding that caused the troubles?
Is rushing a buyout that appears to have been curated before any bankruptcy was decided on, not a red flag that a quick cover up would seemingly make all these concerns become impossible to look into, or prove?
And once that license and frequency are gone, which might be very soon, if we don’t ORDER an investigation, the chance to ever get any other, (now rare) frequency is gone. They’re all bought up.
The victims, the DJs who donated decades of time, energy, money, blood sweat and tears to make KDHX from the ground up, connecting diverse groups in StLouis, and surrounding parts,
with music, humanity, education, and good will, were fired en mass, the numbers now in the 100s, and the community, who loves this station, and all it meant to us daily…supporting budding new musicians, small businesses, venues, people of all backgrounds and interests, are 💔 heartbroken, beaten down by unfettered,, ill gotten, and unchecked power that seems to have a half life that deflects any inquiry, or the ability to stop an unethical and wiley freight train that a couple of people, who do NOT represent any of us, who arent FROM here, who have done things that defy by-laws, defy rules, defy ethics, possible federal laws, ..and smiled all the way to the bank…blaming the only people who have stuck to the mission, and are simply asking for someone with authority to look into what they are trying to do,..seemingly to erase all evidence, before they profit from it…so we can save KDHX and our community, and do it as we have for 35 years, with no desire for compensation.
💔