Prescription Bluegrass Congratulates KALH
Just announced in an article on Music News Nashville's web site: Otero County New Mexico’s Community Radio Station, 95.1 FM – KALH has been named by Nashville and L.A. based New Music Weekly Magazine as 
the nations Country Station of the Year. (the link to their story is posted below).
KALH was among 7 radio stations across the U.S. who were nominated for
Country Station of the Year . The station, with studios just outside of Tularosa in Otero County New Mexico plays a broad variety of music, including the weekly syndicated Prescription Bluegrass.
Ken Bass, who along with his wife Myra, own and operate KALH says "This is an incredible honor .. the Lord has blessed us and our little radio station beyond comprehension".
KALH is a Low Power FM station licensed to Alamogordo, NM but, also serves La Luz, Holloman Air Force Base and Tularosa, NM. Even with the low power signal required by it's FCC license, it can be heard in cars throughout the Tularosa Basin. The station also streams on-line at www.kalh.org.
In addition to providing the only local news on the radio, 7 days a week, comprehensive weather coverage and Tularosa Sports, KALH is affiliated with the IRN/USA Radio Network to provide On the Hour World and National News, a News Brief at the bottom of the hour and National Sports at 50 minutes past in most hours.
It also provides a Variety Music Format they call "The Music You Don't Hear on the Radio Much, Anymore". Bass says it is supported by the largest music library available to any station he has ever known. Even though it includes many types of music mixed together with featured evening music segments including Blues on Mondays, Big Band on Wednesdays, Bluegrass on Thursdays, Classical on Sundays plus Rock 'N' Roll Oldies Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, the daily music format consists of at least 60% Country Music. That daily format includes a heavy complement of new songs, often by newly introduced artists. Bass says that New Music is what led to being nominated as one of 7 stations in the country being considered for this award.
As noted in the article announcing the award, Radio and Music Industry types voted on-line for the nominees. In addition, listeners could go on-line to vote. KALH ran a series of promotional announcements to let the stations fans know they could vote one time per IP address. Among the other stations nominated were several others located in suburban metro areas with populations in their service areas that numbered in the hundreds of thousands of people. Bass says he is both amazed and grateful to all of the local supporters of the station who went on line to join the industry based voters in sufficient numbers to garner this national award for KALH.
Bass acknowledges that since they are a low-budget non-commercial, not-for-profit Community Radio Station that, by choice, does not accept any federal money the way NPR stations do, they have not had the funds necessary to mount a major publicity campaign to promote the station. They have depended on 'word of mouth' promotion on a person to person basis by their fans to spread the word about the station during the 6 years they have been on-the-air in Otero County. Even with the growth of a solid core audience of targeted adult listeners, Bass says there are many in the community who are still not aware that KALH is at 95.1 FM, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore, he is extending an invitation to anyone who has not heard the station to tune in and listen. He says that, because of the flow of the format, it takes a couple of hours to get a feel for that flow.
Since there is no government funding for the station, KALH depends on listener contributions and the financial support from a growing number of local businesses and organizations through Underwriting Sponsorship of their programs to meet their operating budget. However, Bass notes that the Southwestern Trails Cultural Heritage Association, Inc., the licensee of the station which is owned by the Basses is a New Mexico Non-profit Taxable Corporation, not a charity. So, contributions from individuals are not tax deductible and money spent by businesses or organizations as Underwriting Sponsors, while not deductible as a charitable contribution, they may be deducted as a Public Relations Business Expense. Bass says that while their class of stations qualifies under the U.S. Tax Code and could have applied for 501c3 charity status, doing so would have limited their ability to speak editorially about political issues. He feels that since the LPFM Class of Community Radio Stations was created by the FCC to give a locally owned voice to communities sometimes not provided by stations owned by large for-profit corporations, having the limits imposed by the 501c3 on their ability to speak out on local and national political issues would be contrary to their reason for existing.
Anyone with questions or comments about KALH Radio or it's programming is welcome to contact:
Ken Bass at KALH Radio,
P O Box 82, La Luz, NM 88337,
by e-mail at kalhradio@earthlink.net
on-line at www.kalh.org
or by phone: 575-491-3197.
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