Natural Bridges Radio Community/Variety “K-Squid” 90.7 KSQD Santa Cruz CA will expand into Monterey and Salinas CA with the purchase of 89.7 KNVM Prunedale and 89.5 K208GE Monterey from Educational Media Foundation for $375,000.
The purchase follows the completion of $400,000 capital campaign to raise money for the acquisition. KSQD launched in February 2019 following Natural Bridges Radio’s purchase of the former KSRI from EMF to fill the void created by Pataphysical Broadcasting’s sale of 88.9 KUSP (now KLVM) Santa Cruz to EMF in 2016.
KNVM currently airs Radio Nueva Vida’s Spanish Christian network. EMF retains “K-Love” 88.9 KLVM Santa Cruz and “Air 1” 97.9 KARW Salinas, while Radio Nueva Vida will continue to be heard in the area on 91.3 K217CQ Salinas, 93.5 K228FD Monterey, KARW-HD2, and KLVM-HD3.
Community radio station KSQD has reached its capital campaign goal of raising $400,000 to purchase two radio licenses to triple its audience reach. Once built K-Squid’s programming will reach a potential audience of 645,000 listeners, up from 175,000 currently.
In 2022 it embarked on a fundraising campaign to buy the licenses and equipment for 89.7 FM, a full-power FM station licensed to Prunedale, and 89.5 FM, a translator licensed to Monterey.
The completion of fundraising means the station will be cleared to purchase the frequencies and begin building the studio/transmitter links to ties the signal from KSQD to be rebroadcast on the other two channels.
The funds were provided by major donors Pat and Rowland Rebele, The Rex Foundation, an anonymous major donor, and countless individuals who gave at every level between $10 and $10,000. In one three-day period during its mini pledge drive in early February, listeners showered the station with over $18,000, closing out the capital campaign.
KSQD (K-Squid), which is run by nonprofit, Natural Bridges Media, was founded in 2019 to serve the local community with news, interviews, and music programming relevant to the region. Since the original signal at 90.7 FM does not reach the entire county, such as parts of Watsonville and Aptos, the board of directors has been in a search for ways to expand its signal since its inception.
Currently, KSQD’s program schedule includes a mix of musical styles, from Jazz to Classical to Rock and Bluegrass/folk sounds. The talk programming is a mix of nationally syndicated shows such as Democracy Now!, Thom Hartmann, Counterspin, and Your Call and locally-hosted shows such as Talk of the Bay, Be Bold America, What a Week, Ask Dr. Dawn and the Dream Journal.
The mission of Natural Bridges Media/KSQD is to build community through quality broadcasts, podcasts, training programs and community events. We celebrate the uniqueness of our region through news, arts, and culturally diverse programming.
The station plans to include programs and hosts from the newly reached communities of Salinas, Monterey, Carmel, Prunedale, Seaside and Watsonville.
The main studio for KSQD is in the County Office of Education building on Encincal Street. The new station 89.7 FM will have its antenna on Fremont Peak and the translator will be on Mt. Toro. K-Squid turns 4 years old on February 15th, just in time to celebrate its future expansion.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com