KRCU-FM RADIO EXPANSION PLANS REMAIN ON HOLD

Heavy competition for broadcasting frequencies and red tape are holding up public radio station KRCU-FM's plans to transmit its signal to the Poplar Bluff and Park Hills areas.

Last year, KRCU applied to the Federal Communication Commission for permission to install broadcasting transmitters at Three Rivers Community College and at Mineral Area College, but after KRCU made its application, other noncommercial groups also applied to broadcast over the same or adjacent frequencies.

The other applicants are religious broadcasters.

Adding to the delay is a 1995 freeze on granting new licenses, which has resulted in a backlog of hundreds of applications that won't be sorted through until the FCC adopts new regulations for making its licensing decisions.

The FCC is taking comments on a proposed new rule that once it becomes law will enable the agency to begin processing the applications.

KRCU General Manager Greg Petrovich hopes that process occurs within a year or two at most. "I think the commission realizes it has already been three years," he said of the wait for licenses.

Neither Poplar Bluff nor Park Hills is in the primary service area of any other public radio stations. KRCU-FM's "Grade A" service area -- the region where the signal can be received indoors without an antenna -- consists of 72,000 potential listeners. Poplar Bluff and Park Hills transmitters would add 90,500 and 98,500 listeners, respectively, for a total of more than 260,000.

The frequencies are KRCU's only choices. Petrovich said, "These were the last two channels in both sites we could get any significant power at."

The Southeast Missouri State University radio station has applied for grants that would pay 75 percent of the cost of installing the transmitters. At $317,000, Park Hills is the costliest because a tower would have to be built. The station can lease a tower in Poplar Bluff, reducing the cost to $188,000.

KRCU first went on the air in 1976 with 10 watts of power, which increased to 100 watts in 1981. The station affiliated with National Public Radio in 1990 and boosted its power to 6,000 watts in 1994.

Its just-completed fund drive raised a record $26,000 in pledges, bettering last spring's record of $25,000. The station's average pledge is $69, compared to a national average of $60.

The station had hoped that an appearance here in October by "Performance Today" host Martin Goldsmith would result in national broadcast of a concert by young local musicians, but NPR rejected the recording.

"It's hard to get a good recording in Academic Auditorium," Petrovich said. "It wasn't the caliber of recordings they get from other facilities."

Upcoming KRCU-FM events include a folk concert at Glenn Auditorium Nov. 20 by Paul and Win Grace, an array of holiday programming that includes a Christmas Day reading by Andy Williams of the short story "It's a Wonderful Life," and the beginning in January of a Smithsonian Institution series titled "Mississippi: River of Song."