The next casualty in the social media explosion could be KNXT (Channel 49.1), the local television station owned and operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno.
As the first step in a possible switch, the TV station has been listed with a broker at an asking price of $2.5 million.
Colin Dougherty, KNXT general manager, said listing the TV station with a broker is a way of “looking to the future and to see what the feedback will be.” For now, the station is operating as usual.
Should KNXT be sold, the next owners will have to either broadcast more faith-based programming or use it for educational purposes because it has a noncommercial license with the Federal Communications Commission. Once a license is designated to be noncommercial, it can never be changed.
“This means the station can’t go on the open market,” Dougherty said.
KNXT, the only full-power Catholic TV station offering programming 24 hours a day, has been broadcasting a combination of Sunday Mass, talk shows, The Rosary, music and a variety of other programs targeting Catholic viewers. The station celebrated its 30th anniversary on Nov. 2, 2016.
The station’s signal is also broadcast on Channel 38 in Bakersfield. Through the two signals, KNXT reaches seven counties.
Full story at The Fresno Bee.
But why sell the station?
This wouldn’t have anything to do with the need to pay off diocesan legal settlements, would it?
George,
I don’t think the station was very solvent in the best of times. They’re just unloading a bad investment.
Too bad. The evangelicals are saturating the air waves and we Catholics are shrinking our part of the airwaves. Too bad – not much available for Catholics except EWTN.
I worked here for a while. Great people and station leadership. But Diocese administration were quite incompetent. There had no idea how to integrate new technologies, social media, or streaming video to the TV programing. This was only a matter of time.