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New radio station takes to the airwaves Jim Bryan Monday Apr 3, 2017 at 5:07 PM Apr 3, 2017 at 5:53 PM Greg Stiles Mail Tribune @GregMTBusiness Jim Bryan knew little about Butte Falls before bidding on a radio license allocated to the town of 423 residents. It turned out Bryan and his Threshold Communications radio partner Ron Wulff were the only bidders in a Federal Communications Commission auction for the FM 97.7 slot. "I didn't know where Butte Falls was, but I knew it was somewhere in Southern Oregon," said Bryan, who is now quite familiar with the Cascade foothills community, and the fact its lone gas station locks up at 5 p.m. Threshold Communications operates stations in California's Central Valley out of studios in Modesto, which presently serves a similar capacity for Jackson County's newest commercial radio station, KORJ. The station's acoustic, chill and new age format fills a spectrum niche most often associated with major metropolitan airwaves. It joins eight AM stations and 18 FM stations in the county, as well as Josephine and Siskiyou county stations beamed in via translators. The majority of full-powered local commercial stations are operated by Mapleton Communications' Radio Medford (six), Bicoastal Media (five) and Opus Radio (five). Public, mom-and-pop, Christian and community stations are abundant, with low-powered stations filling in both niche markets and holes in coverage. In mountainous regions such as Southern Oregon, existing stations snapped up translator frequencies over time. So new opportunities are limited. "The FCC allocates stations sometimes to very small communities," Bryan said. "By the time the FCC called up and said, 'Congratulations, you won the station,' I had looked it up, so I knew it was pretty close to Medford." Once the FCC awards a frequency slot, the bidder has three years to get on the air or forfeit the license. Even for broadcast veterans, however, it took some effort to get up and running. "We got it on the air just in time," Bryan said of the 6,000-watt station, whose tower is located on Obenchain Road, four miles west of Butte Falls. Rather than copy existing formats, Threshold Communications expanded a 20-year-old Sunday morning show to go 24/7. "We were under a deadline and, to be honest, that made the choice easier," he said. "We had a whole library of music we've played on our Sunday morning show. We transferred it to a brand-new computer and hard drive that's running the Medford station." Without fanfare, the station went live late last year, asking for feedback from listeners. "It was like, 'Wow, where did this come from?' " Bryan said. Bill Ashenden, general manager and market manager for Bicoastal Communications, has an appreciation for change-of-pace formats. He unleashed KYVL-FM a couple of years back with a playlist of nearly 5,000 songs. The format is similar to KFOG in the Bay Area, KINK in Portland and WXRT in Chicago. "It's eclectic and deep, playing B-side vinyl songs you haven't heard in years," he said. "Our target audience is people who go to RoxyAnn (Winery) on Friday nights and listen to music. We don't expect to be No. 1 or need to be No. 1." Joe Mussio, Radio Medford's senior vice president market manager, said he's not too worried about new entries — whether additional stations or format. "You won't see too many commercial stations popping up, whether niche or mainstream, that will challenge the formats we have in our building," Mussio said. "The classic rock, soft rock, Top-40, news talk, country and sports stations we have are national tried-and-true formats that will secure 70 to 80 percent of the audience." KORJ's primary coverage area is from Union Creek to Jacksonville and from Gold Hill to east Medford. Ashland and Talent are blocked from its line-of-sight signal. However, Bryan said, a booster will be put in place to reach those areas in coming months. For now, KORJ is a loss leader, building audience by word of mouth. "Eventually there will be commercials," Bryan said. "But for now the money is only going one way, supported by our classic hits and oldies stations." He anticipates a small sales staff to begin appearing in the area this spring or summer. But don't expect news/talk or sports on the station, he said. "It's going to be music intensive."  — Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GregMTBusiness, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/greg.stiles.31.