Unpaid bills are only part of the story, according to the River Front Times.
For nearly three weeks, those seeking the station's brash lineup of shock-jock comedy, sex talk and music have instead encountered dead air and static where the 1380 channel should be.
Operations manager Mike Calvin says that old bills and repairs on KXFN's transmission tower knocked the broadcast off terrestrial radio, but he expects to have the debts squared and repairs completed by Tuesday. However, that doesn't solve the larger financial crisis facing KXFN and its sister station, KFNS 590 AM.
In June, Calvin took the reigns at KXFN and KFNS. He was a seemingly last-ditch option to lead the stations following a fistfight between radio host Brian McKenna and then-president Dan Marshall, who left the station after getting punched in the face.
"It was ugly, and a black eye to the station," says Calvin. He was saddled with the unenviable task of keeping both stations afloat. He takes credit for building KXFN into its "Extreme Talk Radio" identity, though that shift represented a final nail in Marshall's ill-fated plan to cross-promote the two stations by gender -- KFNS as "The Man" and KXFN as "The Woman."
KFNS is still "The Man," and presently features a mix of local programming and syndicated shows, all geared toward a standard sports-talk market. That's helped KFNS maintain relationships with St. Louis' sports teams, says Calvin. He says the investor group behind both stations, Grand Slam Sports, received an offer last week to buy KFNS outright.
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