Struthers BOE weighing options for school radio station

STRUTHERS

Two competitors over the fate of the Struthers School District’s radio station agree on one point — they don’t want the district to sell the station’s license.

The school board will decide whether to allow a broker to sell the license for WKTL, the district’s 47-year-old radio station.

With the decline of radio’s popularity, interest in the station and in radio classes at Struthers High School has fallen off.

Patrick Communications, a broker based in Maryland, gave the board a proposal in July on selling WKTL’s license.

That worried people who are interested in keeping the station’s Saturday ethnic programming going. The 10 programs would lose their free air time because whoever buys the license would not be obligated to keep that programing.

Two other options were presented to the school board Tuesday.

Tommy Bruno, general manager for WAPS The Summit of Akron, which has an agreement for simultaneous broadcasting over WKTL now, told the board The Summit would like to lease the license. The Summit would keep the ethnic programming, he said.

Frank Sole, an assistant professor at Youngstown State University who worked for WKTL when he was a sophomore through a senior at Struthers High School, urged the board not to give up control of the license. With the help of media consultant Max Grubb, he proposed the board continue the legacy of WKTL and let it become a community radio station. Not only the ethnic programs, but programming for other underserved segments of the community would benefit, Sole told the board.

For the complete story, read Wednesday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.