ST. LOUIS — On Wednesday, community radio station KDHX will stop existing as KDHX. Its new call letters will be KLJT.
The Federal Communications Commission granted the station’s application last week.
The change is a milestone in the station’s sale to Christian music powerhouse Gateway Creative Broadcasting, which operates 99.1 Joy FM. The Des Peres-based Gateway also owns Boost radio, a national network of stations playing gospel music aimed at youth and young-adult audiences.
KDHX, which is run by Double Helix Corp., is in bankruptcy. In May, a bankruptcy court approved its sale to Gateway for $8.75 million. Since then, the proposed sale has been working its way through the approval process by the Federal Communications Commission.
That procedure always takes months, but it may be further delayed if the U.S. government shuts down on Wednesday.
“There’s a few things happening in the federal government this week,” said Gary A. Pierson, president of the Double Helix board of directors.
KDHX has been off the air for a month, and has also not been streaming online. According to its website, the problem is technical difficulties. Pierson declined to discuss the difficulties, but said he expected the station to be up and running again before the sale goes through.
If it does, it will be using the call letters KLJT. Those are notably similar to the call letters for 99.1 Joy FM, which are KLJY.
Joy FM representatives declined to comment at this time.
If the sale goes through, Double Helix should have more than $6 million left after it pays off more than $2 million in debt. Pierson said the nonprofit organization will continue to fulfill its mission after the sale. According to its mission statement, Double Helix’s goal is “to build community through media.”
While the matter was in the bankruptcy court, station representatives said that after the sale they planned to continue streaming music online and over HD radio. HD radio can only be heard with a special tuner.
On Monday, Pierson said those options are “possible, and probably even likely. But I wouldn’t limit it to that.” He did not speculate on other possible formats for the company.
“It’s an emergent media landscape,” he said.
In 2023, the station was roiled with controversy when it fired first one, then two, then 10 more of its 80 volunteer disc jockeys. At least 14 more resigned in sympathy for the ones who had been removed.
At the time, Pierson said, “We have to be more open to different voices. We have to make sure we’re not allowing the most well-known or the loudest voices to be the only ones people hear.”
He added that the station needed to reach out to a larger community and should address societal problems including racism and sexism. Management wanted more DJs from underrepresented communities, and the volunteers who were released “just were not supporting that vision,” he said at the time.
Several of the fired volunteers strenuously pushed back against what they took to be accusations of racism and sexism.
Many listeners reacted to the sudden changes by withholding their financial support from the station. Eighteen months later, Double Helix filed for bankruptcy.
Even now, the hard feelings continue. Pierson said that at the Evolution music festival last weekend, he and people he is professionally associated with were harassed over the problems with KDHX.
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Daniel Neman | Post-Dispatch
Features writer
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