A Class A assigned to the 97.7 MHz frequency in the Medford, Oregon, suburb of Butte Falls has signed on the air.
The owner knew little, if anything, about the town before being awarded an FCC license for the station, KORJ-FM.
It didn’t matter: Threshold Communications partners Jim Bryan and Ron Wulff were the lone bidders in a Commission auction for the brand-new station.
“I didn’t know where Butte Falls was, but I knew it was somewhere in Southern Oregon,” Bryan told the Mail Tribune.
KORJ is airing a NAC/Smooth Jazz format, with the intent of reaching the Medford-Ashland, Oregon Nielsen Audio market.
It joins eight AM stations and 18 FM stations in the county, as well as Josephine and Siskiyou county stations beamed in via translators.
As Bryan explained, “The FCC allocates stations sometimes to very small communities. 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.”
Threshold was awarded the new station in 2013. However, the launch of the 6kw station couldn’t happen overnight. A subtle pre-launch at the end of 2013 was made ahead of an official introduction to Southern Oregon.
“We got it on the air just in time,” Bryan told the newspaper.
A booster that will extend KORJ’s coverage into Ashland is set to arrive in the coming months.
The launch of KORJ has come without any advertisers signed on as of yet. “Eventually there will be commercials,” Bryan said. “But for now the money is only going one way.”
A small sales staff is being hired at this time.
