SOLVANG, CALIF. — For more than two decades, he’s been an operator of radio stations serving one of the most bucolic viticultural regions of the Golden State — the wine-producing Santa Ynez Valley of northern Santa Barbara County.
His assets include a Hot Adult Contemporary FM with a signal reaching San Luis Obispo to the north; a “KRAZy Country” Class A serving Solvang and Santa Ynez; and a Santa Maria-based News/Talker with an FM translator targeting Vandenberg Air Force Base from Los Alamos.
The future of the stations’ ownership must now be considered, as Knight Broadcasting owner Shawn Knight has died following a paragliding accident.
According to the Santa Ynez Valley Star newspaper, the incident occurred on Wednesday. It sourced KUHL-AM in Santa Maria News Director and local talk show host Ben Heighes.
Via e-mail, Heighes shared that company employees were told of the incident on Thursday morning. He added that Knight’s father believed the sail had collapsed while in the air.
Streamline Publishing’s Radio Ink reports that the accident transpired in Eastern Ventura County — a mountainous and rural area.
With Knight’s death, the future of KUHL and FM translator K292HD; KRAZ-FM 105.9 in Santa Ynez; and KSYV “Mix 96.7” in Solving will now need resolution.
Knight was a local, committing his professional life to serving the community he was raised in. He is a Santa Ynez Valley Union High School graduate and worked at KSYV before buying it.
Upon graduating Fresno State University, Knight worked for Jacor Communications through its purchase by Clear Channel Communications in 1998.
Knight purchased KRAZ in March 2001 from Grape Radio; it was a new Construction Permit, granted in late 2000. He paid $325,000 for the FM, which cannot place a signal to east due to co-channel KPWR-FM in Los Angeles. The acquisition of KSYV came in fall 2001, with Knight’s wife, Sandra, signing off on paperwork finalizing a $650,000 purchase from Pacific Coast Broadcasting Co.
KUHL, along with KTME-AM in Lompoc, were added by Knight in April 2006 with a deal that saw him pay $1.2 million to Mapleton Communications. KTME (today KTNK) was sold in 2014 to Michael Alan Day’s Cross and Crown Broadcasting Corporation for $160,000.
The FM translator giving KUHL “revitalization” debuted five years ago.
Knight’s commitment to local radio extended to the NPR Member station serving Santa Barbara County. “Because of his concern for as much local community radio coverage as possible, he helped encourage KCLU to expand to the Central Coast several years ago,” the station posted early Friday on its website.
— With local reports in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Additional reporting by Radio Ink.
