Although KCJJ-AM Iowa City IA is not an overtly political talk station like many other residents of the senior broadcast spectrum band, it would seem that the political bug has bitten Steve Soboroff, owner of River City Radio, which in turn is the license company holding the station. His target: The Iowa City Council.
The station broadcasts a wide variety of programming aimed at its local Iowa City community, which is part of the larger Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Arbitron market. The station, operating on expanded band 1630 kHz with the standard EB power profile (10 kW-D, 1 kW-N) is perfectly centered on its home community, with less robust signal service to the north in Cedar Rapids.
According to The Daily Iowan, Soboroff has concerns about issues including property taxes, their effect on efforts to welcome businesses to the community, and crime issues.
Soboroff, in addition to owning the station, is part of the morning air team – going by Captain Steve according to the KCJJ website.
According to the Iowan report, Soboroff sees his role on the station as one of entertainment, not political commentary. But there are five other candidates already in the race – so far – so there may well be calls for Soboroff to abandon the airwaves or make them available to everybody else.
RBR-TVBR observation: If Soboroff is serious about running for office, he should give serious consideration to taking himself off the air. We don’t think there is a whole lot of doubt that unless he wants to populate the KCJJ airwaves with his political opponents to the extent he is on-air, he is going to have major problems with the authorities if he runs for office and continues to broadcast personally.
