The Fairbanks, AK Daily News-Miner reports KRFF-FM 89.1 is finishing final paperwork with the FCC and expects to be on the airwaves soon. The station will provide a focus on Interior Native American issues. Located at the Radio Fairbanks building, KRFF is sponsored by the nonprofit Athabascan Fiddlers Association.
Staffed by volunteers, it will air Athabascan stories, music and indigenous language programs.
Fiddlers Association GM Ann Fears says Anchorage-based Kohanic Broadcast Corp. will allow KRFF to use its feed for at least six months when local programming isn’t available.
Gaming money from the association is backing the station.
“We feel that this will bring the people of the Interior together,” Ann Fears, general manager of the fiddlers association, told The Daily News-Miner. “The radio station is a great avenue for us.”
Anchorage-based Kohanic Broadcast Corporation is allowing KRFF to use its feed for at least the first six months when local programming isn’t available, Fears said.
“This is historic for Fairbanks — a Native-owned radio station,” said Ken Charlie, president of the Athabascan Fiddlers Association.
The process began in 2005, when a community group formed in response to programming changes at KUAC, the Interior’s public radio station. That group, which eventually became known as Fairbanks Open Radio, filed paperwork to begin its own station.
See the Daily News-Miner story here.
