After forty plus years at 109 Adams Street, all three radio stations owned by Buffalo Broadcasting of Colorado are “Homeless for the Holiday’s” due to a lease dispute with the station’s landlord Sunflower Banks. KSLV 96.5 The Fox, 95.3 KYDN Country and Fox Sports SLV have vacated their Monte Vista studios. On October 10th, the radio stations discovered a notice to vacate taped to their front door, giving station owners 21 days’ notice to remove all their equipment by the end of the month. The dispute is not over money as the radio station had paid on October first through the end of November and the payment was accepted by the bank, which still chose to send the notice to vacate. The disagreement stems from the amount of time which would be required to vacate in a new lease.
As a result, the radio stations have been forced to remove all their equipment by the end of November, without so much as another place to move to, forcing the stations off the air for several days as well as a disruption of services like emergency notifications, national and local news and professional, college and high school sports. Bob Richards morning show was off for 10 days on KSLV and Rion Eagan missed several days of his morning show on KYDN. The dispute puts in jeopardy future broadcasts of not only the popular morning shows on KSLV and KYDN but also Denver Broncos games, CU and CSU games, Alamosa and other valley High School basketball games. At least one local politician was unable to purchase advertising in the days prior to the election, due to the stations being off air.
For its part, the radio stations have attempted communications with Sunflower Bank Corporate Management. Those communications have gone unreturned. “The fact that Sunflower Bank stuck a 21 day notice to vacate on our door and didn’t deliver it personally combined with them not returning our e-mails which outlined proposed solutions to the dispute is curious” said Bob Richards, owner of Buffalo Broadcasting. “It doesn’t square with the community mission statement they would have us all believe that is proudly posted on their web site. I have requested an interview Neal Arnold CEO, President and COO of First Sun and Sunflower Bank for clarity on their position.”
Buffalo Broadcasting apologizes for the disruption of our service. “It’s always difficult when you’re dealing with big out of town corporations who don’t understand the importance of local radio in small markets that have no local television stations and a newspaper that is delivered by mail. They lack community awareness and have a different set of priorities than other locally run businesses with a management structure and Board of Directors composed of valley residents. It’s just not the same level of investment in the community,” said Richards. “We have vacated the space at 109 Adams St. as requested by Sunflower Bank. I’m not sure what their urgency was. After receiving their notice to vacate we made a proposal to be out by March that went unanswered. We had to involve our attorney at that point. In my opinion, it’s possible the bank is either for sale or has been sold and they needed us out quickly or someone in a decision-making capacity acted as an overly oppressive megalomaniac to the detriment of the radio stations and the six-county area we serve. There was no need for this, the cost to the radio stations in dollars and good will in the community is high.”
Richards continued “In the meantime, are there are any building owners in Monte Vista, Alamosa or Del Norte, interested in selling to us so we can begin the process of finding our new home? We need 1500-2000 square feet ideally. I’m officially done with leasing from someone else. The goal was to move the radio stations into the Vali 3 Theatres. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out and put us behind by a year with our planned relocation.”
Contact Bob Richards at bob@965thefoxfm.com
