KFUO-99.1 FM has broadcast classical music and supported the arts in St. Louis for more than six decades.

For virtually all those years, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has  turned a profit on laity-founded “Classic99,” through listeners who support the programming both directly, through contributions, and indirectly, by supporting KFUO’s advertisers.

Now that tradition is threatened. In March, the Post-Dispatch reported that the LCMS’s board of directors was considering a sale, and looking - in a manner best described as secretive - for a possible buyer. The LCMS is in financial distress, with revenues plummeting, and is looking for ways to raise cash. Selling the station would provide one way to get some, at the cost of a longstanding and valued community partnership.

Today, we reported that the board might decide as soon as this week to sell to a group called Joy FM, which broadcasts “Christian contemporary” music; the music of J.S. Bach and other “Christian classics” is definitely not on their playlist. (See article at http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/stories.nsf/stage/story/16BC2C4471FEC1BE86257613000F650B?OpenDocument

Details of the deal are murky, but Joy FM doesn’t actually have the cash; they’d make a down payment, and, says Omaha lawyer Kermit A. Brashear, the LCMS  would hold a “security position” - with, presumably, the purchase itself as collateral - while Joy FM made its payments over an undisclosed period of time.

St. Louis would almost certainly lose any opportunity to hear classical music over “terrestrial” radio as a result of a decision to sell; Brashear and the members of the Radio Arts Board - which has poured over $800,000 in cash contributions and more in time and talent to help the station over the last two years - are at loggerheads.

What do you think? Here’s your chance to weigh in with a poll.

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