A commercial broadcaster in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is donating an AM station and its FM translator to national Christian broadcaster K-Love.
The agreement filed with the FCC on Sept. 16 calls for Great Lakes Radio to donate WQXO/1400 and its FM translator, W249DR/97.7 (Munising), to K-Love Inc. The donation includes the stations’ licenses, transmission equipment, and the AM transmitter site.
Great Lakes Radio is headed by Todd Noordyk. Rita Noordyk leads a non-commercial broadcaster named ChristianRadioBroadcasting.org Inc. that carries the “K-Love” network on WSHN/89.3 (Munising-Marquette) and WCRR/88.9 (Manistique-Escanaba). Both signals rimshot Munising.
WQXO currently carries an Oldies format and is the only commercial radio station in Munising. The application includes a statement indicating K-Love will carry its own programming on WQXO.
W249DR can only be used to relay WQXO as a condition of its license granted during the AM Revitalization effort.
Munising is a community of about 2,000 people along the scenic Lake Superior shoreline and receives larger stations from Marquette and Escanaba; WQXO’s former FM partner, WRUP/98.3, moved into the Marquette market 15 years ago and is now licensed to Palmer.
The deal is somewhat unusual for K-Love since it owns few other AM stations: Its 550 full-power licenses include only three on the AM band. The group also owns 397 FM translators.
K-Love Inc., parent of the Educational Media Foundation, also operates the Air1 network. K-Love carries Contemporary Christian while Air1 runs Worship music.
Great Lakes Radio will have no remaining stations after the sale. It sold three Marquette-market stations in 2019 and an Escanaba-market station in 2022.