By BRAD KEITH
TheFlashToday.com NEWS & SPORTS – FREE & LOCAL
STEPHENVILLE (September 3, 2015) — KSTV-FM General Manager Boots Elliott has purchased the radio station and three others from Cherry Creek Radio in Colorado, bringing them back under local ownership for the first time since 2004.
“They approached me about a year ago and said they were interested in moving some of their small-market stations and asked if I would be interested in buying them back,” said Elliott of the four stations – two in Stephenville, two in Comanche – he and fellow local businessman Bob Hashke once owned together. “I told them I was interested and we spent a few months negotiating a price and getting the attorneys to finalize everything, then we got the licensing done through the FCC. It should all be official in mid-to-late October.”
Elliott says he is purchasing all four stations back from Cherry Creek, including KSTV 93.1 FM and KSTV 1510 AM (Spanish) in Stephenville and KYOX 94.3 FM and KCOM 1550 AM (Talk) in Comanche. He further says he plans to offer current employees the opportunity to stay onboard.
“Administratively, not being corporately owned by people trying to make decisions to govern all their stations will make things easier on me and my staff. Now there will be one person to answer to, so the decision-making process can be streamlined,” Elliott said. “And there are some changes I can make that I wasn’t allowed to being under corporate ownership.”
Elliott says the focus of all four stations will remain local.
“If you’re not into high school sports in this area, you aren’t in business,” he said. “We will remain focused on local news, local weather and local sports and providing good, entertaining music and shows for our listeners.”
He also assures sports fans he will remain the voice of Stephenville Yellow Jackets football, along with broadcasting district and playoff basketball and baseball games. KSTV has also broadcast Stephenville playoff volleyball matches in recent years.
“As long as they’ll have me, I’ll be the voice of the Yellow Jackets,” Elliott quipped. “I have to catch Dallas Huston (legendary voice of the Brownwood Lions) someday, and every year he keeps doing it is another year I know I will have to keep going.”
Elliott has been the voice of Stephenville football since the 1992 season. He began working at KSTV in December, 1991, and took over ownership of the stations along with Hashke in 1998. They sold the group of stations to Cherry Creek in 2004.
“I was a good soldier for 11 years, but once you’ve been in business for yourself where you’re the boss and you make the big decisions, it’s hard to go back and work for somebody else,” Elliott admits. “It was to the point where I either needed to retire and look into doing something else, or get back into ownership. When the opportunity came, I jumped at it.”
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