As you drive over the hill from Marshall toward Santa Rosa, the smooth rhythms of KDAN gradually give way to the tones of K-Faith, a Christian rock station.
But KDAN, a tiny radio station broadcasting 24 hours of music on 91.5 FM from a sheep ranch overlooking Tomales Bay, is now up for sale. Its owner, Jeff Cotton, is determined to keep the station in local hands, resisting the encroachment of Christian radio that has increasingly taken over the airwaves.
“If we put it on the market, it could easily be gobbled up by a non-secular operator,” he said. “We want to keep it secular, if we have any say in it.”
Mr. Cotton’s concerns reflect a broader national trend in which low-budget translator stations—those that rebroadcast the signals of larger, distant stations—and frequencies on the lower FM band, often reserved for small nonprofits, are being bought up by expanding religious networks.
Chief among those networks is the Educational Media Foundation, a Santa Rosa-based nonprofit that owns stations like K-FAITH. EMF is the country’s fastest-growing radio chain and second-largest station owner, trailing only iHeartRadio. With broadcasts on over 1,000 signals across all 50 states, the nonprofit reaches an estimated 18 million listeners weekly, leaving little room on the dial for anything but Christian rock.
After a career in audio engineering and concert promotion, Mr. Cotton has spent the latter half of his life building non-commercial FM radio stations in rural western towns. His nonprofit, Open Sky Radio, engages in a David-versus-Goliath struggle, applying for Federal Communications Commission licenses to prevent stations from being overtaken by Christian radio.
After operating them for a time, he often sells them to local groups to ensure their survival.
“We want to save channels from going to Jesus,” Mr. Cotton said wryly.
Since establishing his first station in Cedarville, Calif. in 2007, Mr. Cotton, who lives 90 miles north of the Black Rock Desert in northeastern California, has licensed or built out stations in Gerlach, Reno, Carson City, Corvallis, Madras, The Dalles, Marshall, Alturas, Bodega Bay and Clarksdale, Miss. Many of these have remained in local hands, except for one in The Dalles, Ore., which is now owned by EMF.
The expansion of networks like EMF and the evolution of Open Sky Radio are two sides of the same coin forged by sweeping changes brought by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That law dramatically altered the radio landscape by ushering in a period of deregulation that fueled rapid consolidation within the industry.
In the months after the act’s passage, Reed Hundt, then the F.C.C. chair, spoke before Congress about “fostering innovation and competition in radio” while promoting “diversity in programming and diversity in the viewpoints expressed on this powerful medium that so shapes our culture.”
Yet the act fell short of those ideals, instead opening the door for large media companies to acquire multiple stations without restriction. By 2002, just 10 parent companies controlled two thirds of radio listeners and revenue.
The opportunity to own a station like KDAN was made more accessible during the Trump administration, when lobbying by the National Association of Broadcasters led the F.C.C. to drop a rule requiring stations to maintain a studio near their community of license. Detractors have argued that this deregulation will reduce content diversity and threaten local radio. Under the new policy, nonprofit stations can now operate satellite stations without a local hub, a loophole that, though beneficial to grassroots operations, has also been exploited by large networks like EMF.
Todd Urick, whom Mr. Cotton affectionately refers to as the Johnny Appleseed of community radio licenses, said this latest version of deregulation has meant that “someone with just a laptop and access to the emergency alert system could run a station from even a closet or bathroom.”
“It really lowers the barrier to broadcasting—you don’t need much,” Mr. Urick told the Light.
A radio engineer and community-radio advocate, Mr. Urick was the original owner of KDAN when it operated under the call letters KXCF.
For tiny, 10-watt radio stations like KDAN, geography is everything. Hills are a challenge, while nearby water bodies can amplify a signal for miles, much like skipping a stone across a pond. KDAN’s signal currently reaches pockets of Marshall and across the bay to Inverness and Inverness Park, but it could be extended with additional equipment, Mr. Cotton said.
In contrast to KDAN’s tiny wattage, KWMR broadcasts at 320 watts, while KQED operates at a staggering 110,000 watts, both benefiting from antennas positioned at higher elevations. (The F.C.C. imposes strict limits on wattage and antenna height to prevent interference.)
Low-power FM stations can typically be heard within a three-and-a-half-mile radius, provided no larger station or obstacle blocks the signal. Of the nearly 2,500 low-power stations in some stage of licensing, construction or active broadcast across the nation, more than 850 have a license holder with a religious affiliation.
“They want to spread the good word of the Lord, and radio is an effective way to do it,” KWMR station manager and executive director Amanda Eichstaedt said. “But I don’t think a lot of people out here would listen to that.”
Even with its limited reach, KDAN has its fans, including Ms. Eichstaedt herself. “Once, I was down for the count after a vaccination—maybe a shingles shot or something—so I just decided to listen to KDAN for the entire day,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Yeah, this is really good.’”
Whoever acquires KDAN can change its call letters. Since the station is located west of the Mississippi River, its four letters must begin with a “K” and be unique. Mr. Cotton has a knack for selecting call letters that are quirky and memorable, like his station in Gerlach, Nev., known as KLAP. The tagline, “You can get the KLAP in Gerlach,” never fails to amuse listeners in the heart of the Black Rock Desert.
In Marshall, Mr. Cotton sought a name that would resonate with Marin, and he ultimately chose DAN, a tribute to Mill Valley legend Dan Hicks, a singer and songwriter whose music was defiantly unfashionable and proudly eccentric—qualities that echo in his eponymous radio station.
In 2020, Mr. Cotton purchased 91.5 FM from Mr. Urick’s group Common Frequency, which licenses airwaves to prevent them from expiring or being bought out by commercial or Christian radio networks. He acquired the station for $5,000 and invested another $5,000 to upgrade its corroded equipment.
In selling the station, Mr. Cotton hopes to recoup his investment, but mostly he hopes to find a group that aligns with his vision. If his buyer has less capital, he might negotiate a portion of underwriter revenue to cover the cost of the equipment he installed.
Mr. Cotton currently provides content for KDAN with the help of four disc jockeys, including Sister Tiny, a 70-something-year-old who works out of her kitchen just east of Carson City. Programming by Ms. Tiny, whom Mr. Cotton refers to as a “sonic seamstress,” is “borderless,” meaning a listener can hear blues next to bluegrass next to rock. The buyer can continue broadcasting the extensive library owned by Open Sky Radio’s content arm, called Jive Radio, or create their own.
Until a dedicated owner appears, the station’s future remains uncertain. “I’ve seen a lot of stations where the work was truly a labor of love,” Ms. Eichstaedt reflected. “But once the person behind it is gone, the thing just winnows away because there’s nobody to do it.”
For his part, Mr. Urick hopes that KDAN can buck that trend.
“Communities are diminished when they lose their local radio stations,” he said. KDAN’s future, therefore, is not just a matter of ownership—it’s about preserving the essence of what makes community radio invaluable.
“I think most people think that in one area there can only be one public station or one community station,” Mr. Urick said. “But really the whole FM band should belong to the people.”
Anyone interested in purchasing the station can reach out to [email protected].