The station was recently transferred to the newly created Audacy Atlas LLC by the publicly traded audio content creation and distribution company led by David Field. Now, it can be confirmed: A Class A FM that has been serving the Palm Springs, Calif. area’s LGBTQ+ community has been sold.
For listeners, the programming will continue to appeal to them, but under a new owner with his own branding.
With an asset purchase agreement yet to be filed in the FCC’s LMS for regulatory approval, Audacy has agreed to sell KQPS-FM 103.1, “Channel Q,” to local LGBTQ media entrepreneur Brad Fuhr.
Fuhr in August 2022 made headlines with his purchase of KESQ-AM 1400 in Indio, Calif. At the time, Fuhr, CEO of KGAY PSP, told RBR+TVBR the purchase of KESQ-AM is a “strategic move,” one that will see him search for an FM translator to pair with the facility that signed on as KREO in 1946.
Instead of a translator, he’s buying what would have been a competing FM with 1,900 watts at 591 feet, emitting a signal over the whole Coachella Valley, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ markets.
While the programming on KQPS will certainly be of interest to the gay and lesbian community, it is believed that a spoken-word format is in the works. This could air on KQPS, or perhaps on Rhythmic Hot Adult Contemporary KGAY-AM 1270 in Thousand Palms and FM translator K293CL at 106.5 MHz, each full-market signals, following a format swap between KGAY and KQPS. Fuhr said in August 2022 that growing the “I Love Gay Palm Springs” podcast is a company mission.
New programming on the former “Channel Q” commences March 8.
With KQPS’s sale, this leaves K265FH at 100.9 MHz in Cathedral City, Calif., as a key music competitor. It recently adopted high-energy club mix-fueled “NRG” programming modeled after WKEY-FM 93.7 in Key West, Fla. The originating facility for “NRG” is KJJZ-FM 95.9 HD4.
