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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Three men and a planned Maui radio station
MAUI'S KONI-FM 104.7 soon will have a new baby sister, at 92.5 FM. To continue the family analogy, the baby now has a third parent -- and they're all daddies.
Indiana-based Shirk-Mays LLC won the right to build the new station during a Federal Communications Commission auction in January, with a bid of $518,000.
Kauai-based multistation owner George Hochman, who is a partner of Bill "Shirk" Poorman and Bill Mays in another station, said the two invited him to participate in the new one. He bought in for undisclosed terms and the partners set up Hochman Hawaii-Three Inc. to run it.
The new FM does not yet have call letters.
"By the time the FCC grants you the construction permit, you have three years before you have to have it on the air, but ... I would hope we would have it on by the beginning of the year," Hochman said.
The station's signal will come from the Pacific Radio Group Inc.'s tower site on the side of Haleakala.
"There are five other stations up there. It's a very good site."
Hochman also owns KTOH-FM 99.9 and KITH-FM 98.9 on Kauai and on Oahu, KORL-AM 690 and the construction permit to build KRUD-AM 1130.
As for the new station's format, it's too early to tell. "I haven't the foggiest idea," Hochman laughed. "By the time you put it on the air, Lord knows how the landscape changes."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4747, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com