KOBC launches new station

According to Rob Kime, general manager for KOBC, GoRadio is serving as both a platform for more “modern” music and as a place to train college students in the radio business.

“The desire to program music for college students has always been at the heart of KOBC,” Kime said of the station that was first formed by Ozark Christian College. “(The music on GoRadio) is not necessarily right for KOBC, and this provides an opportunity to broaden that horizon. Also, the station still serves as a place to train students, and we want to put them on the air, but it’s become more obvious over the years that they’re new to the business, and GoRadio allows that training and ministry to that age group to continue.”

Kime said he enlisted the help of some of the college students who work at the station to help get GoRadio off the ground. The streaming Web site began as an avenue for sports events at OCC that KOBC wanted to air but decided was better suited for a different platform. Chris Huffman, a sophomore at Missouri Southern State University, was one of the first to announce on GoRadio, and has already served as commentator for some OCC events.

“I think GoRadio is supposed to be kind of a transition for listeners of The Current (a progressive Christian music program aired on KOBC on Saturday nights),” Huffman said. “The music is really good. I would listen to it even if I didn’t work here.”

Paul Pedersen, a junior at OCC and a two-year announcer veteran of KOBC, has also been integral in getting GoRadio off the ground. He said Kime initially came to he and Huffman with a list of songs that are big on the charts, and solicited their opinions about how well those songs might be received by college students in the tri-state area.

“Most people I’ve talked to still don’t know about it yet,” Pedersen said of GoRadio. “There’s still a lot of flexibility when it comes to the Web site and what we can do with everything.”

Kime agrees and said he hopes that much of that growth will be dictated by both the college students being trained at the station and the listeners on the Web site.

“It’s radio for students, by students,” Kime said. “Our hope is that GoRadio will grow where students want it to go.”

Kime said part of the reason the Web site is named “Go” is because of that mission to reach a demographic that is active and interactive, and to fulfill the station’s mission of spreading the Gospel message.

“GoRadio is a good tie-in to that lifestyle and hopefully it continues that great commission,” Kime said. “The true potential of Go lies in that interactive characteristic. It’s very much at an early stage, but we have high hopes for it.”[[In-content Ad]]