Missoula’s Progressive Talk Radio Goes Off the Air

The owner of KKNS (105.9FM) dropped their progressive talk Tuesday afternoon, citing weak advertising sales.

Salt Lake City-based Simmons Media, which took over Mt. Sentinel operations and ownership of the station just last month, made the final decision to change formats last week.

“I would have liked to try for a couple more months,” Cowan said. “But if it were my money it was losing, I don’t know if I could do it.”

Getting people to listen wasn’t the problem – liberal talk radio was a huge hit in Missoula from the beginning.

Just last fall, Cowan said, an Eastlan ratings survey in Missoula and the Bitterroot showed the Al Franken show with a respectable 3.6 percent of listeners – ahead of Rush Limbaugh, who runs on two area stations.

“Al Franken was huge,” Cowan said. “(He) clobbered Rush. The listeners were there – and the commercials were inexpensive.”

However, selling ads during Al’s airtime was a different story.

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