KUNC, Rocky Mountain Public Media eye merger

GREELEY — Almost 25 years after KUNC 91.5 FM fought off an attempt to be sold to Colorado Public Radio, the Greeley-based public radio station is contemplating a merger with a different suitor: Rocky Mountain Public Media.

And that’s not all: The potential merger comes as the Fort Collins-based Bohemian Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by billionaire philanthropist Pat Stryker, will provide a new space for KUNC and KJAC studios in downtown Fort Collins. The station’s new home will be in part of a new 7,000-square-foot, three story building at 300 E. Mountain Ave., that the Bohemian Cos. will construct as an expansion of the Armory music venue.

KUNC currently operates in leased space at 1901 56th Ave. in Greeley.

The announcement of both the merger and move is to be made Friday on the station’s website, and the parties hope to consummate the merger by the end of June.

Community Radio for Northern Colorado, which owns KUNC and KJAC 105.5 FM, dubbed “the Colorado Sound,” has been in discussions with Denver-based Rocky Mountain Public Media, which owns Rocky Mountain PBS, jazz station KUVO 89.3 FM and low-power urban contemporary-formatted K284CI 104.7 FM, about a merger since last year, sources familiar with the deal told BizWest.

“We have a nonbinding letter of intent between our two boards, exploring the possibility of a merger,” Tammy Terwelp, president and CEO of CRNC, told BizWest Thursday afternoon. “There’s a lot of due diligence that needs to happen between the organizations, but we are trying to move it forward and not let it drag out.”

Calls to Amanda Mountain, president and CEO of Rocky Mountain Public Media, had not been returned in time for BizWest’s deadline. However, BizWest spoke to several current and former KUNC staff members who asked to remain unidentified.

Rocky Mountain PBS owns a network of public television stations around the state, anchored by KRMA-TV Channel 6 in Denver.

Staff members have been told that no jobs will be lost in the merger, but business operations likely will be shifted to Denver.

A potential merger comes as public broadcasting adjusts to a halt in federal funding. Congress last year voted to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a 60-year-old nonprofit that provided funding to 1,500 public television and radio stations but which dissolved in January after the federal cuts.

KUNC has not been immune from that impact. The nonprofit in September laid off 10 people, about 25% of its staff of 38. In addition to the layoffs, CRNC staff also were furloughed for five days — with the furloughs required to be complete by the end of March — and contributions to their 403(b) retirement plans were ended.

In an interview broadcast on KUNC in September, Terwelp said the stations received about $453,000 a year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. President Donald Trump repeatedly has targeted public media, claiming that it spreads political and cultural views opposed to “American values.” The last CPB grant payments were made last September.

The merger “is a forward looking strategy,” Terwelp said Thursday. “We have strong support and are rooted in our communities. There will be no noticeable difference to our listeners except that we will have more services available to us to make sure our signals are strong and move forward with our partners.”

Station spun off from UNC in 2001

KUNC began operations Jan. 6, 1967 at the University of Northern Colorado as KCBL. The call letters were changed to KUNC on May 1, 1970.

The station remained part of UNC until February 2001, when the school’s Board of Trustees tried to sell it to Denver-based Colorado Public Radio, which owns NPR-affiliated news-talk KCFR 90.1 FM and classical-music KVOD 88.1 FM. But a whirlwind fundraising effort led by the grassroots group Friends of KUNC raised nearly $1.5 million needed to purchase the station and form CRNC.

Although the studios will move to Fort Collins, Terwelp said, “we are not leaving Greeley. We continue to serve Greeley and northeastern Colorado. This is just a facility move. Our commitment to serving Northern Colorado remains completely strong.”

When the studios could move is “a little bit squishy,” Terwelp said. “The construction is underway, and work has started on the underground level, but that’s all I know.”

In the latest Nielsen broadcast ratings for the Fort Collins-Greeley market, issued in fall 2025, KUNC led all radio stations with a 6.4 share, while KJAC ranked eighth with a 1.8 share. In Nielsen ratings, a share is the percentage of the total radio-listening audience tuned in to a specific station at a given time. The Fort Collins-Greeley market is the nation’s 105th largest.

None of the current members of KUNC’s 12-person board of directors is from Greeley. Five members are from Denver, four are from Fort Collins, and others are from Boulder, Longmont and Nashville, Tennessee.

Station executives have discussed moving the station’s operations to Fort Collins for several years, noting that a large segment of its listening audience is from that city.

CRNC late last year began  a “quiet” capital campaign to raise money for the move to Fort Collins, initially seeking to raise $6 million to $7 million, but that goal was reduced to about $3 million, sources said.

Ties to Bohemian Foundation

KUNC and the Bohemian Foundation already have a long-term strategic and philanthropic partnership centered on supporting the Northern Colorado music scene and community journalism. The most visible aspect is through KJAC, where they jointly produce “Sonic Spotlight,” a music discovery program and competition for young musicians in Northern Colorado run along with the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery.

Bohemian frequently sponsors events along with KUNC and KJAC such as the Rock Garden Concert Series and the ACT Human Rights Film Festival. KUNC often provides media coverage and promotion for Bohemian Nights events, including the annual festival in Fort Collins.

Bohemian also supports KUNC’s journalistic mission through the Colorado News Philanthropy Lab, a cohort that focuses on developing sustainable funding models for local journalism.

Bohemian also has been a major benefactor of community radio station KRFC 88.9 FM in Fort Collins. Its grants helped the station grow after it first went on the air in 2003, then bought the building at 619 S. College Ave. that housed KRFC and renovated its studios in 2016 as part of a newly formed Music District there.

Former KUNC board members have also held leadership or management roles within the Bohemian Foundation and its affiliated music venues including Washington’s and the Armory.

KUNC also enjoys an existing relationship with Rocky Mountain PBS. In October 2024, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting awarded $379,048 to KUNC to lead the newly developed Colorado Capitol News Alliance that brought together a coalition of public and not-for-profit newsrooms in the state including those run by KUNC, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS and The Colorado Sun. The alliance provides reporting on Colorado state government at no cost to their member stations.

A string of losses 

Community Radio for Northern Colorado recorded positive net income of $1.57 million in fiscal year 2021, according to Form 990s filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Former president and CEO Neil Best retired in April 2021, with Terwelp taking the helm.

But the intervening years have been financially challenging, with a string of losses: $35,668 in 2022, $1.1 million in 2023 and $357,170 in 2024, for a total three-year loss of $1.49 million.

The organization’s latest 990 filing, for fiscal year 2024, showed revenue of $5.57 million and expenses of $5.93 million. The organization reported assets of $9.65 million and liabilities of $2.13 million.

“I think we’ve felt very discouraged as a staff over the past few years,” a staff member told BizWest. “We haven’t had strong leadership or a strong board. That’s really impacting staff morale. There’s a lot of decisions that have led us down this path where this merger is happening. There’s a lot of sentiment where the leadership has not been great.”

One source said  the justification for the merger — cutbacks in federal funding — doesn’t ring true, as staff has been told that the organization is now operating in the black.

“That’s why it’s been pretty confusing for us as staff. The messaging has been really all over the place as to how we’re doing, how it’s being pitched to us, how it’s being pitched to members,” a source said, adding, “I suspect the layoffs were to get us lean for the merger.”

Another staff member agreed that the messaging has been confusing.

“Internally, everything looks fine on paper,” the source said. “We have plenty of money. But then we’re being told verbally that there’s no money for raises and that (the merger) is necessary for the future health of the stations. They’re basing it on financial insecurity and the funding going away, and that’s just not true.”

Although some staff are excited about the potential for a merger with the much-larger Rocky Mountain Public Media, others are concerned about loss of independence and control, staffers said.

“There’s the feeling that we’re losing independence, and the concern of moving out of Northern Colorado as well,” a source said.

Beyond that, independence has been a selling point for KUNC and the Colorado Sound over the years, a source said.

“People in Northern Colorado are just passionate about the fact that we’re independent, that we haven’t been bought up by a larger media company, that we continue to thrive and win awards and do fantastic coverage,” the source said. “They feel like it’s a friend, and if we get absorbed by a large company, I think there’s going to be a lot of rebellion when it comes to members.”

As public media grapples with the reality of a loss of public funding, loss of independence is not inevitable, the staffer said.

“What we’re being told is not lining up with the facts,” the staff member said. “We can still remain an independent organization in this climate. I don’t think a merger has to be a foregone conclusion for us to continue to exist. We’re a strong organization. We’ve been a strong organization for many years. We have a lot of community support.”

Share on Facebook on LinkedIn