Posted on: Saturday, August 14, 2004

Rock radio KPOI bumped

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Staff Writer

Longtime rock station KPOI-FM was scheduled to sign off the air sometime last night. Reason: The station, part of a corporate radio shuffle, will sign on Monday morning as KHNR at the old KPOI frequency, 97.5 on the FM dial.

This means that a hard-rock outpost on the crowded but changing radio dial has been silenced for good.

KPOI and KHUI 99.5 FM, two stations that are part of a New Wave Broadcasting sale to Maui-based Visionary Related Entertainment, were in turn sold to Salem Media of Hawaii, a subsidiary of Salem Communications of California, for $3.7 million. The sale and changeover took place at 1 p.m. yesterday.

Salem expects to put the new KHNR station, with a new format, on the air on Monday. Visionary expects to keep the KPOI call letters — observers call it a "legacy station" with a fabled history in Hawai'i — and reassign them to one of its network of eight stations. Visionary has not made a final determination.

The changes in station owners and format are part of a shakeup in the radio industry here, with New Wave exiting the Island market.

Visionary had acquired four New Wave stations, but had to resell two because of restrictions on how many AM and FM stations one owner may operate in a particular market.

Visionary will have eight stations on O'ahu, one more than Texas-based Clear Channel Communication's seven, but Visionary also owns five stations on Kaua'i, and four on Maui and the Big Island, making it the largest broadcasting conglomerate in Hawai'i.