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Music to y'ur ears: KERA will orchestrate new radio station


By ED BARK
Radioheads rejoice. North Texas Public Broadcasting, Inc. (KERA) is adding a new radio frequency to sail alongside its oft music-impaired 90.1 FM mothership.

KERA announced this week its acquisition of a non-commercial radio license for 91.7 FM, which will begin broadcasting this fall as an Adult Album Alternative destination.

"The new station will be a public radio music format programmed with the North Texas audience in mind," KERA president and CEO Mary Anne Alhadeff says in a statement. "It will be a terrific complement to KERA's news and information station 90.1 FM and a substantial addition to KERA's overall multimedia services for the public."

90.1 FM went to a weekday news and information format in 1996. Alhadeff, who joined KERA in 2005, says that "right away I heard from long-time listeners who said that they appreciated the expanded public radio news schedule but missed the music programs."

KERA ultimately convened two "focus groups" -- oh n-o-o-o-o! -- but both miraculously came to the right conclusion that commercial-free music of distinction is missed in the nation's fifth-largest radio-TV market.

KERA says the new station's "adult-oriented" playlist will include folk, acoustic, world music, alternative and indie rock, and country. Programs being considered for 91.7 FM include World Cafe, Echoes, Undercurrents and American Routes.