Our Real Good Thing Came to an End

The shocking announcement came late yesterday afternoon

The Terrible Statement

January 31, 2025

Statement from Gary Pierson - President of KDHX Community Media Board of Directors

This evening, KDHX will pause live broadcasts on 88.1 FM and kdhx.org due to financial challenges.

The station does not have the resources to sustain current operations. As a result, our small staff has made significant financial sacrifices. All volunteer content production roles, including our valued volunteer DJs, have been discontinued.

This was a difficult decision for our board as our audience has grown and expanded in recent years, most notably online.

Several factors have contributed to this decision, including long standing financial pressures, industry-wide challenges for public media, and a decline in financial support. Unfortunately, recent disparagement campaigns and senseless lawsuits have severely impacted fundraising.

To continue serving our listeners locally and worldwide, previously recorded programming will air on 88.1 FM and kdhx.org beginning tonight at 7 p.m. CST. Meanwhile, our board is actively exploring options for the future of KDHX to continue fulfilling our mission of building community through media.

We understand that this news is disappointing. We deeply appreciate the support of our volunteers, listeners, and donors over the years. If you value independent, community-driven programming, we encourage you to stay engaged by visiting KDHX.org for updates.

The Way They Told the DJs They Were Fired

We write with difficult news, but first, we want to sincerely thank you for your time, talent, and energy in making KDHX a vital part of our community. There is no way to truly express the gratitude that everyone – the Board, the staff, and the community – feels about the efforts you have made on behalf of the station and the community.

It is with sadness that I am writing to notify you that KDHX can no longer sustain our current operations, including facilitating our volunteer content producers. As a result, the Board is discontinuing new content production starting today, Friday, January 31.

This was not a decision that was reached lightly. It follows many difficult financial years that have been exacerbated by lawsuits, a decline in donor support, and reduced underwriting. These financial pressures have placed an immense strain on the organization, making it impossible to sustain operations in their current form. While this situation is not the fault of our dedicated volunteers, it does have significant consequences for KDHX’s operations, including our ability to support volunteer content producers.

For the foreseeable future, KDHX will only broadcast previously recorded content. For this reason, the station will no longer have volunteer content producers. KDHX defines volunteer content producers as any role that creates content or supports the creation of content for any KDHX platform, for example, 88.1 FM, KDHX.org, social media. Specific roles include programmer/DJ, substitute programmer/DJ, radio show assistant, podcast host, podcast assistant, podcast technician, calendar producer, announcement producer, voice talent, writer, photographer, film and performing arts reviewer, music library, and production department volunteer. After Friday, January 31, 2025, the only volunteers who will continue with the station are volunteers in non-content producer/supporter roles.

Unfortunately, this means that your volunteer DJ role with KDHX will end effective immediately. Because you will no longer be in an active volunteer role, your status as an Associate Member will also terminate, effective immediately. If you believe your role has been misclassified, and that your volunteer status is more properly classified as a non-content producer/supporter role, you may submit a written appeal to the KDHX Board of Directors at KDHXboard@kdhx.org by Friday, February 7, at 5:00 p.m. If you have personal items at KDHX, send an email to volunteer@kdhx.org.

In the coming weeks and months, the board will assess potential paths forward to stabilize KDHX and explore how we can continue to serve the community. We will keep you updated as we determine what is next for KDHX. We deeply appreciate the dedication, passion, and creativity each of you has brought to KDHX. Your contributions have been invaluable to our community, and we are incredibly grateful for your time and effort. Kelly K. Wells Executive Director On behalf of the KDHX Board of Directors

Our Response

On Friday afternoon KDHX announced the cessation of live broadcasting and the termination of all volunteers and Associate Members whose only role was producing content (conveniently leaving only the Board of Directors as associates and scant others).

The League of Volunteer Enthusiasts (LOVE) of KDHX strongly condemns the current management’s decision to effectively end KDHX.

KDHX has been a cultural and musical icon to this community for almost 40 years. Its demise at the hands of Executive Director Kelly Wells and the current management was both preventable and predictable. And despite Board President Gary Pierson’s assertion, they were most certainly not caused by any lawsuits brought by the community but in disregard of them.

The actions of Wells and the current Board of Directors are an affront to the volunteers on whose backs the station was built and the community who has supported the station in so many ways for the last 38 years.

Right now, KDHX, under the direction of Kelly Wells and Gary Pierson, is airing previously recorded content produced by the volunteers they have just fired -- and without the consent of those volunteers. To call this callous is an understatement.

For those of you who are shocked or surprised by these announcements, we encourage you to join the fight to save KDHX from the abuses and incompetence that have brought our community station to this point.

LOVE of KDHX is already researching any and all legal and/or other responses to the unnecessary and harmful actions of the Board and the Executive Director.

On the heels of a recently filed lawsuit asking the courts to remove the individual members of the Board of Directors, we ask St. Louis to support those disenfranchised Associate Members and to help us block the sale or lease of KDHX’s license and transmitter to any organization that does not support the goals and values upon which the station was founded.

We encourage those Associate Members and volunteers to formally challenge their terminations and to document those challenges.

We also encourage these volunteer DJs to demand KDHX not use their voices or curated playlists since they are no longer recognized as members of the station.

We encourage members of the St. Louis music and listening communities to voice their disapproval and sense of betrayal by lawful and constructive means. Immediately ask the station to halt recurring donations and return any donations given with the trust that it would go towards supporting the programming of the volunteer DJs at the station. Look for peaceful means of protest. And talk about it within your own circles.

While this will go down in our local history as a very dark Friday and a day of infamy, the fight is not over, and a casual acceptance would be the worst possible reaction.

Don’t give up yet St. Louis! Together we will fight for community radio!