CHURCH AGREES TO BUY KWVE IN SAN CLEMENTE

Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa has agreed to pay about $2.4 million in cash for San Clemente rock radio station KWVE-FM (107.9) and will emphasize religious teaching when the church formally acquires the station in a few months.

The sale of the 50,000-watt station, the most powerful in Orange County, went into escrow Monday, said Marti Aspegren, KWVE vice president and one of the station’s nine co-owners.

Don Evans, Calvary Chapel’s administrator, said the exact purchase price was still being worked out, but confirmed that “we’ve been talking” in the area of $2.4 million to $2.5 million. As part of the deal, Calvary had earlier put up a $100,000 cash deposit. The Rev. Chuck Smith, pastor at the evangelical Christian church, was out of town Monday and could not be reached for comment.

Originally, Calvary offered KWVE’s owners 110 acres of land in the San Bernardino Mountains that are part of the church holdings. KWVE’s owners opted for a cash deal, Aspegren said, because “the stockholders didn’t want to be in the position of becoming landowners.”

Evans said Monday that “we haven’t come to a final agreement on the format yet, but we are looking to do something similar to (Christian stations) KYMS (106.3 FM) and KBRT (740 AM) formats that use teaching tapes as well as religious music.

“We feel that some of the other stations may not be covering as much (religious) teaching as we’d like to see,” Evans added. “KYMS is more of a music format; I’m not sure how much (teaching) KBRT is doing. But we are looking toward more teaching, more music and less commercials.”

Although KWVE is the most powerful radio station in Orange County, KWVE’s signal is partially blocked by the Laguna Hills because of the transmitter’s location in San Clemente. The station’s signal is strongest in south Orange County and north San Diego County.

“Parts of Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and the Fashion Island area are not receiving,” Evans said. “But we hope to solve that by installing translators (that boost a radio station’s signal on other frequencies).”

Aspegren said one of the main concerns among KWVE listeners is how the sale will affect broadcasts of sports events currently carried by KWVE, including Los Angeles Kings hockey and Lazers indoor soccer, UC Irvine men’s basketball and recently added USC women’s basketball games.

“At this point there will be no changes through the end of this season and the playoffs,” said Keith Harris, director of broadcasting for the Inglewood Forum, where both the Kings and Lazers are based. “Outside of that, there have been no discussions with the new owners, since they haven’t become the new owners yet.”

Kings games, Harris said, “previously were (broadcast) on KPRZ (which was recently changed to KIIS-AM) for a couple of seasons. KPRZ was a religious station at that time, so we don’t have any problem with being on a religious station. People are people, and sports are sports, and I don’t think religion affects whether someone likes sports.” (Kings and Lazers games are also currently carried on Los Angeles station KGIL-AM 1260.)

Barbara Hedges, associate director of athletics at USC, said that she expects USC women’s basketball games to continue on KWVE. “I haven’t heard anything to make me think that will change,” Hedges said. “It’s taken us a while to find a station, so when I heard the station was being sold I just laughed. But I hope there won’t be any change.”

Evans confirmed that all sports contracts will have to be renegotiated when Calvary takes over, but he added, “Our pastor has expressed interest in keeping the sports going.”

Both parties predicted a wait of three to four months for Federal Communications Commission approval of the license transfer. Since the FCC rarely turns down such applications, KWVE’s owners and church officials are expecting the transfer to proceed smoothly.

In the meantime, Aspegren said, “We hope our loyal listeners will keep listening for the next few months.”

Of the reaction to the sale among KWVE employees, Aspegren said, “We’re all sad. We’re a family, and I’m not looking forward to leaving. It’s hard to leave your people, and I’ve got a lot of loyal people here.”

Since last Wednesday’s departure of nighttime disc jockey Jed the Fish, host of the “Nightwave” program, KWVE has resumed using the same syndicated music programming beamed via satellite from studios in Chicago that it relies on from daytime programming.