SYRACUSE -- The owner of Kiss-FM (not to be confused with the Utica CHR stations of the same name) says he's "unsure" what will happen to his station, following a fire that damaged plenty of equipment last week.
Kiss-FM's Brad Stone issued the following press release to his staff and to the media on Sunday:
As of July 15th, 2010. KISS-FM Syracuse has been pulled off the air. Our station suffered a great loss after a massive fire early morning on July 13th 2010. We did lose a large portion of our equipment, back up data and most of our server room. At this time the fate of KISS-FM Syracuse is unknown. We do not know if it will ever return to the Syracuse Market.
Station Owner and Manager Brad Stone is releasing this statement to all major media outlets in the Central New York area in an effort to let our dedicated listeners know that we did not plan this shut down. Plans to start a secondary radio station in the Utica Rome market have been put on hold until the fate of KISS-FM has been decided. We offer listeners who would like to help KISS-FM get back up and running to contact us by calling the former request line at 315-431-5477, or by sending an email to helpkiss@kissfmcny.com.
We thank all of our dedicated listeners for helping us achieve our short term goal to bring a strong radio presence to Syracuse in the short time we were exposed to the area. Thank you again to all of you for passing this message along, and we hope to be hearing from you and hopefully sending good news in the coming months.
No word from Stone on how much money would need to be raised in order to restore the stations, nor how much of that total might be covered by insurance.
According to a Google-cached version of kissfmcny.com, Stone had at least six other people on-staff.
The webcast was also carried over the air on 1040AM in Constantia, an unlicensed-but-legal signal in accordance with FCC Part 15 regulations. Low-power FM transmitters in Syracuse and Oswego were also part of the long-term plan, but at last check, they would only be powered-up for testing, "for a few hours (if that) at a time," Stone told CNYRadio.com last December.