The signal itself is specified to cost $120,000 in our Licensed Management Agreement with MetroEast. We’ve also factored in some other expected costs of purchasing and license transfer in our overall goal, such as FCC filing and legal fees to carry out the sale (similar to how you’d factor in closing costs when purchasing a house).

This campaign is designed so that if we meet our goal, we’ll have the necessary funds to buy the signal! The minimum we expect to need to raise to carry out this purchase is $135,290. 

No. This asset is already at a very good price, and is exceptionally rare. The current market rate for such an asset is roughly 5x the preset price of $120,000 in our 2014 agreement (the last comparable one sold for $700k) and others in our market have expressed interest in it. If we cannot pay the agreed upon sale amount, there is little incentive for MetroEast (whose funding model has also changed substantially in the last 10 years as cable TV has become less popular) to not take it to a higher bidder upon the conclusion of our agreement. A comparable asset has not been available in the Portland market in the last decade we've been in operation.

No. There is little incentive for MetroEast to renew our agreement. They wanted to sell it already in 2014, when financial straits were much better for community television stations, as cable cord cutting had not become as common yet. 

We were offered a licensing agreement instead of purchasing the signal in 2014 because we were so new that it would not have been possible for us to raise the necessary funds to purchase it in a reasonable time frame, and we had no history to speak of to take out a loan. This was also true of our smaller 91.1 FM signal when we started, which then was owned by Common Frequency. This type of ownership setup is very common, similar to fiscal sponsorship for startup nonprofits, to allow a new station to get their footing and prove themselves before the signal owner is willing to sell it to them. We purchased 91.1 from Common Frequency in early 2018 for $16,000. As the 91.1 signal is much smaller, and thus much cheaper, that purchase did not necessitate a public campaign when we were fundraising for it in late 2016 and early 2017. 

See the Timeline section of this website! There will be 3 stages to this project, the first of which is fundraising. We will begin the actual execution of the license purchase in late summer (our contractual deadline to exercise the purchase right is 9/15/24). After that, we'll be waiting on the FCC's approval process to reassign ownership of the license to us, which we expect would be complete in the first half of 2025 if all goes to plan.

Yes, donations to the campaign are tax-deductible! While our planned use for the funds is very specific in this case and is fully separate in the station's financial management, the tax situation looks very similar for donors. Cascade Educational Broadcast Service (assumed business name XRAY.FM) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. As such all donations are tax-exempt to the extent allowed by law, with cumulative tax receipts sent via email in January of the following year. Our EIN is 46-2172193. 

No substantial goods* or services are given to the donor in exchange for their donation, which is the IRS standard for charitable deductibility. Donors to this campaign are helping XRAY purchase a specific thing, but the IRS doesn't view that as each donor "receiving" that portion of the final signal in exchange. 

*Note: this likely brings up a flag for XRAY members about thank you gifts/merchandise that folks can get when becoming a member. The IRS standard for this is slightly different, as this is considered a "token" under the 501(c)(3) rules, since the item is not sent to every person that gives a certain amount, it does not represent a substantial enough exchange to be considered a purchase . The specifications for this are based on the total cost to the organization compared to the total donation given, and are updated annually based on inflation. 

You can see the current fundraising progress on the thermometer listed on the 107.1 campaign donation form. This total includes pledges committed by individuals or foundations, but does not list other potential in-process funding sources, such as applications we have out with local foundations where a decision has not yet been made. 

If you'd like to inquire about pending funding sources, please email thanks@xray.fm. We will maintain the privacy of individual donors at all times unless expressly given permission otherwise, but we are happy to be transparent about totals and solicitations to public entities. 

XRAY is young and doesn’t have many assets to leverage in order to provide assurances to a lender, so it’s unlikely we’d be approved for such a loan.  Purchasing 107.1 will be a crucial step to our growth and will allow us to potentially use this strategy in the future to seek other opportunities to expand our signal coverage. 

If our contractual right to first refusal (i.e. right to purchase first) option is not exercised, it is highly likely we’ll lose the ability to operate 107.1 when the license is sold on the open market. As translators like these are assets sought after by larger entities and/or commercial broadcasters in order to boost already large signals, a new owner would likely  not have the same commitment to local, underserved voices as XRAY.

Notably, this license is unique among noncommercial broadcasters, because it is placed in the commercial FM band. Signals left of the dial, on the 'reserved band' set aside for nonprofits from 88.1 to 91.9 FM, cannot be acquired by commercial entities. However, 107.1 is, perhaps obviously, almost as far right on the FM spectrum as you could get, and thus sellable to both commercial and noncommercial entities. As signal availability, particularly in the commercial band, has been scarce in Portland for many years, this would be a hot commodity. 

Yes! We plan to make these communications to the general public (as an organizational best practice recognizing that many support in ways that are non-monetary). Should anything major happen, we would definitely notify the campaign's donors, although we don't anticipate that. 

The FCC can take a long time to approve even basic filings, so this will not be quick. We're hopeful to be able to report this as complete in the first half of 2025. However, in the past we've had longer wait times, with about a year between filing and approval for the 91.1 FM purchase in 2016/2017 and a 10-month wait when we requested to move the 91.1 signal to a different location in 2021/2022. The initial FCC filing is expected to happen in September or October 2024.

From a day to day perspective, it will not. At least immediately. 

We currently are responsible for all the costs of operating 107.1, including compliance and equipment maintenance for the signal. The impact on our operations will be a net positive financially, as we will no longer pay Metro East quarterly for the right to operate it. 107.1 is also a valuable asset that can be used as financial assurance for the organization and proof of viability, if needed, to secure a loan for larger ventures--such as a Class A Full Power Signal in Portland eventually--which is a very common step in most stations’ paths to signal expansion. 

In the longer term, changes could be made to its engineering and equipment could be upgraded. Some examples include an updated FM transmitter (est. cost: $5,000) which could clear up some noise floor on the 107.1 broadcast or purchasing an HD Translator (est. cost: $20,000) which could allow for increased power to 107.1 from 44 watts to 99 watts and allow for growth opportunities in multi-channel programming. The signal could also have its engineering changed in some way, by moving its location or getting it higher up on a tower for example, to get it closer or to the maximum translator power of 250 watts.  

In short, no. At least, not in Portland. The only way that may become an option in Portland is if a different station in the this market goes out of business and/or decides to sell. Still, it's unlikely we'd be able to make the highest bid for such a situation, and we're not the only ones who'd jump on that. 

107.1 remains the best available way for us to cover our core area of service: Portland! If we don’t purchase 107.1, our coverage area will likely shrink substantially while we seek out other very rare opportunities to expand it. Plus people already know to find us on this channel and it’s synonymous with our brand. 

Notably, larger signals are very rare in our market–in fact you can’t even apply for a new construction permits for anything but a Low Power FM in Portland. That means we’d have to purchase a larger signal from another station. Of course assuming we had the funds to purchase. 107.1 is actually an example of one of those rare occasions: it used to be run as KZME before that station folded in 2014. As our freshly-launched organization got its footing, we negotiated a 10-year Licensed Management Agreement that ends in a purchase option through a Right of First Refusal. 

Simple: it's prohibitively expensive compared to our total operating budget (which has danced between 300-400k annually in recent years). We always knew it would be a larger campaign. 

In the past couple years, several major changes have occurred that have affected our budget, revenue, and spending:

1. The Numberz was spun off into a separate organization in early 2021, where they were previously a program of XRAY, then of course taking their portion of revenue with them. To this day, several of our expenses remain entangled, so this process remains ongoing. But, if you've looked at our tax filings in public records in recent years, this accounts for a great deal of the change in total annual revenue.

2.  Several measures have been taken to make our budgets more streamlined, making our total revenue and expenditures more reflective of our actual spending.  We've largely eliminated or culled several expenses and/or practices that we did not need to be responsible for administering, such as paying out contractors (like event DJs) on behalf of 3rd parties that could do pay them directly.

3. We've prioritized adjusting our small staff's pay to accommodate rapidly changing cost of living and inflationary pressure. We've talked at length about this in the past, but there's a push and pull with radio, because there's virtually no way to start really small and successfully scale. We're legally required to be on 24/7, thanks to 100+ on air volunteers, at minimum 120 of the 168 hours in a week are fresh, original programming produced in-house. That takes substantial work to keep going, but doesn't change the station's total revenue, meaning we either pay a lot of people very little or pay fewer people a reasonable market rate. We've gone with the latter in recent years, and currently have 3 Full Time Equivalent staff. 

If we've learned anything about the XRAY listener and donor, a deadline is a very important motivator. We have had conversations with potential foundation funders about this purchase for several years, and first began ideation for this campaign in early 2020 (pre-lockdown). Long-story short, it was way too far off for most places to entertain (most grant-funded projects must be completed within 12 months for instance). 

Plus, we've got several additional capital expenses that we're anticipating in coming years. While none are likely as expensive as this, we want to minimize how much time we need to spend fundraising compared to making actual programming. 

Yes and no. Do we have more capital costs we're planning for in coming years? Yes. Frankly, much of these things were put off due to the pandemic (summer 2020 could've been great in other universe) so things that are longstanding are coming up all at once.  We see 107.1 as the chief priority above everything else at this point, and have purposely delayed any major additional expenses to 2025 to ensure that we can successfully make this purchase.

We do not currently plan to do a separate public fundraising campaign for any other projects. 107.1 is getting a separate public fundraising campaign due to the much higher cost, whereas the highest cost for any upcoming capital needs otherwise is $50,000 or under. Typically, we will fund these objectives by applying for grant funding, soliciting gifts from larger donors, and designating funds in our annual budget towards a given cost. For example, we purchased the 91.1 signal from its former owner, Common Frequency, in this way in 2016/2017 and did not solicit donations from the public in any way.

The other anticipated capital projects include another signal project (that we'll tell folks more about this Fall), an eventual move of the station's office and studios to a combined ADA accessible/public facing location, replacing aging studio infrastructure, and a potential cost to augment our broadcast audio chain (if we're at the Falcon Art Community) should the development planned for the lot behind our building come to fruition, thus removing our current line of sight to our tower. 

1. Because we don’t own 107.1, it’s possible that someday we may not be able to broadcast on this channel. 

   • No different than renting versus owning anything in this country, you can't take for granted something that you rent will be available in perpetuity.

2. 91.1 has serious limitations. 

   • As a Class D license, 91.1 is an old license type that has been grandfathered into modern broadcast rules by the FCC. Originally, Class D licenses were only intended to serve a college campus and no further. The FCC ended new Class D applications in the United States in 1978 (aside from in Alaska for whatever reason) and in turn offered a one-time Class upgrade to current Class D license holders. The then license holders, Reed College, declined to upgrade to a Class A, and the option is no longer available today.  The current equivalent of a Class D license is a Low-Power FM license. However, these also have several additional limitations, so we've opted to stick with our Class D vs. switch to LPFM. Notably, 107.1 cannot legally originate content, it must be used with a license like 91.1 that it rebroadcasts. It’s the pair of these signals together that allows XRAY to be heard by the population center of Portland.

3. If we own 107.1, we are able to explore modifying the coverage area and increasing listener reach. 

   • The shape of the broadcast landscape can change suddenly and without notice. If XRAY owns this asset we can respond to and potentially take advantage of opportunities when they arise. As an asset not owned by XRAY, any of these maneuvers would need to be approved by the current owner, Metro East, and be mutually beneficial for both organizations.

Yes. Immediately, we would save $4,000 annually with ownership by ending recurring payments to MetroEast. 

Ownership also unlocks other cost-saving options that we can't explore prior to ownership. That upfront savings is basically the same price as buying a better transmitter to make one of those immediately available engineering changes. We already pay for the entirety of its regular costs otherwise, so it's never really been a typical landlord-tenant relationship. 

Once we have full control, we have the power to reduce our costs further, but that's not something we can explore prior to ownership. For example, that could include something such as moving the signal, which we did with 91.1 in 2022. At 91.1's  prior location, we were paying a service provider and landlord (who were our only options respectively) $1,900 per month for signal service and rent. That was becoming cost prohibitive, and the signal reception was hurt badly by overgrown trees in the area that of course hadn't been there when it was first affixed, as well as said service provider essentially providing no service and ignoring time-sensitive service tickets for several days at a time. Because we own that signal, we were able to move it to another part of town, make the signal sound better than it did before, and now pay $355 per month. 

107.1 is a very unique asset: it can be operated by both commercial and noncommercial stations. This is because its call numbers are in the Commercial Band*, which introduces potential buyers that are major corporations largely responsible for the consolidation of media and who have been lobbying heavily to decreases local ownership requirements for decades. 107.1 is a translator, not a Full-Service FM license, so  it offers the opportunity to boost a broadcast without encountering local ownership rules. 

107.1 is very rare, no comparable options have been available in our area in the past decade of our operations. It is very unlikely that another entity would purchase the license just for us to operate it, and we're certainly not willing to take that kind of risk with our main way of getting a broadcast to listeners. 

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*Radio Learning Moment: FM Call Numbers are split into two sides of the total set of numbers, the noncommercial side and the commercial side. Noncommercial broadcasts are legally required to be operated by a bonafide nonprofit (which also includes religious institutions). Noncommercial stations are typically in the Reserved Band (88.1 to 91.9), which is set aside to ensure the public interest of FM broadcast. Commercial entities may only be in the Commercial Band (92.1 to 107.9), which, you may notice, is where 107.1 is. Noncommercial entities may operate in the Commercial Band, including as commercial entities, but not vice versa. Importantly: 107.1 is a translator, not a Full-Service FM license. As such it may not originate it's own programming but must directly mirror 91.1's broadcast, so operating 107.1 as a commercial station would not be an option in this configuration. 

You can see a full breakdown of how this whole radio setup works in the How It Works section. 

There's a lot of nuance to why things have to be the way they are, but long story short there is no engineering or tech modification/upgrades required to complete this project. We may pursue smaller upgrades immediately after ownership is transferred to us (should we have raised additional funds beyond what is required for the purchase) but many larger opportunities become available to us to pursue in the future. However, whether we pursue those is up in the air at this time as we ensure we have the necessary funding for this campaign first, before looking at potential add-ons to the total cost.