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Let’s not turn on the radio for the election returns

Brief by Central Staff

Media – December 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

It used to be something of a tradition in Salida, back when Bill Murphy owned the radio station, to listen to the election-night coverage on KVRH.

That was back when it was the only station in town. Now with more stations, there ought to be more coverage, right?

Wrong. KVRH AM-FM, and its sister station KBVC-FM, had no coverage of local elections on the night of Nov. 7. Neither did community radio station KHEN.

We kept tuning in, assuming that they’d both put something on, only to be disappointed — and this was in a year with a hard-contested election for county commissioner between incumbent Democrat Tim Glenn, who won, and Republican challenger Bev Scanga.

KSBV, the classic rock station, read a list of results at 10 p.m. election night, but it was just a list of results, and started at the top of the ticket instead of with the local races. It was better than nothing, though.

All of our local stations can all do a little better than that, however, and we encourage them to try the next time there’s a general election.