KFFA-AM, the Helena-West Helena radio station that has hosted King Biscuit Time for 75 years was sold Friday to a Texas-based radio network whose president said he plans to continue broadcasting the renowned Delta blues program.
High Plains Radio Network purchased the station for $475,000, company president Monte Spearman said, as part of a strategy to expand its agriculture-focused locally produced shows into the Delta. High Plains Radio Network, which bought two stations in Greenville, Miss., last week, now owns 30 stations, Spearman said.
King Biscuit Time, a 30-minute block of blues radio that starts at 12:15 p.m. every weekday, has been a staple of the airwaves since the radio station's 1941 founding.
The program went off the air for about five years starting in 1981 after Helena's Interstate Grocery Co., distributor of King Biscuit flour and the show's sponsor, closed.
Jim Howe, who bought KFFA in the '80s and revived King Biscuit Time in 1986, said he wanted to retire and plans to spend time visiting his children and grandchildren in Texas and California.
"I was ready to get out and off these sorry legs," Howe, 82, said.
Spearman said King Biscuit Time would "absolutely continue" to be broadcast on the station, KFFA-AM 1360. He said efforts are ongoing to expand distribution of the show through syndication, possibly by way of an hourlong weekly show broadcast across the country and online.
"The history here is amazing," Spearman said. "There is a lot going on in the community now about the growth of that whole program."
All six KFFA employees have been asked to stay, and two new employees will start next week, Spearman said.
High Plains Radio Network specializes in locally produced shows about agriculture and plans to add more local content to the KFFA schedule, Spearman said.
"We're all about local radio," Spearman said.
Metro on 11/19/2016