When John Stephens first launched streaming radio station The Roots.FM, he was making a bid to be KSHE for the streaming era. But as he’s honed his ambitions and the local media ecosystem has been shaken up, The Roots.FM seems to instead be coming into its own as an alternative to KDHX.
Consider this: Like KDHX, The Roots.FM is now a nonprofit, a rarity in St. Louis’ radio landscape. They’ve brought on no fewer than three former KDHX DJs, who were fired or quit their previous roles. And, as they move into breaking songs by local musicians and promoting events featuring local bands, they’re filling a role KDHX once occupied—but that the station has had difficulty fulfilling at a time when hundreds of local musicians have called for its leaders to resign.
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Asked about those parallels, Stephens says, “We are so dramatically different from what KDHX morphed into and much more like what they were.”
A self-described “consummate media geek,” Stephens worked everywhere from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to CBS Television before starting a video production company. But he says his heart was always in radio, and when he first started The Roots.FM in 2016 as a commercial streaming outlet, he sought to hire every KSHE jock he could track down, with some success.
Then the licensing fees for commercial streaming services skyrocketed, and Stephens couldn’t make his business plan work. After a two-year hiatus, he recast the station as a member-supported nonprofit, availing himself of the dramatically reduced rates paid by stations such as KDHX and St. Louis Public Radio—things took off from there.
And while KDHX’s struggles have been a source of sadness (and outrage) in the local music community, they provided an opportunity for Stephens and his all-volunteer crew. (Not only do the DJs work for free, but Stephens does as well.)
“KDHX wasn’t even on my radar,” he says. “Then the KDHX collapse started.” More than a dozen DJs were fired; others quit. “I scheduled meetings with some of these people who were fired,” he says. “I told them, ‘Media is changing. It’s no longer accurate to say radio is everything and streaming is nothing. It might be the opposite.’” He offered to turn over the stream to any DJ who wanted a new home. “Believe it or not,” he says, “they all turned me down. But then, one by one, they all started to call us.”
Asked about former DJs joining TheRoots.FM, a spokesperson for KDHX says, “For nearly 37 years, KDHX has been independent, 100 percent locally produced, and non-commercial. We are proud to be one of the longest-running community radio stations in the United States. And with this foundation, we are eager to provide a soundtrack for St. Louis. With nearly 50 new volunteers and 31 new radio programs, we’ve turned up the volume. Our volunteers come from every corner of our listening area bringing joy to the airwaves. You can hear it in their voices.”
One of the DJs who made the move to The Roots.FM was Drea Stein, who had hosted a show on KDHX for 26 years before being unceremoniously fired. She was touched by Stephens’ initial offer, but wasn’t ready to move on. “I had to deal with my grief,” she says. “It cut me to my core. I’d spent 28 years volunteering for KDHX. When I got through that grief, I said, ‘John, I’m ready to do it today.’ He couldn’t have been more supportive.”
She’s joined by former KDHX DJ Rick Comelo, who hosts a prog-rock show, and Mark Hyken, who recently moved his ‘60s and ‘70s show Timewarp Radio to TheRoots.FM after 20 years at KDHX. The old colleagues have no chance at bumping into each other in the hallway; while Stephens leases space from Nine PBS in Grand Center, all the Roots.FM DJs work remotely.
Stein acknowledges that she misses the camaraderie of going to a physical address. She also misses getting to take callers. She recalls a riverboat captain who’d always listen—and call in—to her KDHX show during his trips down the Mississippi. When she recently ran into him at a music festival, she says she persuaded him to download the Roots.FM app and give that a try.
“He was so happy to find out that I was back on the airwaves per se,” she says. She also enjoys getting to see where listeners are coming from, a perk not available to stations that broadcast over the airwaves. While the majority are in St. Louis, among the 3,000 to 4,000 people tuning in on a given day are people across the U.S. and even the world.
Stephens says the station’s appeal is simple. “All the music we grew up with has gone away,” he says. “Radio stations don’t play these songs any more. We have well over 30,000 albums and digitized them all into a sophisticated computer network—the effect that has on older music lovers is just overwhelming.” He adds, “KSHE is thrilled if people listen for 45 minutes. Our average member listens between seven and 11 hours a day.”
While the station remains devoted to rock ‘n’ roll, it welcomes newer bands that have the right sound, and that’s creating opportunities for local bands. “We play lots of new music,” Stephens says, and proudly boasts of breaking songs that now play on college radio stations.
Its love of local favorite the Mighty Pines led to sponsorship of this weekend’s Pines Fest, which also features Beth Bombara, Steve Ewing Band, and more. Frontman Neil Salsich says the station’s support has been appreciated. “We’ve had a great experience working with them and going into and recording some voiceovers for Pines Fest and different things,” he says. “And all of our old pals that used to spin at KDHX, a lot of them are over there now.” (Even so, Salsich suggests the challenge of convincing local music fans to switch to a streaming option: “I think for a lot of St. Louisans, it takes some time to get warm up to a new thing.”)
The Roots.FM will also be broadcasting two Pines Fest performances live, and has previously broadcast shows from Edwardsville’s Wildey Theatre as well as the Family Arena in St. Charles. Stephens hopes the Pines Fest partnership will lead to more opportunities to showcase St. Louis bands. The station’s website now boasts a concert calendar, and he intends to stream a concert a month from different venues around town. The station’s one-year-old slogan, “Help us save the music,” has taken on a more expansive definition lately: At first, The Roots.FM meant it in the sense of saving the music that people like Stephens grew up with. Now, he says, it also includes the idea of supporting St. Louis’ music scene.
“Our next big goal we’re working on is a massive promotion to support all the local musicians and the local venues that appear to be having a tough time,” says Stephens. “With KDHX and then [the Riverfront Times] going away, that’s had a devastating effect on the local music scene. …. How do these bands promote themselves now? That’s a hole we intend to fill.”
