Could you use some financial advice or information? Local investors or folks who just want to safeguard their nest-egg might not know about a resource right in their own back yard: KBNP or “The Money Station” (AM 1410) that calls itself Oregon’s only all-business and financial radio station.
Located just off Boones Ferry Road in Tualatin (the huge dish in the front yard is hard to miss), longtime Tigard resident Keith Lyons is the managing partner of the station ably assisted by his daughter Jenifer LeStaht.
The merger of Lyons and KBNP is really a match made in heaven that marked its 35th anniversary last year. Decades ago, Lyons was working in shipping and receiving at Meier & Frank at the Lloyd Center when he happened to wander into a rock ’n’ roll radio station, KQEN, in Roseburg in 1970. He was told he had a job if he would cut his hair and lose the beard “because we don’t want hippies around here.” Lyons complied and by 1971 started working there in programming (as a DJ in the days of 45s, 33s, 78 rpms and reel-to-reel tapes) and advertising sales, met his wife Teri and stayed for 16 years.
Moving to the Portland area in 1986, the Lyonses built a house in Tigard, and Lyons went to work for an ad agency, which led to him becoming the manager/partner of KBNP in 1989. “This had been a jazz station that had terrible reception at night,” he said. “The manager had tried to change it when he came and tried different formats, settling upon financial news.”
When Lyons came along, “there were already financial news stations in Portland, but nobody was doing business – so we based programming based on either ‘you make money or you spend money,’ and at the time, mutual funds were getting more awareness,” he said. “In the Tigard-Tualatin School District, I talked about finance. I told students that they would be bored by my radio station, but if they listened to it, after high school they would have the knowledge to buy a car and learn how to invest if they saved wisely, like KBNP hosts advised.
“Kids need to know the value of compounding. They get into financial trouble early and get into financial pitfalls that they have to climb out of. People say, ‘I don’t have enough money to start investing,’ but they can learn to pay their bills, invest and still have money to play.”
According to Lyons, who has a deep resonant “radio voice,” there are 43 radio stations in the Portland area, most owned by large corporate radio groups like iHeart or Intercom, and KBNP is one of only two independent stations remaining. Podcasts are now a big trend, “but people have to find you,” Lyons said.
KBNP focuses on Wall Street on Monday through Friday and business and finance, including related segments on such topics as veterans, pets and hardware, on Saturday and Sunday, with the majority of the programming nationally syndicated.
“We try to be as balanced as we can be for the community,” Lyons said. “There are two different Oregons: There is Portland-Salem-Eugene and the rest of Oregon. We bring a small-town touch to radio. It brings it home, and people feel comfortable.”
The station’s signal strength is 5,000 watts during the day, which gives it a range of about 35 miles, and nine watts at night. The station averages 63,000 to 83,000 listeners per day, according to Lyons.
KBNP started streaming in 1994 after Lyons discovered that residents of high-rise buildings in downtown Portland couldn’t receive the station. He called Mark Cuban (yes, that Mark Cuban from “Shark Tank”), who was able to solve the problem by streaming.
Radio remains challenging. COVID-19 along with new social media outlets “put a big clamp on us,” Lyons said. “And during the Bernie Madoff scandal, the feds checked everyone for financial scams. We were even shut down for a month by Mother Nature after the 1996 flood.”
Lyons is always looking at tweaking the station’s programming. “I try to go out and find programs for our market and what is not being covered,” he said. “We like to provide good solid advice on these shows. We have incorporated more and more political shows – because politicians impact earning, savings, taxation and the economy.
“Probably nine networks contact me every week to pitch shows, but I am always looking at local content. When we sell airtime, the programmers go out and find their own sponsors.”
The station broadcasts 24 hours per day seven days a week, but an occasional issue that Lyons has to deal with is that a network elsewhere can be impacted by weather or other events that can cause outages “and our signal going down and no reception,” Lyons said. “I can’t control dead air time created elsewhere, but people will still call and say, ‘Do you know you’re off the air?’”
For those interested in owning a radio station, no one can just start a new station nowadays. “There are no more openings,” Lyons said. “An existing station has to be available, and there are only so many stations allocated so there is no frequency interference. You have to get the equipment, FCC (Federal Communications Commission) licensing and engineering studies.”
Lyons calls himself a one-man band who uses his “radio voice” on occasion, recording commercials and also doing interviews, but he also changes the lights and sweeps the sidewalk. “I love what I do,” he said. “I listened to the radio growing up in Northeast Portland. As much as they try to downplay AM radio and run it into the ground, radio is still here and is not going away.”
Daughter Jennifer LeStaht added, “He loves it. He will never retire.”
KBNP’s transmission tower is located at Oaks Park in Southeast Portland, far away from the office and receiver located at 18925 S.W. 84th Ave., Tualatin, in a building that was formerly owned by a dentist. “Talk Radio can make someone mad enough they may want to spit…” Lyons noted, “but this being a former dentist office — we have a sink in every room, just in case.”
For more information, kbnp.com, email gm@kbnp.com or call 503-223-6769.
