KUTR, Salt Lake City's LDS contemporary music station, ceased broadcasting Friday due to a lack of advertising support. It has been replaced by a simulcast of sister station KCPX, FM-98.7.
According to Ernie Kovacs, general manager of KUTR-KCPX, this change is permanent. He said the station has received numerous telephone calls asking what happened but stressed that making a sudden, unannounced change like this is the best way to handle such a situation. Six employees have lost their jobs.KUTR started in June 1985 on AM-860. It went off the air for several months in the summer of 1989 when its previous owner also felt it did not have enough advertising support. In September 1989, it was reborn on AM-1320 when KEMX became KUTR.
Because of the overall decrease in radio advertising nationally, several executives at other Salt Lake radio stations have indicated they would be very surprised if another AM station picked up the old KUTR format this time around.
The only station with a format similar to KUTR, is KSRR, AM-1400, Utah County. This music station, geared to music of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, currently cannot reach most of Salt Lake County, but Robert Morrey, KSRR general manager, said he hopes to boost his station's signal within the next two to five weeks to give some KUTR fans an alternative.