A local non-profit group will buy community radio station KCPW and keep it an National Public Radio affiliate. A Christian broadcasting group also had made an offer on the station. Here are the nuts and bolts:

Wasatch Public Media’s Letter of Intent to purchase KCPW’s 88.3 and 105.3 FM frequencies and other assets necessary to operate KCPW in Salt Lake City was accepted by Community Wireless of Park City on Tuesday, March 25, 2008. The $2,400,000 offer does not include 1010 AM, which is being purchased under a separate Letter of Intent by IHR Educational Broadcasting [a Catholic broadcaster] for $1,300,000.

Under manager Blair Feulner, KCPW borrowed $2.5 million to buy an AM license to allow the station to compete with the UofU's KUER statewide. But the bold gambit flopped and KCPW was being pulled under by the loan payments. Worse, Feulner's extravagant pay package, reported by the Trib, angered many contributors, KCPW's on-air fundraisers began falling short. For details on the station's troubles, go here.

One good sign for the station's future is that Stephen Denkers, Executive Director of the Willard L. Eccles Foundation and board member of the Stephen G. & Susan Denkers Family Foundation, has been deeply involved — he even joined in a recent rally for KCPW, above — in preserving the station as a community news and public affairs outlet.