As I write this, I’m listening to an aircheck of Inland Northwest Broadcasting’s KZFN, Z-Fun 106, from Moscow, ID. This aircheck exists because one of the people I serve on Washington Council of the Blind’s communications committee lives on the Washington side of that small market in Clarkston, some 30 miles away from the station, so I asked him to record it for me. These days, if a station doesn’t stream, I want to hear it somehow, even if it’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard, because I wouldn’t know that otherwise. In the case of KZFN, I’ve actually heard the station a couple of times, because I’ve been in range of its air signal, but it’s been over 12 years since that has happened. So, in this case, I know what to expect.
The station has always sounded like it should be in a bigger market than it is, and that’s likely intentional given two major universities exist in the station’s listening area, at least one of those drawing a significant number of students from the more populated west side of Washington state, particularly the Puget Sound area. The first thing that happens in the aircheck is the 4:00 legal, going into the top 4 at 4. In that ID, the station promotes that the votes come from the station’s Facebook and Instagram pages, as well as the station’s app. “Wait, you have an app but no stream?” was my first thought. Later, in a promo for the station’s morning show, the regionally syndicated Joey and Lauren based in Boise, they said you could listen through the app. At this point I’m thinking “wait, there is a stream? Let me see if I can find it.” The first thing I did was download the app, and as soon as I opened it, I got live audio. As this was last night just before 9, I got there 8:00 mix show. This began a quest to find the stream on my computer, something I still haven’t succeeded at. I’m not even sure most people would know where to look, but I’ve poked around these streaming platforms enough to figure out each of their link structures. If there’s one I’m missing, I’d like to know about it if it would get me closer to finding the live stream for this station. I’ve tried Stream the World, Abacast, Secure Net, Amper Wave, Stream On, Main Digital Stream, Mainstream Network, Lightning Stream, and Cloud Radio Network with no luck. Abacast and Amper Wave do require the company name as well as the station’s calls, so I may not have gotten that right, but I shouldn’t even have to go hunting for this.
Outside of the above mentioned app, Facebook, and Instagram, the station has no web presence at all. All the radio platforms have the station’s website as zfun106.com, but that goes nowhere. Even 15 years ago, all that site featured was an under construction page. Eventually, that came down, and the station’s website listing on Wikipedia directed to an about page meant for advertisers. Now, even that is gone. It’s 2025, a station should have a much better web presence than this. I will give Inland Northwest Broadcasting at least a small amount of credit, as they are likely reaching their target audience of college students where they are, with social media and a phone app, but that’s not much to go off of. Even the Facebook page went quiet for about five years and has only come back to life recently. In 2025, a station should have a minimum of a basic website, consistent social media, and if a stream exists, an easy way to listen on whatever device can play audio. In February 2012, I pulled a list of stations that weren’t streaming at the time. I did an update to this list in Spring 2018, and again starting in September 2021. If the app existed at either of these times, there was no way for anyone to find it by searching what web presence existed, as the only way someone would know about the app is if they were listening over the air.
Leave a Reply