Since 1975, KOTO Radio has provided the Telluride region with high-quality, commercial-free, non-underwritten community radio. Our mission is to inform, educate, and entertain while reflecting the needs, desires, and diversity of our community.
SUPPORT FROM COLORADO MEDIA PROJECT
Advancing Equity 2023, 2022; #newsCOneeds 2023, 2022
2023 Advancing Equity Award: $10,000 to support KOTO's Spanish-language news program and efforts to engage Latino community members through storytelling and celebration events
2023 Advancing Equity Update: KOTO just hosted their second annual Latinx Heritage Open House event, a great success for connecting the community with upcoming events and recruiting community DJs. Their Spanish-language host Luis Tavares, who was recruited at their first Latinx Open House last year, now runs two successful programs, including the Spanish-language Noticias (a weekly local news headlines roundup), and Off the Record (a monthly public affairs show, for which Louis fields questions from the community in both Spanish and English). This summer, they are exploring additional channels for connecting Spanish-speaking communities with local news and radio programming, including a scan of existing WhatsApp groups for potential partnerships, and potentially conducting a regional audience survey with Corona Insights, following the lead of the Roaring Fork Valley’s El Sol del Valle coalition.
2022 Advancing Equity Award: $5,000 to support DEI training for staff and stipends for Spanish-language hosts, reporters and partners.
2022 Advancing Equity Impact: The DEI training helped put into place a foundation to make sustainable and meaningful change. The greatest takeaway was, "if you mean it, put it in your budget." We did that for 2022 and with this grant funding, achieved the goal of hiring a reporter to expand our Spanish news programming.
The impacts of this have been twofold. For one, KOTO is more authentically meeting its mission statement, but more importantly, we are engaging all members of our community in KOTO's activities, programming and more. By hiring Luis Tavares, we have at least 15 more people (his family and friends) who want to be involved with KOTO and are encouraging their friends to listen and participate! It's been absolutely wonderful to see the impacts of diversifying our airwaves and making this small step toward meaningful and sustainable change.