More Iowans than ever will be able to watch and listen to the Veishea parade from the comfort of their own homes than in past years.

The number of media outlets willing to broadcast Veishea events has grown more than ever in the past year, as the Des Moines Radio Group — a group of four Des Moines area radio stations — has added its listening audience to the viewing audience provided by Des Moines TV station KDSM.

The radio group, comprised of radio stations Star 102.5 FM, Lazer 103.3 FM, Oldies 93.3 FM and Lite 104.1 FM, will be using all of its stations, except Oldies 93.3 FM, to broadcast live segments of the Veishea parade during scheduled breaks from its regular programming. Stations will also provide prize and ticket giveaways.

“As an executive board, we made it a goal of ours to try to involve more people in the state of Iowa in Veishea,” said Kevin Roepke, Veishea marketing co-chairman. “We felt these four stations provided a bigger demographic for us.”

In previous years, Ames radio station Channel Q 105.1 FM provided radio coverage for Veishea.

Representatives from Channel Q were unavailable for comment; however, Roepke and a representative from the Des Moines Radio Group said the listening audience combined from the group’s four stations is substantially larger than that of Channel Q.

Leigh McNabb, promotions director for Lazer 103.3 FM, said Lazer alone reaches approximately 70,000 listeners, but she is unsure as to how many potential listeners the group reaches as a whole.

“Veishea decided they wanted to do something different this year and approached us. [We agreed to cover the parade] because our stations are always excited to be involved in the community and there’s no better way to be involved in the Ames community than through Veishea,” she said.

Because there is such a widespread Veishea appeal across the state, the radio group will be providing their coverage of central Iowa free of charge to Veishea and the university.

“It’s not a money thing, it’s all being part of the community,” said McNabb, an ISU alumna. “It’s a personal thing for many people. For many, we’ve grown up around this area and have gone to Veishea since we were little. It’s something that’s been a part of us growing up.”

Despite not charging for coverage, the cost of production and planning for such a remote broadcast from Ames will not be cheap. It’s an issue that forced Des Moines TV station KCCI to drop its coverage of the parade after approximately eight years.

“It was a very large remote broadcast operation that was very manpower-intensive,” said Bob Day, operations manager for KCCI. “It got to the point where we felt we didn’t have the manpower and facilities to do it in a way we would want.”

Day said staff changes at KCCI left the station without the resources it once had to be able to continue coverage of the parade in spring 2003.

Planning would start several months ahead of time with programming and production crews to layout coverage, Day said.

He said KCCI used four or five cameras and a crew of about 12 people on the day of the Veishea parade.

But, despite the hassles of putting the broadcast together, he said it was unfortunate for KCCI to see coverage of the parade leave the station.

Veishea lucked out, however, when KCCI dropped its coverage of the parade last year at the last minute because KDSM was able to take KCCI’s place.

Ted Stephens, vice president of general management for KDSM, said the station covers its costs for broadcasting the parade through advertising revenue.

Campus radio station KURE 88.5 FM will also try to broadcast the parade for the first time, said Robert McMahon, director of public relations for KURE.

Those who enjoy surfing the Internet will be able to see a simulcast of the parade on the ISU Macintosh Users Group Web site.

“A lot of people can’t make it and [the efforts by all of these media] is a great way for those people to keep following the Veishea tradition that’s been set up at Iowa State,” said Nate Meier, Veishea general co-chairman.

This correction was printed on April 6, 2004:

Due to a reporting error, the April 5 article “Radio stations join in parade coverage” omitted two members of the Des Moines Radio Group. KRNT 1350 and KPSZ 940 are AM-band stations in the group. The Daily regrets the error.