Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
ST. GEORGE — A Utah radio station is getting some unexpected attention as a viral campaign to end human rights abuses in Africa has drawn millions to Google the same four letters: K-O-N-Y.
St. George's 99.9 KONY, known as KONY Country, identifies itself as Southern Utah's best country station. To those unfamiliar with the station, though, a visit to the website — which appears second in a Google search for "Kony" — brought an unexpected suprise: a radio station whose management was confused at the attention.
"We saw a huge spike in page views after the campaign started," said Carl Lamar, the station's general manager. "People were clicking to see if there was a tie-in, which obviously there isn't."
In the week after the Kony 2012 movement began, the station's website was visited 4,177 times — compared to the usual "few hundred." Lamar said at first, the visits came as a surprise, because he had not heard of the movement.
"I started seeing Facebook entries for "Stop Kony," he said. "My initial response was, ‘Why would they want to stop our radio station? Did they not like a song I was playing? What's the deal?'"
My initial response was, ‘Why would they want to stop our radio station?
–Carl Lamar
"I got privy to it quickly."
Lamar said he does not expect the attention to last, but any attention to the website is good attention, as long as people are not comparing the website to Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army.
Kony has received widespread attention in recent weeks due to a film released by non-profit Invisible Children. The 30-minute film has garnered more than 83.6 million views on YouTube since it was posted two weeks ago and has spread quickly with the help of social media.
"If it wasn't such an atrocity with what this guy is connected, it would be humorous," Lamar said.
