KPFK

KPFK
Broadcast area Los Angeles, California
Branding Pacifica Radio
Slogan "Radio powered by the people"
Frequency 90.7 (MHz)
Repeater(s) KPFK-FM1 Malibu, California
First air date July 26, 1959
Format Public Radio
ERP 110,000 watts
HAAT 863.0 meters (2,831.4 ft)
Class B
Facility ID 51252
Transmitter coordinates 34°13′45″N 118°4′3″W / 34.22917°N 118.06750°W / 34.22917; -118.06750
Callsign meaning K PaciFiC (K)a
Owner Pacifica Foundation, inc.
Webcast Listen Live
Website http://www.kpfk.org/

KPFK (90.7 FM) is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, United States, which serves the Greater Los Angeles Area, and also streams 24 hours a day via the Internet. It was the second of five stations in the non-commercial, listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio network.

KPFK began broadcasting in April 1959,[1] twelve years after the Pacifica Foundation was created by pacifist Lewis Hill, and ten years after the network's flagship station, KPFA, was founded in Berkeley. KPFK also broadcasts on KPFK-FM1 along the Malibu coast, K258BS (99.5 MHz FM) in China Lake, California, K254AH (98.7 MHz FM) in Santa Barbara, California.

With its 110,000 watt main transmitter atop Mount Wilson, KPFK is one of the most powerful FM stations in the western United States. The station can be heard from the California/Mexico border to Santa Barbara to Ridgecrest/China Lake. A second 10-watt translator is licensed in Isla Vista, California, a census-designated place outside of Santa Barbara. The transmitter for that station is located atop Gibraltar Peak, allowing its broadcast to be heard over a large portion of southern Santa Barbara County.

Funding

The station is part of the Pacifica Network which has 5 radio stations besides KPFK in Los Angeles: in KPFA in Berkeley, California, KPFT in Houston, Texas, WBAI in New York, New York, and WPFW in Washington, D.C..

As part of the Pacifica Foundation Network, the radio station in Los Angeles receives some limited funding from charitable organizations, such as the Ford Foundation and government funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Operating costs are covered primarily by listener-sponsors and a few sponsored events. The station runs no regular paid commercial advertisements or other commercial programming. Pacifica states that it has no "sponsors" of a commercial type and is supported solely by its listeners.

Due to auditing lapses in years 2014 and 2015, no CPB funding was received. The CPB funding had accounted for about 10% of needed funding in prior years. Diminishing audience size and other factors also have been factors in this loss of funding.[2]

Frequent on-air fund drives eliciting more donors and sponsors are needed to support the station financially. These "pledge-drives" occur more than 3-4 times a year. There are additional fund-raising periods held for special circumstances. For example, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, KPFK held a special fund drive to raise money for survivors of that catastrophe.

Donors who support and sustain KPFK generally donate a minimum of $25 or a regular $50 for a year-long membership. Larger donations are often requested and then are rewarded with DVDs, CDs, books or special downloads. These benefits are called "premiums". The person donating money to the radio station selects the "premium" heard on the air or noted from the website listings. The premium has a fixed title and number. The "premium" is later sent to them as a "gift". To insure the radio station's "non-commercial" and "non-profit" status, there is no direct sale of any materials.

Due to the recent state of the economy in the United States, fund drive frequency has notably increased. While there are often complaints and concerns about the interruption of regular programming on KPFK, by those who listen frequently and regularly, the money necessary for maintenance and operations must come mostly from sponsors and stakeholders. KPFK derives about 90% of its financial support from listener-sponsors, and also then pays a small portion to its network umbrella, the Pacifica Foundation.

Another way to raise money for the station is the "Film Club". For people that contribute $150 at other than fund times or $100 when pledging during the pledge drives with money another pledge, there is also a subscription to the KPFK Film Club. This benefit allows those who are subscribers to attend various selective film screenings throughout the year. Films are announced on air and the donor calls the station to enter his or her name on a will-call list. The film club screens art films, documentaries, film classics, and even current first-run films. Although the film club promises a minimum of 12 films per year, there are usually more than 100 free film screenings.

Local Station Board [LSB]

KPFK, as all Pacifica radio stations, are to follow "bylaws" that are voted in Board meetings, at both local [KPFK's LSB] and national [Pacifica's PNB] levels. The KPFK local board meets monthly - with various committees meeting separately and reporting to the main board. The General Manager yearly presents a budget for the LSB's approval.

The bylaws are supposed to be available for reading only to all listener-sponsors also via their radio station's local website.

Elections for board membership are held infrequently, and new members are supposed to represent a community group of listeners-sponsors, and others are elected to represent staff. Both types of LSB members participate with the same status in meetings.

Anyone in the listener-public may attend LSB meetings. There, each person lines up to offer their very-few-seconds comment - called a "public comment" - to the LSB body or the committees at their meetings. There is usually no direct response or discussion of any "public comments", but an audio recording is made of the entire LSB meeting with these comments included. The Committee meetings are not recorded nor archived.

A visitor is there mostly to observe and listen, not participate hardly. Any listener may attend for the whole or part of the long LSB local board & committee meetings, with the specific date and location shown on KPFK's "Events" page on their website every month.

No proof of donation or alliances is required to attend, but one is there as a 'listener' to the process and not part of the group's discussion, other than the slim 'public comment' time allotted. if one chooses to briefly speak there.


Programming

Like most Pacifica stations, KPFK has, since its inception run a very eclectic schedule, including: world music and many other varieties of music, talk radio, politics, interviews and public affairs programming. A limited number of programs are shared between the various Pacifica radio stations.[3]

While KPFK airs a few national Pacifica radio shows, including Democracy Now! and Free Speech Radio News, KPFK local program producers are accorded the maximum amount of editorial freedom possible. As a result, divergent opinions and viewpoints may contradict other ones also played at the station.

Since most programmers try to keep their own programs on-air for many years, they leave little room for even a few new programs to enter the station's schedule, to be heard even on a trial basis. Changes are made occasionally with the General Manager's and Program Director's approval.

Programs are aired 24/7 hours each and every day, all year, and are also available on-line when broadcast, then they can also be heard later - on-line only - for a limited number of days too, via the KPFK Archives.

There is non-transparency of who has the opportunity to be given on-air space for their programs and who cannot enter nor join into the station's program schedule. This has been often questioned outside the station, but with no available directions for how to become a program or become a programmer given. The schedule appears to be mostly closed to long-time programmers.

The unavailability of entering the system has continued on for years. The not-revealed benefits gained by each programmer and their 'guests'- has also been an unspoken topic and taboo not to be questioned nor mentioned. No transparency of how the closed programming system is designed or managed has been explained, though asked. As a result, those with their already fixed and ongoing programming opportunities remain in place for many years.

The variety of programs is wide and extensive. There are many varieties of music programs listed in the KPFK Program Schedule. The programmers may be selected and managed by the Program Manager, but then these programmers are not responsive to the general KPFK sponsor-listeners when the public tries to use the station website's listings to contact them. The closed inside loops have been questioned but to no avail.

Lack of communication from and by the radio station staff or the individual programmers has been a long contended issue, that has not been corrected nor resolved.[4]

A monthly short 1x call-in to the General Manager program with listeners' questions and concerns has not always been available, with this being the only limited access to the GM or sponsor's questions, and to be heard by all listeners.

Many believe that being mainly a listener-sponsored radio station, that all those involved as staff and management should also be receptive and responsive to those [=the public who sponsors and pays pledges to financially uphold the station] who financially support, and/or volunteer work freely, to maintain KPFK in its stated mission.

It has been stated that the only requirement is that programmers adhere to KPFK's Mission statement, which states that all programming must be "educational" and "non-commercial", must "serve the cultural welfare of the community", and must "contribute to a lasting understanding between nations and between the individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colors".[ Please see the Mission station on the main website: www.kpfk.org]

The station's programming is generally regarded as being Left Anti-authoritarian. This includes issues regarding politics, current events, women, the various minority ethnic groups. Some of these minorities also make up a sizable population of Southern California, so there is a significant Spanish-speaking-only segment of on-air time in the evenings. Also, minorities such as the LGBT community have a program on-air. African-American programming is extensive on-air as well.

KPFK's programming is also dedicated to the concerns about the environment and exposing inequitable human conditions at large. Focus is more often on what is not as easily exposed in the rest of the 'mass media'. So KPFK programs are often on those less well exposed topics, events, alternate sides of issues and divergent viewpoints.

KPFK also specially broadcasts entirely in Spanish - from 9PM PST to 12AM - every Monday through Thursday. Various programs all in Spanish are heard, some musical, and news. And many also are focused on various Central & South American issues and events.

History

A brief paragraph of historical information says: "Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-supported radio. http://www.pacificainexile.org

A bit more history thru 1997 is on KPFK website. http://kpfk.org/index.php/aboutkpfkpacifica/92-historyofpacificaradio

A tape history of a few special programs are also available online. http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/subject-tags/sound-and-fury-tape-history-kpfk-produced-mike-hodel-lucia-chappelle-and-other-kpfk

A book about Pacifica's history includes KPFK too. http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1389_reg.html

Another website includes some history information too and photos of some early leaders at Pacifica therein. http://pacificanetwork.org/pacifica-remembers-its-pacifist-roots/

An archive of KPFK folios, schedule brochures long no longer available is selectively shown here. Prior views and programs are noted therein. https://archive.org/stream/novefolio79kpfkrich/novefolio79kpfkrich_djvu.txt

A few websites refer to what is occurring at KPFK and the concerns about the radio station's transparency and survival. These may include more recent and current history and note changes happening to this radio station. http://kpfkcommentators.blogspot.com

Shows

This is only a partial list of all radio programs. See this page on the KPFK website for a full list.

Note the programs listed below are a slim few of the total played 24/7 on-air. Many have been placed here by the programers - promoting their own shows. These here are now listed in order of how many hours/week they do occupy on air, though changes may later be made.

A more updated complete List of all programs are on KPFK's website and a layout showing programs by type is also available there. http://kpfk.org/index.php/programs/programschedule

Translators

In addition to the main station, KPFK is relayed by an additional three translators to widen its broadcast area.

Call sign Frequency
(MHz) 		City of license ERP
W 		Class FCC info
K258BS 99.5 China Lake, Kern County, California 9 D FCC
K254AH 98.7 Isla Vista, California 10 D FCC
K229BO 93.7 Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California 10 D FCC
KPFK-FM1 90.7 Malibu, California 1500 D FCC

References

  1. ↑ "About Pacifica - A Short History". Pacifica.org. Retrieved 2012-02-22.
  2. ↑ http://Pacificainexile.org
  3. ↑ KPFK-FM "Folio" program guide: "P.M. Journal" https://archive.org/stream/marcfolio70kpfkrich#page/8/mode/2up
  4. ↑ kpfkcommentators.blogspot.com

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, April 26, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.