You can see the GO Country/Kjazz/Kmozart Bldg as you drive North up the 405...Cotner Ave parallels the Fwy. I just happened to coincidentally listen to KKJZ one Sunday aft/eve in which I the discovered was the last broadcast from the Campus. Although nothing directly negative was spoken, I could easily tell that the air personality (don't remember who) was less than thrilled at the prospect of broadcasting permanently from a location far away from the College. I suppose it was the same experience decades ago when KUSC would essentially at one point have nothing more to do with USC.
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KKGO 105.1 Hd3
- Thread starter jasonharper2013
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This on Facebook yesterday
I guess my point is that College radio isn't really College radio anymore. Here in SoCal I can think of only a couple of stations that are still staffed primarily by students and volenteers. KXLU, KUCI, and possibly KVCR. If anyone else can help out on this it would be fun...
It depends on the college. There are lots of college radio stations still staffed by students & alums in the NYC area. KKJZ may have been student run at some point, but I remember it as KLON, an NPR station that played jazz. But colleges have been trying to cut costs, and radio stations are expensive. So if they aren't self sustaining in some way, they're hard to justify.
I could continiue my point in that College radio, I thought, was originally intended to be the training and proving grounds for those who wished to pursue a career in Broadcasting, but I guess that's almost irrelevant now...sad
It depends on the school. The ones where the students are still in charge are mainly run as student activities. The stations are located in the student center, where non-academic activities take place. That can be a pretty expensive club. If the station is meant as an instructive activity, where students are taught the business, then the station is more professional, with experienced staff running the station. and students provide support. But the idea of training students strictly to be DJs is obsolete. That may have been useful when DJs actually cued up records. But it's become more computer based, so broadcast training is more about the convergence of art & technology. Audio production, podcast creation, or social media involvement. I don't know the relationship between the college and KKJZ.
There are lots of jobs in radio and audio. If you broaden the view from physical radio stations to Sirius, Spotify, and Apple, there are more opportunities than there were 40 years ago. But those opportunities are more complicated than simply playing your favorite songs in a non-commercial non-competitive environment. Unfortunately the old view of college radio doesn't really provide the kind of useful training students need. Very few of them go on to careers in the business, because they didn't get exposed to the parts of the business where they can build a career.
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Radio broadcasting itself has always been envisioned as a blending of art with science, entertainment and information, with the intent of serving a given community, and hopefully it will do that so well it can't help but make money. And in the case of community/college radio it will make it's mark by providing various niche formats considered too narrow to be provided by commercial operators, that the public will be willing to donate directly to help pay for it. This obviously differs from satellite subscription sevices that provide Musak like service. This certainly has it's place, but it not "Broadcasting" by any stretch.
True "Broadcasting" is meant to be a free and community involved service.
The licensee is actually the California State University Long Beach Research Foundation---a 501(c)3 established in the 1950s:
Research Foundation
The CSULB Research Foundation (Research Foundation) was established in 1956 as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. The Research Foundation exists to enhance and advance the educational mission of CSULB. One of the many responsibilities of the Research Foundation is to provide accounting and...
88.1 was a student-run station that belonged to the Long Beach Unified School District. It was student-run, but shut down in 1981 and the license was transferred to the CSULB Research Foundation. And from day one, it operated with professional talent. That's not to say that students weren't involved on some levels, but it was not in any way a student-run radio station.
When Mt. Wilson assumed management and programming of KKJZ in 2007, this line was in the CSULB newspaper report:
"Recently, the radio station suffered financial woes, and the new management will have the ability to operate the station without any financial struggles."
That's what colleges want. They don't mind owning a license, but they don't want it to be a drag on resources. Saul has heritage in the jazz format. It makes more sense as a non-commercial station. So he & his family get to support one of their favorite genres, while using it to make money in a different way than traditional advertising. More stations should look into this. It beats selling to religious operators.
"ENGINEERING SPECIAL TEMPORARY AUTHORITY EXHIBIT
California State University, Long Beach Research Foundation, licensee (“Licensee”) of full
power FM station KKJZ (Fac. ID No. 8197) (the “Station”), hereby requests special temporary
authority (“STA”) after its antenna system sustained damage from a storm that rendered it
inoperable. The top 30 feet of the Station’s co-axial line was burned and appears to have shorted
out, so the entire transmission line must be replaced. Further, the Station is evaluating whether
the transmitter and radiating portion of the antenna were also damaged and must be replaced or
repaired.
Accordingly, Licensee requests permission to temporarily operate the Station: (1) at a reduced
ERP of 1.24 kW (rather than its usual 30 kW); (2) from the tower of KKGO
(Fac. ID No. 43939), which is owned by Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters, Inc. (“Mount
Wilson”); and (3) via Mount Wilson’s auxiliary transmitting equipment (see FCC File No.
BXLH-20050422AEB). Licensee has obtained permission from Mount Wilson to operate from
the KKGO tower"
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The FCC ruled that terrain shielding is meaningless, because if in this case if it was actually taken in to consideration, a precedent would be set, and claimed that they would have to "re-do" about half of the country's FM assignments.
Funny, I thought that's just one reason we have so-called "Super Computers".
I'm guessing that there is less than a 50% chance that this will be authorised. A few years ago KKJZ wanted to relocate their facility to, I think, Flint Pk with similar low power and even a directional antenna, The FCC said no. They claimed that KKJZ's signal would prohibitively overlap KCRY's predicted signal in Santa Clarita. (KCRY is a Class B station licensed to Mojave operating as a translator for KCRW Santa Monica) Turns out that there is really no signal from KCRY in Santa Clarita and it actually doesn't matter because KCRW is co-located on Briarcrest Pk with KYSR, and its 9 kW signal puts a decent signal in Santa Clarita.
The FCC ruled that terrain shielding is meaningless, because if in this case if it was actually taken in to consideration, a precedent would be set, and claimed that they would have to "re-do" about half of the country's FM assignments.
Funny, I thought that's just one reason we have so-called "Super Computers".
Too bad simulcasting KKJZ was a much better idea...
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