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Lacking a buyer and short on funds, KUSP goes off the air

It seems some college station budgets are getting slimmer. I've been in touch with about 30 or so schools and have heard a few horror stories for college stations that got their funding from student fee or a sum of money from some college entity. A couple of stations were cut off after being told to bring in some money and finding that harder than they thought. Some of these freeform student run stations only get about 1 in 200 on campus listening. Example: 1,150 listeners out of 43,000 students and 78% do not listen to the stream. I suggest to stations they should sell some underwriting and be very active at increasing awareness so they can show something to justify the needed cash to get by. At one online station a fundraiser got $16 and the college said they wouldn't pay because so few listened and seemed to want the station around. They can now be heard in one lobby at one of the residence halls.

AAA is a tough road in most if not almost all markets. In fact, classical usually does better. Heck, smooth jazz might do better in many markets.
 
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RadioPatrol said:
Well When KUSP aired News/Talk how did they manage to air that format without cannibalizing KAZU the other NPR News/Talk station in the Santa Cruz/ Monterey markets.
Click to expand...

There is no exclusivity for NPR News Talk, so you're allowed to cannibalize. It's very common around the country.
 
TheBigA said:
There is no exclusivity for NPR News Talk, so you're allowed to cannibalize. It's very common around the country.
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Ok what I Really meant was how did KUSP separate themselves from KAZU when they were the NPR News/Talk member station.

It's like KALW and KQED the NPR stations in San Francisco. KALW news/talk programming must cater to donors and Audiences in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. KQED radio must cater to everybody else in the bay area and yes KQED radio is subsidized by weekend pledge drives announced on channel 9.
 
Just seeing this thread and wanted to contribute a bit here. First of all, there's an interesting perspective from Don Mussell. It's in KVMR's archive here:

http://archive.kvmr.org/

Scroll down to the KVMR evening news on Friday August 5th. The interview starts about 13 minutes in. No matter how you look at it, KUSP had a tough row to hoe. People familiar with the Santa Cruz market know that KAZU has the NPR audience, KPIG has the AAA audience, KZSC has the college radio audience, and KBOQ had (until recently) the classical audience. KKUP - while mainly a San Jose station - also has listeners and subscribers in Santa Cruz. I thought KKJZ had an AM with an FM translator there also. But I can't find it right now. The market is generally quite progressive and suitable for public radio, there's just not a lot of people there. I think what they did with "music discovery" was probably their best shot, and perhaps it would make money on a steady-state basis with just operating costs in about a year. But never enough to pay down that debt.

I see people taking about KVMR here too. We like to consider ourselves a decent example of a community radio station. It's far more than a club. We're quite serious about serving the community and I feel we do it well. We're often classified as AAA. But what is that? KPIG, WNCW, and The Current are all considered AAA. But their playlists are drastically different. KVMR is still programmed mostly by volunteers, with the shows assigned by a program committee. We're really far too diverse to be a straight-ahead AAA. While I enjoy most of what is on this station, I'm just an engineer and don't really have much of a choice regarding what is aired. But our listeners obviously enjoy it too. We have enough subscribers and underwriters to make a go of it and support a small staff. While our audience is much smaller than the Monterey Bay, we're also the only game in town.

KUSP's major problem was the debt incurred as a result of the NPR programming. I do believe they could have found a niche in that market by focusing on reducing their costs - even going back to some volunteer-based shows. But that's water under the bridge. I do wish them well, and I'm hopeful that something good comes from that frequency.

Dave B.
 
It sounds like KVMR does what I suggest other such stations try to accomplish: match shows as much as possible to allow one show's audience to carry over to the next. Nothing like going from heavy metal to classical and then western swing!
 
b-turner said:
It sounds like KVMR does what I suggest other such stations try to accomplish: match shows as much as possible to allow one show's audience to carry over to the next. Nothing like going from heavy metal to classical and then western swing!
Click to expand...

Oh - KVMR has jarring moments for sure. But overall it's mostly listenable.

Dave B.
 
I for one am a big fan of KVMR... I really never know what I might hear, and I do enjoy the wide variety of regular shows. You're an engineer Dave? Let me know if you ever need a hand, I'm not too far away in Meadow Vista.

Dave Fortenberry, Broadcast Engineer...


DaveBayArea said:
Just seeing this thread and wanted to contribute a bit here. First of all, there's an interesting perspective from Don Mussell. It's in KVMR's archive here:

http://archive.kvmr.org/

Scroll down to the KVMR evening news on Friday August 5th. The interview starts about 13 minutes in. No matter how you look at it, KUSP had a tough row to hoe. People familiar with the Santa Cruz market know that KAZU has the NPR audience, KPIG has the AAA audience, KZSC has the college radio audience, and KBOQ had (until recently) the classical audience. KKUP - while mainly a San Jose station - also has listeners and subscribers in Santa Cruz. I thought KKJZ had an AM with an FM translator there also. But I can't find it right now. The market is generally quite progressive and suitable for public radio, there's just not a lot of people there. I think what they did with "music discovery" was probably their best shot, and perhaps it would make money on a steady-state basis with just operating costs in about a year. But never enough to pay down that debt.

I see people taking about KVMR here too. We like to consider ourselves a decent example of a community radio station. It's far more than a club. We're quite serious about serving the community and I feel we do it well. We're often classified as AAA. But what is that? KPIG, WNCW, and The Current are all considered AAA. But their playlists are drastically different. KVMR is still programmed mostly by volunteers, with the shows assigned by a program committee. We're really far too diverse to be a straight-ahead AAA. While I enjoy most of what is on this station, I'm just an engineer and don't really have much of a choice regarding what is aired. But our listeners obviously enjoy it too. We have enough subscribers and underwriters to make a go of it and support a small staff. While our audience is much smaller than the Monterey Bay, we're also the only game in town.

KUSP's major problem was the debt incurred as a result of the NPR programming. I do believe they could have found a niche in that market by focusing on reducing their costs - even going back to some volunteer-based shows. But that's water under the bridge. I do wish them well, and I'm hopeful that something good comes from that frequency.

Dave B.
Click to expand...
 
jammerdave;6116182 You're an engineer Dave? Let me know if you ever need a hand said:
Yup. I'm the KVMR engineer (we actually have one). Sent you a private message through the radiodiscussions site. Keep in touch.

Dave B.
Click to expand...
 
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