Pacifica Radio Inc is considering to sell WBAI of New York City

[recto101]

http://radioinsight.com/blog/headlines/69524/will-wbai-new-york-be-coming-on-the-market/

According to the article Pacifica's flagship station KPFA is also being considered in the deal to be sold.

 

[LKellerIII]

What Pacifica wants to do is raise money by swapping WBAI's frequency for a lesser (hence cheaper) frequency, possibly on the non-commercial end of the FM band. Same potential for KPFA.

 

[DavidKaye]

What Pacifica wants to do is raise money by swapping WBAI's frequency for a lesser (hence cheaper) frequency, possibly on the non-commercial end of the FM band. Same potential for KPFA.

Might be a big mistake. KRAB in Seattle sold off its commercial frequency in order to get $$ for an endowment to operate KRAB in perpetuity. Fine, except that they couldn't locate a station the covered Seattle. Even the rimshots were terrible. They finally did land a small station, but it sank. So, now the KRAB foundation (actually the Jack Straw Memorial Foundation) operates a recording studio instead. So much for giving radio to the people.

I can see the same thing happening in NYC and in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is flooded with so many lower powered non-comms that nothing except KQED Radio has anywhere near the reach of KPFA. And believe me, for the esoteric programming KPFA does, they need lots of reach to have any audience at all.

I think I mentioned here before that within the market, some non-comm channels are used multiple times, the most notable is 89.3, which is licensed to Berkeley, Fremont, Pescadero, Moss Beach, San Jose, and to a translator in Concord -- that's a 50 mile radius.

There was a time when I used to care what Pacifica did, being all in favor of free speech and variety radio and all that, but today, I'm afraid that the local NPR stations, KALW and KQED Radio, as well as college stations such as KFJC, and KALX, as well as indies like KPOO do a much better job at radio than KPFA does.

 

[uncamark]

What Pacifica wants to do is raise money by swapping WBAI's frequency for a lesser (hence cheaper) frequency, possibly on the non-commercial end of the FM band. Same potential for KPFA.

Might be a big mistake. KRAB in Seattle sold off its commercial frequency in order to get $$ for an endowment to operate KRAB in perpetuity. Fine, except that they couldn't locate a station the covered Seattle. Even the rimshots were terrible. They finally did land a small station, but it sank. So, now the KRAB foundation (actually the Jack Straw Memorial Foundation) operates a recording studio instead. So much for giving radio to the people.

KBCS in Bellevue has taken up the "community radio" cudgel of KRAB. Three years ago there was a lot of hubbub when some local music shows were replaced by "The Takeaway," Michael Eric Dyson and Laura Flanders' shows and "Hard Knock Radio" from KPFA, along with one of the volunteer jazz DJs given a weekday shift and a salary. The predictable "SaveKBCS" web sites and blogs went up and there was a protest at a station benefit where Amy Goodman was the speaker. Howeve,r they sort of won--KBCS dropped "The Takeaway" and Flanders' show and Dyson's show went off the air and were replaced by a local news show in the morning (with "Democracy Now!" as its lead-in and lead-out) and an afternoon drive music/talk show, while the midday folkish show is still with volunteer jocks (rumors were afoot back then that they were going to hire a paid jock following a AAA playlist). Meanwhile, the station is hash-marking in the last PPMs (they may have dropped their RRC membership to become non-listed in the 6+ by Arbitron) while KUOW's at number 3, KPLU's doing damn good for a jazz station and KEXP's doing par for the course for a non-classical public radio music format. But perhaps KBCS is getting pledge money from the aging hippies again.

 

[jonbruce]

Wouldn't little KPFB be enought for Pacifica ?