Fundraising, Whitewashing, and the Ghost of a Legend

Posted on October 17, 2011 by admin

On Thursday, November 18, 1999, the world lost one of its most unique and wonderful characters. Whether you called him Sir Doug, The Texas Tornado, or maybe even Wayne Douglas, there was only one Douglas Wayne Sahm. A musical prodigy, he made his first radio appearance at age five and recorded his first record at eleven. He was an absolute whirlwind of energy, and he was Texas through and through. Back in the Seventies, he was one of the artists who drew me here from the oilfields of Wyoming. His album Groovers Paradise was an homage to Austin, from its Kerry Awn artwork to songs like Beautiful Texas Sunshine, no one could listen to it and ignore the urge to come to Austin. Not that anyone resisted much — Doug was like a high-energy beacon drawing in the musically curious. And he was not an unknown starving artist. In those days, he was one of the few Austin artists to have had any real national exposure. He had hit records with the Sir Douglas Quintet, solo albums, and rave reviews from Rolling Stone. Bob Dylan was a major fan. And he played all genres — country, Tejano, blues, rock-n-roll. Doug could play it all with an authenticity that no one else could match, due in large part to his upbringing in San Antonio, a real melting pot of musical styles. He was widely respected by his peers and truly loved by his fans. So when he died suddenly at age 58 while on the road in Taos, the whole town felt as though it had been gut-punched. You could almost feel his energy draining away.

As the word spread that night, an impromptu group of mourners gathered, and its meeting place was public radio station KUT-FM. Since it was a Thursday night, the scheduled program was Phil Music. Its creator and longtime host was Larry Monroe. The people gathering that night ranged from fellow DJs to journalists to Doug’s fellow musicians and collaborators. I was not in the studio that night. I was at home tuned in. But what transpired over the next few hours was what public radio always aspires to be but very rarely attains. It touched the heart of the community it served and brought us all together in a moving tribute to a friend’s passing. I went to bed that night with echoes of Doug’s songs in my head.

But of course the next morning, the world moved on, as it always does. Austin eventually moved on as well, growing fast and going through many changes as it did. And changes came to KUT as well, many of them not expected or appreciated by those who felt they had helped grow the station to its national stature. In 2000, there was a change in station management. Phil Corriveau, the station manager in charge at the time of Doug’s passing, was let go, replaced by Stewart Vanderwilt, a radio professional whose last job had been at WBST in Muncie, Indiana, where his performance had mixed reviews. Almost immediately, rumors started that programs such as Phil Music were under scrutiny to be axed. Mr. Vanderwilt gave public assurances that it was not so, that he felt such programs were part of KUT’s appeal to its listeners, as indeed they were. But changes were made, slowly at first, then at a faster pace. One of the first shows to be cut was Teresa Ferguson’s Femme FM, then the all-night shows bit the dust. On the day shift, John Aielli’s Eklektikos was cut from six to four hours, and he was placed on the same newly designated song-rotation schedule as the other music programs. By the middle of the decade, the station was down to two DJs doing four 8-11 pm shows during the week — Larry Monroe with Blue Monday and Phil Music on Mondays and Thursdays and Paul Ray with Paul Ray’s Jazz on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Then, on Thursday, July 2, 2010, the hammer came down. Jody Evans, the program director newly appointed from Vermont, called both men in separately and announced their shows were being discontinued. Paul Ray was on his first day of vacation at the time. Larry Monroe was given a four-hour notice that the long-running Phil Music had been axed — their meeting was at 4 pm and he had been scheduled to broadcast the popular program that night at 8:00 — pretty cold treatment for a dedicated DJ who had contributed so much to the station for so long. Both men also lost their 11 pm-to-3 am programs (replaced with a national canned show, Undercurrents) as well as their health insurance, since they were no longer working 20 hours per week.

No advance notice was given to the public, and no input was ever solicited. In one fell swoop, the old guard was gone, and three evening time slots were given to newcomer Matt Reilly.

Then, of course, came months of meetings and protests. Austin luminaries such as former Mayor Lee Cooke and former councilman Daryl Slusher joined in, as well a huge contingent of Austin musicians and loyal listeners. Benefit concerts were held, and there were meetings with station managers and UT officials, all of which went nowhere, with station managers refusing to compromise and the UT president refusing to intervene. After that, Larry Monroe continued on with his one show, the award-winning Blue Monday, until August 30, 2010, when he officially retired from KUT.

Since that time, the station has been completely under the control of Stewart Vanderwilt and Hawk Mendenhall, and it runs on their guidelines — no more free-form programming, no more hour-long sets of music. Any visitors to the station must now be cleared by management in advance, and there is no deviation allowed from the formatted song rotation. And since they are doing so with the blessing of UT regents and have been able to meet their fundraising goals, I long ago resigned myself to the loss of the station that I once enjoyed so much.

Then on the morning of September 30, 2011, when I listened to the KUT fall fundraiser, I heard mention of the night Doug Sahm died as well as the tribute show that followed, and the memories of that night came flooding back, a perfect example of how great the station used to be. The DJ who brought up the subject was the new Friday Eklektikos host, Jody Denberg. Mr. Denberg was one of those who went down to KUT that sad night in 1999. At that time, he was with commercial station KGSR. So Mr. Denberg is well aware of just what the situation was at KUT and at least should be aware of how different things are now at the station. But his pitch that morning was to use a transcendent night from long ago as a reason to pledge money to the station now, completely ignoring all of the changes that have happened since that time. He made no mention of Larry Monroe or of Phil Music. To hear him tell the story you would think there had been no changes whatsoever at KUT. And for the new listeners whom KUT is trying to lure with such pitches, there is no difference. All they’ve ever heard is the homogenized, tightly formatted middle-of-the-road programming that Mr. Vanderwilt probably had in mind from his first day on the job back in 2000.

Apparently, station personnel are now going to start trying to whitewash the past, to create a revisionist history in which there never was any free-form programming, no drop-in guests, no freedom of expression for the on-air personalities. As I stated above, I long ago gave up trying to bring the old ways back — Stewart Vanderwilt has won. But I think it is a Pyrrhic victory at best. The new ratings came out recently and show that KUT has dropped from number 1 to number 5 to number 9 and now has slipped into the 10th position among the Top Ten stations in Austin. So maybe the revisionist history is being created to cover up what has been lost, to eliminate any great moments from the past.

And what will happen the next time Austin loses one of its musical icons? I can’t imagine anyone showing up on a Thursday night to gather for Music With Matt Reilly, even if such gatherings were still allowed. I think the best we could expect from KUT would be some eventual high-gloss hour-long fluff piece from the velvet-voiced David Brown on Texas Music Matters. But anything that would actually have a personal impact at the time? Simply not allowed . . . But that is only at KUT, the old voice for the Austin music scene.

Today, that sense of musical community has moved down the dial a bit, over to a low-power FM station in Dripping Springs — KDRP. And over there we find old friends from the old Austin music scene, including broadcasting and performing legend Sammy Allred. And, of course, KDRP is the new home of Larry Monroe, complete with both Blue Monday and Phil Music back on their original nights Monday and Thursday, from 7-10 pm. Station manager Ryan Schuh has promised Larry complete artistic control over his shows. Drop-in guests? No problem! Hours-long tributes to a single artist? Absolutely! And he has put his money where his mouth is. Larry Monroe has already done several long tributes, including to Pinetop Perkins and Calvin Russell. See our article on those “Passing Tributes” (http://keeppublicradiopublic.com/2011/04/11/passing-tributes/). The vision shown by the people at KDRP is exactly what may save radio as an art form as well as make KDRP the focal point whenever the community needs to come together.

Doug Sahm has always cast a long shadow over this town, and I’d say that his spirit still does. We now have Doug Sahm Hill in South Austin, and the annual celebration of his life at Antone’s is one of the greatest gatherings of Austin musicians at any time. His ghost was definitely with me while I wrote this. I’ve been listening to a recording of that night from almost twelve years ago and marvel again at Doug, Larry, Margaret Moser, Ernie Durawa, and all the others who went to the studio then. As for Jody Denberg, I hope that when he next thinks of that night that he will remember how Doug’s spirit brought everyone down to Larry’s program, not just to a station, and that he will leave the fundraising and the whitewashing out of such memories and give everyone who brought healing to the community their due. From the people in the studio that night to those listening at home, I think we did Doug proud. Lets not change that now.

—Rev Jim

Filed under: College Radio, KUT in Austin, NPR | 1 Comment »

Posted on October 4, 2011 by admin

TROLLS GONE WILD

by savewrvuradio

TROLL IN CHIEF CARROLL LORDS OVER ‘NEW’ WRVU

Chris Carroll, Please Go Away.

As noted earlier, Carroll and the Vanderbilt Student Communications (VSC) — wholly deprived of representatives of WRVU —continues to have an overbearing role over what is now, in name only, a student run organization.  Carroll has made it a career at Vanderbilt to wrest control of basic responsibilities out of student hands and, now, continues unabated, with a new string shameful deeds as the neutered new Vanderbilt student-run radio station starts its ‘reboot’ semester.  The latest Carroll dictate is making sure that DJs, who rightly aired grievances with the recent deplorable actions of the VSC, and its dishonest handling of the proposed sale of WRVU over the past year,  be subjected to an unprecedented VSC ‘screening’ process.  Troll in chief, Chris Carroll, unsurprisingly is rejecting applications of djs who have not proved sufficiently submissive through the recent Carroll-led attempts at poaching WRVU away from the students to largely pay Carroll and VSC ‘adult’ salary bloat.

A letter the editor from one such victim, a 10+ year WRVU DJ and current Vanderbilt Staff Member as well as the host of a long-running highly popular show wrote the following:

VSC REVOKES VU STAFF MEMBER’S DJ PRIVILEGES

[...]

[...] my application to do a show this fall was rejected by Student Media Adviser Chris Carroll (acting alone). When I discussed this with him, I was told he thought I’d be ‘toxic’ at WRVU because I had often stated publicly that an online-only WRVU would be a poor substitute for an FM station and thus the sale was a bad idea. He claimed I would badmouth the station and poison student morale. (I’m an alumnus and a VU staff member. Before turning in show applications, we’d been told that VU-affiliated non-students’ applications would merely be ‘reviewed’ by VSC and did not need ‘approval.’)

I said that when I decided to do a show again, I determined to do what I could to improve WRVU in its new form. Why would I sign up if I wanted to sabotage WRVU? I promised not to ‘editorialize’ while working, and suggested that at the first questionable syllable they could can me. I pointed out that no WRVU staffer had expressed resentment of my comments — we’d been on the same side. None of this made a difference. I think Carroll just doesn’t want me to have any chance to state my opinions publicly. This seems a clear example of censorship by prior restraint.

It was also clear that Carroll was retaliating against me for opposing VSC.  He claimed that giving me a show would be like
inviting someone to your house for dinner after he had insulted you.

[...]

Carroll said that he would rather run automation, which currently fills much of the schedule, than give a show to someone whom he sees as a potential troublemaker. This was not the will of the station staff. General Manager Robert Ackley enthusiastically invited my continued participation and that of the two other rejectees (for whom I do not speak here, by the way). [...]

I believe Student Media Adviser Carroll is imposing his will on the station for reasons of censorship and retaliation (against me in this case). I feel I’ve been wronged, but I write also because I think Carroll is behaving unethically to disempower opposition to the license sale — which by the way is not yet complete — and establish greater control over WRVU. Once again VSC makes clear that the interests of WRVU and its student staff are not a priority.

Does this mean students shouldn’t support WRVU? Of course not. It’s more important now than ever. WRVU is still a golden opportunity for students and a part of Nashville culture, whether on the airwaves or not. Keep your eye out for ways to show your support, and become a DJ yourself — it’s your right as a student, and fun as hell.  This is a crucial moment and you can be a part of it.

Read full letter HERE.

Note that this letter to the editor is posted on InsideVandy also under Carroll’s purview and unsurprisingly, readers have found it difficult to get their responses to show in the comments section. Hmmmmmmmm.

The real shocker is that this Troll overlord is operating unfettered, at the obvious expense of the students, with full complicity with the Vanderbilt administration, who ostensibly should be functioning on behalf of the students and keeping a check on these ‘adult’ trolls gone wild.

ARE THERE BIGGER FORCES AT PLAY?!?

A great in-depth report on the PRC, strip-miner of college radio, can be found HERE in the invaluable blog Keeping the Public in Public Radio. In the article, WRVU’s case is highlighted as being the latest in a string of ‘serial killings’.

A must read: Public Radio Capital: Money From the Sky.

Filed under: College Radio, Elsewhere | Leave a Comment »

WRVU Update

Posted on September 25, 2011 by admin

Greetings Friends…

If it seems like we’ve been quiet lately, it is because someone doesn’t want us heard.   Besides the obvious, though temporary, loss of the FM frequency, WRVU DJs who have been openly opposed to the license sale have now been dismissed from their positions with the online station.   In addition, our side of the story –i.e. “this isn’t over yet”– has been excluded from campus coverage of the frequency sale.   Vanderbilt publications are either ignoring the subject altogether or they are incorrectly representing the sale as complete.

WRVU Friends & Family representatives have recently written InsideVandy, Vanderbilt Magazine, Dot Commodore, and Vanderbilt Hustler asking them to hold up the tenants of good journalism which they purport to adhere.  At best, these letters have received a cursory response.  At worst, they have been outright rejected.

Since we can’t seem to get any print on campus, we figured we would send this letter directly to the supporters of WRVU.  Additionally you will find the response we received from the InsideVandy Opinion Editor after the letter was submitted a second time.

Loyal Fans & Listeners of WRVU, the battle for 91.1 FM continues . . .

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+++++++++++

To the Editor,

Many students were upset after the public announcement in September of
2010 that VSC was considering selling the WRVU 91.1 FM frequency. Your
article of 8/24/2011 summarizes some of their frustration and the
efforts that these students undertook to try to save the frequency.
However, your article overlooks the substantial and ongoing efforts of
alumni and community members to preserve the station. In fact, Save
WRVU’s Facebook page has over 6,500 Friends and a non-profit
organization called WRVU Friends and Family (www.vivawrvu.org) was
formed to halt the sale.

What is most unfortunate in your article is the presentation that the
transfer of the license and Vanderbilt’s possession of an FM frequency
license is complete. While there may be some who have given up the
fight, actual facts indicate otherwise. Chiefly, Nashville Public Radio
has not yet met the obligations agreed to under the sale (namely, paying
for it) and the Federal Communication Commission has not announced a
public comment period nor have they approved the sale.

While InsideVandy may wish to frame this story as coming to a close,
putting the controversy safely into the past, the simple truth is there
is much more of this story to tell. There are indeed students, alumni,
and members of the Vanderbilt Community who refuse to accept the patent
falsehood that the frequency is gone. We hope InsideVandy will recognize
this and follow-up accordingly.

Myka Carroll, Communications Director
WRVU Friends & Family

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi

I did receive the letter (both times), but regret to inform you that we elected not to publish it. As the automated response explains, we receive a high volume of email and generally only respond to inform individuals that we will be printing their submissions. I apologize for the confusion and thank you for your time.

Best,

Opinions@InsideVandy

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

While it is difficult to explain the lack of print that letters concerning WRVU have received in campus since the beginning of this academic year, we urge you to keep them coming.  Also, letters to the Nashville Scene, the Tennessean, the NY Times, whathave you.

This battle for the frequency is NOT OVER & everyone deserves the truth.

The VSC Administration is heavy-handed & everyone knows.  It is absurd, perhaps, to think they would let any information concerning the fragile state of their proposed frequency sale leak into their publications.

While there are times we may disagree with the choices made by the InsideVandy / Hustler editors, there are other times we commend them for the willingness to take a stand on important issues.

This, for instance, was a fantastic article…

WRVU Opinion: Searching for Dialogue
By Matt Scarano
http://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/node/16874

**********************************************************************

IT’S NOT OVER YET NASHVILLE . . .

Learn more about our battle to regain the 91.1 FM frequency this Saturday @ SOUNDLAND.
WRVU Friends & Family reps will be @ the Neuhoff Factory Party Stage from 1 – 9 PM.

We will have FREE STICKERS & plenty of information!  Hope to see you there!!!

¡¡¡VIVAWRVU!!!
http://www.vivawrvu.org/

Filed under: College Radio | Leave a Comment »

LUV Newsletter on NPR

Posted on September 13, 2011 by admin

Listening to Diane Rehm on NPR yesterday, we noticed she had on a guest from one of the corporate-funded think tanks, as she usually does, telling us Social Security is going broke. He didn’t mention that the government has actually borrowed from Social Security for decades in order to finance corporate welfare, and nobody on the program pointed out that he was lying through his teeth. That is what the “senior fellows,” from the major think tanks are expected to say in return for the corporate funding.  Corporations don’t throw money away — these contributions are considered to be investments.

All of the NPR/PBS programs that deal in “news” analysis can be expected to invite these guests, and you will hear them announced daily, “X,” a senior fellow from the American Enterprise Institute, Hoover Institution, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, etc., appearing on Morning Edition, The PBS NewsHour, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, etc. Their goal is always to sell out the public interest. Their tentacles are deep into the so-called “news media,” all of the major TV and radio networks, newspapers, news magazines — the entire mass media spectrum.

Often their views are said to be on the programs for “balance,” as though any truth that gets out must be balanced by lies. They constantly scheme to privatize more of the government, to rid the public of Social Security, Medicare and other social programs, and introduce lies with which to combat science, including “we must burn oil and coal, there is no such thing as global warming,” combined with “we must spend more on weapons for the military,” and “we must cut corporate taxes to spur the economy.” There is no hole in the mass media, these lies are scattered over the entire electronic and print corporate-viewpoint media empire.

Pam Martens, in this piece, goes deeper into it, following the tentacles of the Koch brothers who’ve devoted their lives to destroying any semblance of democracy in the land and extending the plutocratic oligarchy.  Until citizens understand they are controlled by their mass media, nothing will change, which is why we do LUV News  —Jack

Filed under: NPR | Leave a Comment »

National Propaganda Radio

Posted on September 3, 2011 by admin

The site NPR Check (link on right) keeps an eye on the right-wing tendencies of public radio, no more so than in this critique in the comments of a recent piece aired there:

GRUMPY DEMO said…

Just when you thought NPR couldn’t sink any lower:

New Policy Gives Hope To Some Facing Deportation : NPR: New Policy Gives Hope To Some Facing Deportation
by SARAH GONZALEZ

NPR continues normalizing Right Wing Fringe Extremism:

NPR quotes “Kristen Williamson with the Federation for American Immigration Reform” opposed to Obama’s change in immigration.

Really NPR? Really? The Federation for American Immigration Reform? An organization that has been identified group described as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC):

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/federation-for-american-immigration-reform-fair

“FAIR’s founder, John Tanton, has expressed his wish that America remain a majority-white population: a goal to be achieved, presumably, by limiting the number of nonwhites who enter the country. One of the group’s main goals is upending the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a decades-long, racist quota system that limited immigration mostly to northern Europeans. FAIR President Dan Stein has called the Act a “mistake.”

“As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?”
— FAIR founder and board member John Tanton, Oct. 10, 1986

What’s worse “Federation for American Immigration Reform” : NPR Search (BETA): Quoted this organization several times.”

What’s next? NPR to interview the Klan on civil rights?

Filed under: Home page | 1 Comment »

WRVU “Dissidents” Under Fire

Posted on September 2, 2011 by admin

This from the troops at WRVU:

Despite their displeasure about returning to  a station without a frequency, a number of key WRVU personalities have reapplied for shows and had their DJ applications rejected by the VSC. All of these individuals were talented and dedicate members of the WRVU crew. All of these individuals were vocally opposed to the 91.1 FM frequency sale. While most of these banished DJs are “non-affiliates,” Pete Wilson, host of Nashville Jumps, has also lost his show. Pete is Vanderbilt alumni and staff, which double-qualifies him as a DJ. He is former Versus editor and has been in and out of WRVU since the late 1980s and last year, his show was chosen by the Nashville Scene as the “Best Radio Show in Nashville.” Pete feels confident that he lost his position with WRVU due to his activism against the license sale. In all of his work to preserve the FM broadcast for the students of Vanderbilt University, Pete has always been polite and respectful — even when the VSC was not.

As one may suspect, the new WRVU online schedule is riddled with holes. While some DJs have returned to the online only format, many have not. The fact that the VSC has banished community DJs who have been with the station for years is further evidence of the VSC exerting their muscle as a means of silencing DJs who openly disapproved of the frequency sale.

At the moment, the DJs who lost their shows are being told not to speak out in hopes that General Manager Robert Ackley can convince the VSC Board to change their mind. Of course, all you have to do is tune in to 91.1 FM in Nashville to see how receptive the VSC Board is to the staff of WRVU. Meanwhile, this is also the same “keep quiet and don’t upset the VSC” mentality that has been thrust upon the students of WRVU since the beginning of all this mess. Over and again they have been told, don’t upset the VSC, or they might…. might what? Sell the frequency?

The  DJs of WRVU have very little left to lose. Which is why, quite frankly, many of them have threatened resigning. They are extremely angry about losing their hand-built frequency and they are insulted that the VSC is casting out some of their best DJs. It is not too extreme to believe the VSC is running the remains of this station in to the ground.  While the DJs are right to be upset, one thing is clear… they MUST NOT RESIGN. Do so would be to play right into the hands of the VSC. It is clear that they do not want anyone who cares about the FM frequency hanging around… Which is exactly, my friends, why you HAVE TO….

You HAVE TO FIGHT FOR THIS. If you WIN, you will WIN BIG. The VSC has played dirty and eventually they will face the consequences. Instead of resigning WRVU, let your voice be heard. Speak out about this nonsense to your friends, your professors, your family, YOUR administration, and your audience.

While I have heard some students fear speaking out because “attending a Private University is a privilege, not a right” I have to say — NO WAY — Vanderbilt is a company that makes A LOT of money off our your tuition, your textbooks, your room and board. On scholarship or not, Vanderbilt is there to serve you. To provide you with an education… & that education should encourage questions, discussions, and the fair exchange of ideas.. not intimidation, authoritarian control, and force-feed rules and regulations. DEMAND that Vanderbilt take responsibility for what is happening in the tunnels of Sarratt. The VSC is out of control & it is clearly effecting your education.

That said, I remind you not to give up the hope in terms of regaining your voice on 91.1 FM. The VSC still owns the license & it will take quite a bit of work on behalf of WPLN to change that situation. We intend to fight it every step of the way & will do everything in our power to get that frequency back for the students of Vanderbilt University.

Don’t give up the faith, it CAN happen.

Filed under: Home page | 2 Comments »

A New Look at Nonprofits?

Posted on August 30, 2011 by admin

Sharon Vegas Selby sent word of what could be a seismic change in the way the FCC is viewing the consolidation of public radio stations. According to the referenced article on the Philanthropy Today website, the battle in San Francisco over KUSF may signal a new day for college radio. But don’t bet the farm on it. It could just be a ploy to look busy…

FCC Inquiry on Calif. Station Sale Hints at Closer Eye on Nonprofit Radio

The Federal Communications Commission has sent an unusual “letter of inquiry” to the parties in the planned sale of a California classical-music station to a nonprofit radio network, possibly signaling sharper regulation of consolidation among public radio stations, according to the Bay Citizen.

KDFC, a commercial classical station, was sold in January to the Classical Public Radio Network, a nonprofit entity largely owned by the University of Southern California.

KDFC’s move to the public-radio end of the FM dial dislodged a locally popular University of San Francisco station, KUSF, whose supporters have protested the sale.

Other major universities have sold broadcast licenses for campus stations to public broadcasting networks amid a booming market for public radio.

An official of the USC network said the letter, which among other thing requests e-mails relating to the sale, is “unprecedented.”

John Crigler, a Washington communications lawyer, said the FCC ruling on the deal will have ramifications “for every noncommercial station going forward.”

The Bay Citizen article from the New York Times website added this:

The letter included several requests. It asked for a year’s worth of e-mails between the parties related to the sale and for information relating to the operating agreements between the two universities, among other materials.

Friends of KUSF, the group that has raised about $40,000 to legally contest the sale, had previously submitted documents to the commission claiming that U.S.F. had destroyed the station’s studios, and could not oversee or originate the broadcast during the transition period before agency approval, as F.C.C. rules dictate.

In early August, the universities replied to the letter of inquiry, dismissing concerns about the state of the KUSF studio and refusing to submit the requested e-mails.

In a strong rebuttal, two lawyers for Friends of KUSF, Alan Korn and Peter Franck, called the answers to the agency’s questions “deceptive.” The group has called for a hearing. It hopes the F.C.C. will expand its oversight of noncommercial radio transactions, which, thanks to a bad economy and big audiences for public radio, have been a booming market.

Universities like U.S.F., Vanderbilt and Rice are selling their stations, turning their homegrown programming over to National Public Radio or nonprofits like KUSC, which owns a network of stations in California.

“It basically comes down to media consolidation,” said Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance, a media watchdog based in the Bay Area that drafted a letter in July asking the F.C.C. to hold an inquiry on noncommercial-radio sales. Thirty other media and music organizations also signed the letter.

“It’s not only KUSF — it’s an ongoing problem, and it’s going to get worse,” Ms. Rosenberg said. “I hope that U.S.F. is a test case for examining these issues.”

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Turn Out the Lights

Posted on August 29, 2011 by admin

The wags over at Radio-info.com discussion boards are giving the post mortems on HD radio. The link there from radioskeptic leads to the following from a laid-off employee at iBiquity, huckster company extraordinaire, which has managed to float for nigh on ten years without a discernible ROI:

iBiquity = Titanic

That place had around 5 or 6 “Business Actions” in 2010. Every day you wondered if you were going to get a call from the dragon lady (AKA Cankles) in HR to tell you that your time is up and how much “they hate to do this.” Personally, I’m glad to have gotten laid-off from that sinking ship. I dreaded going in there on Monday, and it would only be Saturday morning! They have been wanting to get their IPO for the last 5 years and with the way things are going, it is never going to happen. Investors are no longer shelling out money to make HD Radio work. It has exsisted for over 10 years and 90% of the population STILL has no idea what it is, or the benefits of having an HD Radio. Another thing… I watched people who founded the company, and who were there from the start, get laid off, and basically had the rug pulled out from under them. If anyone was ever stabbed in the back, it was these guys. I am a guy, but guess I didn’t fit into their “Ole Boys Network.” Please save yourself and stay clear of this company. They will tell you how great you are, drop you when you’ve worked your rear end off for them and then send you home with what their definition of a severance package is. The severance was laughable, just like those jokers in “upper management.”

I must explain . . . a single “Business Action” would include 10+ people at a time, when they only have around 80 people still working there. They have a bare bones engineering department, and the way things are going, those are the last people that should be getting the axe.

Filed under: The HD Radio scam | 2 Comments »

Public Radio Capital: Money From The Sky

Posted on August 26, 2011 by admin

When I was growing up in West Texas my father used to say, “Son, money doesn’t fall from the sky.” As a kid I never really questioned that; it seemed obvious enough. Later though I realized that there is money up there—it’s floating magically through the ether on radio waves. And it’s possible to get that money to rain down on you. The trick though is in getting it to rain down on you, not on that poor sap standing next to you.

Legend (and Wikipedia ) has it that the first paid radio commercial was on station WEAF in NYC, a spot advertising an apartment complex. That first search for tenants started big money raining into the radio world, and soon people were scrambling to catch their share. Ad men and jingle writers filled the airwaves with their ditties, while musicians and actors provided entertainment to keep listeners tuned in. Station owners raked in the money and so did the merchants. Fortunes were made, families were fed, and the profits went round and round.

But even when profit was not the primary goal, the money was still there. In 1967 Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act, and in 1970 NPR was founded as a privately and publicly funded nonprofit organization. But “nonprofit” doesn’t mean “non-money.” Currently NPR shows an endowment of $258 million, revenue of $159 million, and a net income of $18.9 million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR). So, profit or not, it’s not bubble gum and marbles being passed around over there; that’s a bunch of nonprofit dollars.

And it didn’t take long for all those nonprofit dollars to attract a new breed of radio cats, professionals with a whole new purpose. Back when that first ad for tenants was running, things were fairly simple: An average Joe could grasp who was getting paid for what. Ad men got paid for the spots they sold to the merchants, copy men and jingle writers got paid for their snappy 30-second spots, and entertainers were paid to attract and hold listeners. There was work performed and revenue earned, however disparate it might have seemed to some. But with all those nonprofit dollars floating around, there were now people who contributed nothing to what went out over the airwaves. Some call them Money Men, but my favorite term has always been Rainmakers. In honor of my father’s old advice.

And in the past year or so, I have been hearing more and more about a particular group of Rainmakers, a group working the radio dial nationwide, looking for those dollars to fall out of the sky. This is a group I first heard of as Public Radio Capital (PRC), but they have recently branched out with new ventures such as Public Media Company and Classical SF LLC (we’ll look at those shortly). But the original PRC group has been around for some time. According to their website they were formed in 2001 and so far have facilitated more than $260 million in radio transactions. Quoting from their website: “We help public media to buy and finance new channels, preserve existing public radio outlets and strengthen their organizations and services” (http://publicradiocapital.org/about/index.php). Those are admirable goals, and I am sure they are taken to heart and pursued whenever possible. I know for instance that in the past PRC has worked with the Prometheus Radio Project, a group we here at this site have high regard for. But for some time now it has seemed that PRC is having serious PR problems, primarily from their involvement in brokering the sale of college radio stations around the country.

To provide some background I am going to highlight their involvement with four college stations from across the country. These are WDUQ at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, KTRU at Rice University in Houston, KUSF at the University of San Francisco in California, as well as WRVU at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Unfortunately, I have to add that WDUQ and KTRU are actually “formerly with” their respected schools, as those sales were made final and those stations no longer exist. So how does an organization such as PRC, with a stated goal to “preserve existing public radio outlets,” justify such activities? Well, the devil is always supposed to be in the details, so I suppose he must be in there somewhere. So let’s take a look. . . .

We will start back in early 2010 when Duquesne University decided to sell its station. WDUQ was first founded in 1949 and was one of the charter stations when NPR was founded in 1970. When university officials decided to sell, they first hoped to get $10-12 million for the station, and a local group, Pittsburgh Public Media, brought in PRC to assist in negotiating that purchase. But after PPM had secured a 60-day option on the station, PRC decided that their best bet was to drop out of the agreement and pursue purchasing the station themselves. To do so they created that offshoot company mentioned above, Public Media Company. PMC then entered into an agreement with another local public station, WYEP, to purchase the station at the rock-bottom price of $6 million. With their Rainmakers now working the other side, the good folks at PPM suddenly had no backers and had to drop out of the bidding. And Duquesne U found themselves having to accept $6 million for a station that PPM had originally offered $6.5 mil for. And PRC was now in the business of acquiring stations for themselves. All of this was chronicled in an excellent story by Chris Young of the Pittsburgh City Paper (http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws//gyrobase/Content?oid=91437) and noted on our site here (http://keeppublicradiopublic.com/2011/02/27/duquesne-double-cross/).

Next stop is Rice University in Houston, station KTRU. While down in the Lone Star State the folks at PRC seemed to revert back to Rainmaker mode, more of a cash-flow deal than an asset acquisition. Per an article on the Texas Watchdog, PRC received $200,000 for brokering the deal (http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2011/01/ktru-broker-cost-university-of-houston-200k/1296158955.column). And as The Watchdog noted, this was during a time of furloughs and pay freezes at Rice, something that didn’t sit well with many alums. But you would have had to be one of those clued in to the sale in order to get upset—there was a well documented effort to keep news of the sale to a minimal few, from University officials (http://www.scribd.com/doc/47667467/KTRU-email-Rice-secrecy) and from the general public (http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2010/11/university-of-houston-practiced-deception-over-Rice-University-KTRU-sale/1289434596.story). And of course there was never any mention of PRC’s involvement in President David Leebron’s communications about the sale (http://matthewwettergreen.com/2010/08/18/updates-on-kuhfs-purchase-of-ktru/). As for the students, they put up a long and well documented fight to save the station, but in the long run the Rainmakers collected their Money From The Sky and in April KTRU passed into history.

But, in an interesting side note, in March PRC’s Susan Harmon made a little trip over to Austin to participate in a South by Southwest panel “How to Save College Radio.” You can listen to it here : (http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_MP990206). Most of what I have heard of that panel has been pretty positive, and there was good representation from both KTRU and KUSF, but there were no breakthroughs and certainly nothing came out of it to change the fate of KTRU. After that panel PRC decided to make another panel appearance, this one titled “Saving College Stations,” at the National Federation of Community Broadcasters on June 16th. An article on that panel can be seen here (http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/06/16/saving-college-radio-stations-panel-at-nfcb-offered-tips-for-stations-in-peril/0/). This time PRC was represented by managing director and co-founder Marc Hand, and for his part he recommended having proactive discussions with the license holders as a pre-emptive strike against any potential sale. But he also made another comment that still strikes me as, well, weird. In referring to PRC’s involvement in these deals, he offered the opinion that if it wasn’t for PRC, “almost all of these stations would be sold to religious broadcasters.” Maybe I’m missing something, but when students are facing the loss of their college station I really doubt it’s much of a comfort that the new owners will be playing classical music rather than preaching the gospel.

And his mention of classical music programming isn’t an idle one. For some reason, whether by design or by coincidence, a lot of the stations that PRC gets involved with seem to end up with classical programming. That was the case at WDUQ, that was the case at KTRU, and it is the intended case at our next destination, KUSF in San Francisco. And some of the hardest fighting groups that we have run across, Radio Survivor (http://www.radiosurvivor.com/) and the Facebook group Save KUSF (http://www.facebook.com/#!/SaveKUSF), are still fighting to this day. That determination is very much needed in this case, because from here out things get absolutely byzantine.

In fact, it is so twisty-turvy that even though I have been following the story for months now, it is still hard to keep track of just who is doing what and where. Fortunately, Jennifer Waits & Co at Radio Survivor have been doing a bang-up job of tracking it all. For me to list all of the wrinkles they’ve uncovered would push this article out to War and Peace length, so I will just point out the basics and PRC’s involvement to this point.

The story starts January 18th, when the University of San Francisco shut down its transmitter on 90.3FM without notice. Later that day they came back on the air with a simulcast from commercial classical station KDFC at 102.1. Later still there was an announcement that KUSF had been sold to Classical Public Radio Network. This new entity was in turn owned by the University of Southern California and Classical SF LLC, the offshoot of Public Radio Capital mentioned above. So it seems that the folks over at PRC are once again dabbling their toes in station ownership rather than settling for being a facilitator of sales. But the students at USF weren’t about to take this lying down and went immediately into counterattack mode. Much of the story of that fight can be tracked here (http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/01/23/kusf-djs-and-fans-gear-up-to-fight-proposed-college-radio-station-sale-while-ownership-details-for-classical-public-radio-emerge/) and here (http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/03/28/friends-of-kusf-respond-to-cprn-and-usf-in-latest-phase-of-fcc-battle/). For any student group facing these types of issues, the KUSF saga is maybe the best place to look for the way to fight the good fight.

But at the bottom of all this was an apparent new twist to Public Radio Capital’s modus operandi. At WDUQ they started as Rainmakers, switched alliances and instead became purchasers. At KTRU they blew into town, collected their six-figure fee (http://www.scribd.com/doc/47670184/PRC-contract-KTRU-purchase), then left town on the next figurative train. But with KUSF they seem to have come up with a new wrinkle entirely—in fact there is some question if PRC was involved in the financial aspect of the transaction at all, other than as a purchaser. As near as anyone can tell, the sale was actually brokered by Patrick Communications, and this is where things get twisty again. The purchaser, Classical Public Radio Network, actually shows being owned 90% by USC and 10% by Classical SF LLC. But Classical SF is a shell corporation, owned 100% by PRC. But, per Radio Survivor, PRC employees have also been involved in the logistics of the sale, so there are really some murky waters out in the Bay Area these days. And a lot of that turmoil seems to be generated by PRC, the company that officially purports to preserve existing public radio outlets.

Which brings us around to Nashville, home of Vanderbilt University and WRVU. And once again PRC seems to have morphed their tactics into something new, something deep in the shadows. Sharon Vegas Selby and the Facebook group Save WRVU (currently showing over 6,500 “likes”) have been doing a tremendous amount of research looking into how the station was taken from them, and they have uncovered some interesting elements. In Nashville, PRC did not come in as an “above the board” facilitator; they are not shown to have brokered the deal at all. But their presence is definitely there, or at least one of their board members is. PRC’s website shows one William King of Nashville as a board member (http://publicradiocapital.org/about/board.php), but he is also shown as a board member for Nashville Public Radio (http://wpln.org/?p=131), the proposed purchaser of WRVU. I say “proposed” purchaser due to the fact that even though Vanderbilt Student Communications (VSC) has surrendered the call letters WRVU, and that classical music is now being broadcast over the 91.1 frequency, the sale is far from final. At this point NPR/WPLN still has to raise $3.35 million from its members and investors, as well as secure the approval of Vanderbilt University, the Tennessee Attorney General, and the FCC. And if they do get the needed approvals, there is still the matter of raising that 3.35 million. Having a PRC board member sitting on the board of the purchaser could be coincidence, but it seems a very lucky coincidence indeed.

And this would not be the first such lucky coincidence for PRC; in fact their board members seem to have a real knack for popping up in some very fortunate locations. Remember our friends at KUSF? Out there we find PRC board member Leo Martinez of San Francisco, CA, former Academic Dean at the University of California, Hastings. And while our friends at Save KUSF have not been able to find a direct correlation, his appointment to the board just as PRC was first anticipating getting into the San Francisco market has raised some eyebrows, much as did Mr. King’s appointment in Nashville. But this is nothing new: PRC board members popping up in other capacities seems almost commonplace in their acquisitions. In fact one could almost come up with a variation of the classic kid’s game “Where’s Elmo?”—only this would be “Where’s PRC?” Can you find them at Public Media Company? Absolutely! How about in the Classical Public Radio Network? You bet! And can you find William King over in Nashville? There he is, on the board of purchaser Nashville Public Radio! And who knows what a fortuitous place that might turn out for him to be. Here Mr. King is on the board of a group that is needing to come up with millions of dollars to purchase a radio station while also sitting on the board of a company that specializes in coming up with millions of dollars to purchase radio stations! We should all be so lucky. . . .

So there you have it. We’ve been to the east coast, the west coast, the third coast, and into the heartland. And everywhere we’ve gone we’ve seen the footsteps and fingerprints of PRC, its board members, and its offshoots. And the trail is littered with the loss of college stations all around the country. How all of this will play out in the coming months is still very much in question, at least for our friends at KUSF and WRVU. The student groups at those fine universities still refuse to be intimidated by such multimillion-dollar entities and are continuing to fight to this day. It seems unfortunate that a lot of their hopes now depend on the FCC, a group that has been basically toothless for some time. But with all of the publicity, and with the canny filing of the correct protests, the FCC may yet wake up and take a look at the harm that these sales are bringing to their respective communities. We wish these groups the best of luck, and will continue to chronicle their fights. At the same time we lament the loss of such stations as WDUQ and KTRU; sometimes even the strongest of fighters don’t prevail. But I believe that their experiences added fire and knowledge to the groups that are still fighting, so the spirit of those stations lingers in San Francisco, Nashville, and at every other college facing the loss of student-run radio.

In the end I wish that I could offer a sure-fire way of fighting PRC, but even after months of watching their moves across the country I really don’t see one. At best, what I ran into was some good advice from Ken Freedman, General Manager of campus/community station WFMU. Mr. Freedman had been able to extricate WFMU from Upsala College after that school filed bankruptcy, and he has developed ten tips on “How To Save Your College Radio Station.” Aand he shared those at the NFCR panel he worked with Marc Hand (http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/06/16/saving-college-radio-stations-panel-at-nfcb-offered-tips-for-stations-in-peril/0/). Unfortunately, these tips are mainly to be used prior to a station coming up for sale. And when the proposed sale is kept under wraps, as it was with KTRU, such tips are of little use. And once Public Radio Capital is actively involved, then such advice is mainly just out the window. PRC’s website may say that their goal is to preserve existing public radio outlets, but time and again their only interest has been in that ol’ bottom line. Student concerns do not figure into their actions. Mr. Freedman’s 10 tips are :

1. Make the College a happy licensee so that they don’t want to sell the station.

2. With the College’s permission, incorporate in your state as a not-for-profit corporation for the purpose of keeping in touch with station/college alumni, e.g. “Friends of WFMU.”

3. Populate the board of your Friends group with College staff and faculty, station people, lawyers and business fundraising people.

4. Develop a mailing list for your “Friends” group, and utilize them in positive ways that will not be a threat to the college

5. If the College is OK with . . . your Friends group raising money for the station, contact a (free) lawyer to apply . . . for 501c3 tax exempt status.

6. Identify a person or people from the station or Friends group who can cultivate a strong personal relationship with a key station decision-maker at the College.

7. Negotiate an “option to buy” or a “right of first refusal” contract so that IF the College decides to sell the station, the Friends group will be the first in line to buy it.

8. Start fundraising, either on behalf of the College licensee, or on behalf of the Friends group . . .

9. IF (and only if) your College is selling the station, negotiate a “sell it but keep it” contract with the College, under which the license is sold to the Friends group, but the College continues to enjoy all benefits of having an affiliated station.

10. Develop a contingency plan for how the station would remain intact (programming-wise) if the College were to suddenly change all the locks on the station doors.

Good advice all around. If taken in time. But by now the Rainmakers over at PRC have become totally adept at getting it to rain Money From The Sky. And they are quite good at having it rain only on them, not those saps standing next to them. So if things have gotten to the point where Public Radio Capital or Public Media Company or Classical SF LLC or whatever offshoot PRC might come up with next is shown to be involved with your station, I have only one bit of advice. And it comes from the 1992 re-make of the movie The Fly, with Jeff Goldblum:

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

—RevJim

Reverend’s Note: I need to say a special thanks to the people who contributed knowledge and guidance on this piece. There is a large community of radio activists who have been looking at PRC for some time. Their research was much needed, and I have tried to give proper thanks and links to their sites when possible. But I want to give a special shout out to Jennifer Waits, Sharon Scott, Kenya Lewis, and Sharon Vegas Selby. Their correspondence was vital, and I only wished I had more time and space to show the full extent of their work. But our site has links to all of their groups, so please show them the support they much deserve. And I also want to say thanks to Jim Ellinger of Austin Airwaves, who first suggested looking into this some months ago. It’s been a daunting project, and hopefully I was able to shine some light on the issues at hand.

Filed under: Home page | 12 Comments »

John Anderson on HD

Posted on August 25, 2011 by admin

John Anderson of DIYmedia.net (link on right) has kept abreast of the debacle that has been HD radio, and this latest post, reprinted in its entirety, pretty much sums it up. How can this company, with no basic income, still be around — particularly given the hopelessness of its product and prospects:

HD Radio Still Awaiting Breakthrough

It’s still a mystery just how iBiquity Digital Corporation remains in business as its proprietary HD Radio standard continues to go nowhere fast.

According to the FCC, less than 20% of radio stations in in the United States have adopted the HD protocol, nearly nine years after its proliferation was sanctioned; some have since turned it off. The technology has failed to crack any significant international markets. iBiquity and its mostly-conglomerate backers have tried various tweaks to the system in hopes of improving its robustness, but none show any potential to be a game-changer.

The HD Radio Alliance, a consortium of proponents who have devoted hundreds of millions of dollars worth of airtime to promoting HD Radio, also appear to be slacking on that support in favor of investments in other digital technologies which don’t directly involve over-the-air broadcasting.

Two-thirds of the respondents to an informal Radio Business Report poll say they have no plans to adopt HD. This seems to accurately reflect an increasing disdain within the industry about the system and its prospects. (The only exception to this seems to be Radio World commentator “Guy Wire,” but it’s hard to take a nom de plume seriously and even he seems to be wavering).

These are just the quandaries facing the transmission side of HD adoption. Receivers remain scarce; some manufacturers and retailers have abandoned the technology and those who have invested in an HD-capable radio are underwhelmed by the system’s performance in the real world. There’s no evidence to show that listener demand for HD Radio is improving from its anemic condition, either.

Proponents of the technology cite the fact that more vehicle manufacturers are implementing HD Radio into their dashboards, but this is not a viable sign of its popularity.

Last decade, when the notion of tethering smartphones into the car and/or directly implementing in-vehicle wireless Internet access was more idea than reality, automakers resisted the implementation of HD Radio because of its proprietary nature (with associated costs) and lack of qualitative usefulness. In a nutshell, they did not see the value in adding HD functionality to their entertainment systems because it didn’t provide enough return on investment.

Now the auto industry is enthusiastically embracing the “glass dashboard,” in which HD Radio is just one functionality — and a subsidiary one at that — among many new features. Now it’s become economically inconsequential for vehicle manufacturers to add HD compatibility in the midst of undertaking such a significant investment in the promulgation of other, newer mobile communication and entertainment technologies. In this context, HD Radio is a dull piece of bling in the galaxy of dashboard convergence.

iBiquity has responded in scattershot fashion to try and wake the patient from its coma. The company slashed its licensing fees, offered generous financial assistance to encourage broadcaster adoption, and most recently, implemented a weak “contest” with cash prizes in an attempt to inspire local radio sales staffs to pitch FM-HD’s multicasting feature more pointedly.

CEO Bob Struble recently penned a column in which he predicted the success of HD Radio would rest on the datacasting element it brings to the radio experience. But even he’s sounding a bit desperate: “[W]e need to get on it, now, because fully featured devices are being sold, now, and consumer impressions are being made, now. Most folks understand the upgrade process will be gradual, but the industry needs to show consistent progress.”

Therein lies the dilemma: how does a company with no independent revenue entice broadcasters to adopt a digital radio technology with net detriments, and how can it possibly convince receiver-makers and listeners to care in the face of such a feeble situation? There’s no credible answer to these questions, and so long as that remains the case it’s difficult to see how HD Radio can honestly claim title to broadcasting’s digital future.

Filed under: College Radio, Home page, NPR, The HD Radio scam | 3 Comments »

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