Dear KPFKers,

We've reached a critical point at KPFK, as the painful length of our recent fund drive betrayed.

At the beginning of my time as iPD, I was instructed by the National Office to increase the station's listeners; in particular, as measured by the Arbitron numbers. This has occurred. Through the beginning of June, the listenership for the station had steadily risen from 120,000 before the fall 2009 programming changes up to a plateau of 180,000. This is great.

However, the increase in audience is weighted almost entirely in our Monday through Friday morning programming - in essence from 6am until 1pm - while 5pm is also substantially out-performing what was there before. With only a few exceptions, the afternoon, evening, and weekend programming is dramatically underperforming by this measurement.

Furthermore, this is true not only in terms of Arbitrons but also in fundraising - as we consistently have to pre-empt our afternoon, evening, and weekend programs in order to raise money. This is unacceptable. Lew Hill, Pacifica's founder, understood that listeners would pay for what they value; that compelling programming would elicit the financial support required to sustain such an ambitious media project and broadcast operation; that the ability to fundraise would necessarily be a factor in determining what shows remain on the air.

Indeed, the fact that so many of our shows are not contributing to fundraising for KPFK is a major factor in the unacceptable length of our fund drives.

Therefore, I along with the current management team see an urgent need to make changes in the programming in the afternoon, evening, and weekend.

In the next few weeks, we will be making some very hard decisions. We have about eight to ten new hours of Mission-driven programming that we believe will dramatically improve our listenership and our fundraising in the coming year. In order to make room for these new shows, we need some of the underperforming shows to step aside.

Therefore, we are asking all KPFK programmers to take a hard look at their shows and decide themselves whether they can make a positive contribution to the station by increasing their audience size and raising money for the station in fund drives. If you recognize that your show cannot make such a contribution than we, the management team, would encourage you to either:

1. offer to cut the length of your show (e.g. from one hour to 30 minutes a week)
2. move your show off-air to a web-based show available on KPFK.org
3. end your show

We will wait to hear back from programmers for one and a half weeks (until 07-30), after which time we will begin to make the decisions about which shows to cut back and which to excise in order to free up the time to introduce new programming onto KPFK Radio. Please reply directly to myself, Bob Conger and Jennifer Kiser.

This is a difficult process, but essential for the greater good and health of the station and foundation.

Signed Alan Minsky

At KCRW, publicist Sarah Spitz wrote on a private online meeting place for liberal journalists, some unkind remarks about Rush Limbaugh. She was surprised when the matter became public. “I never knew I had this much hate in me," she wrote. "But he deserves it."

Spitz issued this statement:

I made poorly considered remarks about Rush Limbaugh to what I believed was a private email discussion group from my personal email account. As a publicist, I realize more than anyone that is no excuse for irresponsible behavior. I apologize to anyone I may have offended and I regret these comments greatly; they do not reflect the values by which I conduct my life.

And in an email to NPR, Jennifer Ferro, KCRW's general manager, said "the private comments made by one of our employees, Sarah Spitz, are regrettable for all of us at KCRW."

Sarah is a longtime employee of KCRW. Please note that she is not affiliated or employed by NPR, nor does she work as a journalist, as has been incorrectly reported in the media.

Sarah was not acting in her position as KCRW Publicity Director when she wrote these comments. She spoke in the heat of the moment without consideration to the impact her words would have. We've all said things we didn't mean and don't reflect our core values. We believe that was the situation in this case. KCRW has, and always will be, dedicated to civil discourse and the free exchange of ideas.

Employees are asked to "recognize that everything you write or receive on a social media site is public." They are advised to "conduct yourself in social media forums with an eye to how your behavior or comments might appear if we were called upon to defend them as a news organization."

Comments  

 

0 #4 Gregg 2010-07-28 04:39

If a publicist thinks there is such a thing as "...a private email discussion", she's not much of a publicist. There is no such thing as 'private email' and someone whose business is communication should realize that. So, does Limbaugh deserve her hate because of his politics or his ratings?

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+1 #3 Andrew 2010-07-23 14:29

It sounds like KPFK has had to resort to Capitalism in order to survive

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0 #2 Steve Dugan 2010-07-23 08:25

At KCRW, publicist Sarah Spitz wrote on a private online meeting place for liberal journalists, some unkind remarks about Rush Limbaugh. She was surprised when the matter became public. “I never knew I had this much hate in me," she wrote. "But he deserves it."

Unfortunately, the comments written by Sarah Spitz is typical of the "tolerant left." If that was Ann Coulter or Sarah Palin speaking about, say, Michael Moore, we'd have a national crisis on our hands and this forum would be filled to capacity with letters of condemnation.

There is no room for that kind of hate, Ms. Spitz. Maybe you should resign.

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0 #1 Scott 2010-07-23 07:43

Somehow you have KFBK listed in the first paragraph of the intro page. I see Blase Bompane is not at KPFK anymore? He was the fellow who flipped Wally George's desk over on the "Hot Seat" show, and started the whole Hot Seat craze!

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