[BRC-NEWS] Pacifica/KPFA Is Blowing Up..Why? Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ............................................................... source - Davey D via brc news [Moderator: excerpted from the FNV newsletter of 7-14-1999] KPFA Is Blowing Up..Why? By Davey D It was a scene straight out of an Orwellian novel when armed police officers snatched veteran radio host Dennis Bernstein off the air at KPFA Radio in Berkeley California for violating a station gag order about talking about the current tensions that are going on between management and staff at the nation's oldest and perhaps most powerful public radio station. Bernstein's removal which was broadcasted live sparked a huge protest involving hundreds of listeners and resulting in more then 3 dozen people being arrested. In the radio biz you never talk about other stations. However, so profound was this situation that last night other Bay Area radio stations broke that unwritten rule and began to broadcast and talk about the incident. For those who don't know KPFA is also home to my popular Friday Night Vibe Hip Hop Show which has been in effect for the past 10 years. It's also host to several other popular Hip Hop oriented shows like The Uhuru Maggot's History Of Funk, G-Spot's Latin Hip Hop show 'Radio Aztlan'. The all women's Elemental Roots show and Mac Shawn Monday Night Hip Hop Show. Just about every major Hip Hop star has swung through the doors of KPFA at one time or another. Many have even performed live in the station's state of the art performance studio. The issue at hand has been the growing trend to centralize control of radio stations into the hands of a few and away from the communities that these stations reach. Many fear that KPFA will follow the trend of airing nationally produced programming as opposed to the locally produced programming which netted the station over a dozen awards last year. In other parts of the country such programming may work, but it's hard to put forth national programming in the Bay Area because it's such a large and independent market that actually sets trends and not follow them. Management has denied any such plans to change programming. If anything they have maintained they wanted to diversify things. KPFA's situation is complicated by the fact that it is found in the commercial band in one of the country's hottest and 4th largest radio radio markets. Our dial position in 94.1FM and it's signal can be heard from as far North as Lake Tahoe and all the way down to Fresno which is in Southern California. It is by far one of the most signals powerful signals on the FM dial in Northern Cali. This alone has made KPFA a station that could net over 70 million dollars if sold. Because of it's desirability, air staff have always had to be careful about airing obscenities and following FCC guidelines to the 'T' so our license would not be challenged by radio corporations who are bent on obtaining the station's signal for themselves. In addition to it's powerful signal KPFA has a state of the art studio and one of the best apprenticeship/training programs in the country. If that's not enough, the station is completely listener sponsored. Unlike many other public stations, KPFA is one that runs in the black and not in he red. These factors have raised seriously speculation as to who or what is behind the 'Take over' of this station. Many are whispering that it's a move that's being pressured by forces within The Democratic Party that would love nothing more then to have consistent access to such a powerful medium which just so happens to be the flagship for 5 other public stations nationwide including Washington DC, New York, Houston and Los Angeles. There is wide spread speculation that commercial entities, most notable, African American owned Radio One out of Washington DC are setting their sights on KPFA. Finally the most popular rumor is that folks have had enough and they just want to get rid of the 'radical, left wing Hippie/ Berkeley' element that has long been associated with KPFA. All these things have been vehemently denied by management. Yet the rumors persist. In fact KPFA News staffers are claiming to have a memo that indicates there were suggestions being made to sell the station to a commercial outlet so they can off set cost and debts at other Pacifica stations.. Whatever the case, folks from the community are extremely upset about the firings and attempts to change things at KPFA. Earlier this year there was a drive by shooting which police say was in retaliation to the firing of the station's popular general manger Nicole Sawaya. Door codes have been changed and in recent weeks armed guards have been positioned inside. Currently KPFA has suspended it's programming and been airing old tapes of lectures..It appears that folks from both sides have dug in their heels and are set to duke it out for the long haul. There will be a huge protest today at 5pm in front of KPFA which is located on the corner of University and Martin Luther King in Berkeley. The incidents involving KPFA go far and beyond disgruntled staffers who are hate change. It speaks to a growing pattern within the media where the ability to present information to the masses is being placed in the hands of a select few. It's a topic I keep bringing up, because unfortunately a lot of folks seem to be asleep at the wheel. I can only suggest that people start challenge their local media and not take things for granted. Within radio, more and more stations are being 'Starbucked'. Meaning that there's a station on every corner, but they are all owned by the same person who is bent on making the bottom line. In many markets competing stations are owned by the same company and great pains are put forth to keep an illusion alive that the two stations are rivals when in fact they are owned by the same people. Over the past years people have become so disgruntled with the lack of access to the airwaves that they set up 'pirate' radio stations. Officially these are known as Micro Powered Radio stations. The way this works is that community activist would set up shop by taking the dial position right next to a commercial giant. So if my station is 105.3 FM.. A pirate may set up shop on 104.9 and start broadcasting. His signal won't go too far, but he would be able to communicate to people in his neighborhood. People had gotten fed up with hearing the same songs day and day out on radio stations or an uninteresting spin on current news as well as a total omitting of news and information. Hence more then 400 pirate radio stations were set up around the country. People were saying they had enough and they wanted more from their local stations.. Many of the corporate radio companies pressured the FCC and got many of those station's shut down. People were threatened with penalties of up to 20 years in prison for setting up Pirate radio stations. In fact in many of the radio trades, the shut down of pirate stations were gleefully celebrated. You would think that corporation owners would take a hint and try and figure out why so many people were turning to pirate radio. They should've ideally saw these illegal set ups as a signal that their listeners weren't Happy with what was going across the airwaves. Instead they lobbied the FCC to clamp down hard. The result of all these illegal pirates was for the FCC to open up the airwaves and legalizing these micro powered stations. It appeared to be a great victory for community activist. However, the Big corporations threw a monkey wrench into the mix. First no micro powered radio stations could be set up in large cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco [where all this stuff really jumped off], Detroit, San Diego and Washington DC. Next the micro powered stations could be owned and brought by commercial outlets and they could own up to 10 at a time. So technically speaking the same company who owned 10 stations in New York which led to people turning to Pirate stations in the first place could now buy up to 10 micro powered stations in that same market and make more profit. This totally defeats the purpose of pirate radio which is to grant more independent and community access. The fact that some of these low powered signals were selling for 50 thousand dollars was a large enough deterrent for people who were fed up with local media and wanted a change. There is an August 2 deadline to try and turn things around. I would suggest reading more info and following the proposed plans of action at http://wwwnlgcc.org You can say what you want but folks please wake up before you find yourself unable to speak freely..Remember he who controls the airwaves sets the tunes.. Copyright (c) 1999 Davey D. All rights reserved. [Articles on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and posted on other mailing lists/discussion forums, as long as proper attribution is given to the author and originating publication, and the wording is not altered in any way. In particular, if there is a reference to a web site where an article was originally located, please do *not* remove that. 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