KUSP shifts music programming to the great web beyond

On Sept. 1, part of that future will be more talk, fewer tunes. The station is axing the “Open Road” and the two-hour music block after it, turning over that 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekday chunk to more local and national news. General Manager Terry Green says the decision came directly from conversations and surveys with listeners conducted over the past nine months. “One of the things we learned by asking—that was a really good idea, actually asking people—is that basically the programming that generates 80 percent of the listening isn’t fundamentally changing,” he says. “People were expressing a need to stay more current—the intravenous drip of news—people always want to be pretty close to an update, and looking for more depth and more sides of the story. And public radio sticks out for its depth and coverage. It’s mainstream, but it’s not corporate.”

Even though the change is just a month away, there are still a lot of details not worked out, such as what exactly will happen during the daytime programming. “Nobody ever makes a decision,” Green says, chuckling, about life in public radio. “We move in this kind of clumpy collaborative way. It’s pseudo-democratic, but it ain’t the corporate world.” He says listeners can expect a hybrid of National Public Radio programming and collaborative or shared content with other local public radio stations. Because KAZU provides a great deal of NPR content, however, he expects KUSP will lean more on the latter.

Obviously some volunteers will be losing time slots, and Green hopes the station can find as many roles for them as possible, either with rescheduled shows or online. He also hopes the emphasis on talk will help find an audience for the local programs that are produced. “What was disappointing to discover is we make a lot of programming here,” he says, “but beyond the Saturday morning shows, a lot of our other local content was just not getting a large audience. Not because it wasn’t good, but the way we were doing it wasn’t reaching our audience as successfully.”

The other aspect of reaching the audience in today’s media climate is online, where KUSP just received a $327,000 grant to build a new content management platform for its website. The station found a local partner in Quiddities, a Santa Cruz web technology firm that has built sites for UC Berkeley, E-TEK, and several other small businesses. KUSP’s application for the Knight Foundation grant was one of 17 to receive money from the pool of more than 3,000 applicants. The station is building a tool it calls RadioEngage on the open source Drupal platform, which it will then turn around and share with other public radio stations.

While the site will inevitably incorporate the obvious aspects of any radio web presence, the partners are taking a ground-up approach, and hoping for community input on what an online radio station should be. To that end, they have set up a site at radioengage.com that does nothing more than solicit interest. For now, users who sign up will be invited to “salons” discussing the future of public radio, and how KUSP can forge it with this grant.

Green feels ready for the future, different as it may look. “Part of what KUSP’s historically good at is bringing in people from Santa Cruz and surrounding areas with good ideas. We can actually migrate this thing to be part of the all-platforms world that’s barrelling down on top of us. The original idea in the ’70s was to get local participation in media. That’s been really cool for 36 years. There are some different barriers and challenges involved online, but it’s the same basic idea.”

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Comments (3)

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KUSP has been shifting away from me as a listener for awhile now. This latest decision seals the deal. After many many years of being a paid-up member, I haven't paid membership dues this last year because of the shifts and slides into talkie talk and music/programing changes (the last unacceptable was moving a Kenny G kind of "jazz" into the Monday night slot that Doodlin Lounge had occupied for years - why give up live interviews and real jazz with a truly well informed host to go with a watery commercial pretend jazz? - ick!)
I love the 1-3pm slot of music Mon - Weds; Latin w/Bret Taylor; Skylarkin w/ Louise ; Weds Bruce Larsen's mixed up spread. The Thurs and Friday shows could get a little wearisome(especially Beans & Cornbread under Rob Mullin), but Johnny S. and Charlie Lange had some good stuff and they were really knowedgable.
Anyway, I am very sad that my best music station will be gone. The Open Road used to be more interesting w/ Robin and JT, and some of the later DJs were a little lame, but even that show had some interesting , new and out-of-the mainstream singer-songwriters, and good music. I was introduced to a lot of music I otherwise wouldn't have known. What a shame to lose that.
I will miss the KUSP I have known and loved all these years.
Bite the dust and get over it I guess.
Susan Stuart
476-5924

Susan Stuart , August 07, 2008

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Like many people on the Central Coast, I grew up with KUSP, but changes in the media landscape mean that KUSP has a real opportunity to caitlize on it position in the community as a trusted media resource.

In a time when newspapers are cutting deep into their staffs and the internet has yet to fill in with hyper-local focused news for the Monterey Bay Area, our region needs more reporters, editors and contributors to cover the events of the day.

While I understand the feelings that many are expressing in this comment thread (and those on other sites), in an era of declining media resources, KUSP deserves credit for taking steps to ensure that the Central Coast stays informed, involved and engaged, while still retaining the best of it's locally focused music service in genres that aren't well represented down the dial like classical, jazz, world and latin music.

Caleb Baskin , August 13, 2008

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I really like that KUSP is shifting to more talk oriented programming. I agree that we need more local coverage. Of course the real problem is that KUSP will likely just end up repeating all the NPR programs that air on KAZU. I'm not sure they will develop much listener support in this case, and the experiment will tank. But if they air some of the lesser-known public radio programs, and run alternative programs, they won't have a hard time paying their bills. KUSP should let KAZU keep it's status as the NPR block station, and instead focus on the nationally syndicated PRI, MPR and indie produced shows. I heard that KUSP is going to air Your Call from KALW in SF, which is great. I also like the Diane Rhem show. They need to add more shows like these, and stay away from Marketplace, Talk of the Nation and Day to Day. How many times do we need to hear these same NPR shows? They all ready repeat during the day on KAZU.

Anon , August 23, 2008

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