Houston's Pacifica radio station KPFT is hitting hard times, according to today's Houston Chronicle.
Faced with a "stupendous drop" in listenership and a troubling inability to meet fund-raising goals, Houston's listener-supported KPFT-FM (90.1) — long an iconoclastic voice in a radio market dominated by corporate giants — is planning a series of programming and scheduling changes that could dramatically reshape its offerings."There's a possibility we could shake this whole thing up," General Manager Duane Bradley said this week. "I think that right now all programming considerations are on the table. I don't think we have any options that we're not willing to discuss."
Well, that's apparently any options except de-emphasizing their loony leftist ravings.
Bradley, 50, stressed that despite the expected changes, the station, which celebrated its 35th anniversary March 1, will remain true to the peace-and-justice philosophy of its parent, Pacifica Foundation.Bradley's first change, which became effective March 10, was to add a second weekday broadcast of commentator Amy Goodman's news and opinion program Democracy Now! at 7 a.m. The previous 9 a.m. airing, which brought the station a fourth of its listener-generated income, will be retained for the immediate future, Bradley said.
"There is still a need for KPFT," Bradley said. "If Pacifica's mission had been achieved, we wouldn't be in places like Iraq, we wouldn't be basing the largest part of our global economy on weapons manufacture, people wouldn't be starving to death in the Congo, they would be fed.
"There's still an awful need for peace and social justice."
Over the last several years KPFT's airtime has been given over largely to leftist/ethnic splinter groups who have in common only their virulent hatred of George W. Bush and everything this side of outright socialism. This station devoted to "peace and justice" is a spigot of vitriol. It's no surprise they can't raise money just by peddling rhetoric about "war profiteers."
Posted by Alan at March 19, 2005 05:04 PM