PROGRAMMING MAYHEM

AT KPFK

By Vince Ivory

(1053 words)

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"Due to unresolved issues with the management of KPFK, Folkscene was canceled on Friday October 13th. If you want to see Folkscene back on the air, please express your concerns to KPFK general manager Mark Schubb at (818) 985-2711. If you have any more questions, you can email Folkscene from this web site. For any further updates, please watch this web site."

That web site is folkscene.com, and the "issues" involve the refusal of program producers Roz & Howard Larman to cave in to the harassment, yelling, intimidation and blatant lying of KPFK management. They were informed that "Folkscene" was off the air after 30 years in a fax. People who called into the fund drive during "Folkscene’s" usual time (as tape of another program was broadcast), were read a prepared statement that it was hoped that "Folkscene" would return the following week. It didn’t. The Larmans have refused to sign the "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement." (For the full text of the agreement, go to: www.pacfolio.org and click documents.)

The "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement" first appeared at KPFK early this year, demanding that all programmers (paid and unpaid) sign over ownership of their programs to KPFK and Pacifica. The legally bogus pretext of the agreement is that plans to webcast KPFK raised copyright issues which could only be resolved by the station owning everything. In a memo dated 3/30/00 and attached to a revised agreement, KPFK General Manager Mark Schubb wrote that as soon as all the programmers signed, the station could begin webcasting. "Please return your signed form right away; we could start streaming as early as next week," Schubb wrote. Nearly seven months later, KPFK is still not webcasting, but "Mike Hodel’s Hour 25" is.

This science fiction program, begun by the late Mike Hodel in 1972, left KPFK last September and is now an internet radio program (www.hour25.org). As with "Folkscene," the producer and host of "Hour 25" had refused to sign the "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement." Schubb demanded not only ownership of that program, but credit for producing it. This would have given him the option to fire the volunteer producer and host at any time, and carry on the program with other people. Schubb also argued that the agreement was needed to protect the station from potential lawsuits.

The fact that this program had been broadcast for 28 years without a lawsuit might be enough to dismiss this concern, but the host of "Hour 25" offered to buy insurance which would indemnify KPFK. Schubb refused this offer, and demanded that they sign the agreement. Producer Suzanne Gibson and host Warren James left what used to be called "free speech radio" and took their program to the web. James issued a statement which reads in part:

"We offered to continue to provide KPFK with the show - at no charge - for broadcast over the air along with the rights for non-exclusive webcasting and archiving over the net. However, the station's general manager has told us that he would only broadcast the show if he owned it, but he would not broadcast it if he didn't own it.

"As you can imagine we were not happy with this and think of it as a violation of the relationship between Hour 25 and the station as well as a breaking of faith with the listeners who have supported the show and the station for so many years.

"We did not encourage people to write to the station about this since the station manager had told us that he didn't pay attention to letters, calls or emails from listeners, even listener sponsors."

As some programmers confronted by the "Y2K Compliant KPFK Programming Agreement" consulted their attorneys, Schubb kept up the pressure. He told programmer A that programmer B had already signed the agreement, when they had not. He told them that the agreement is needed for webcasting, while KPFA has been webcasting for many months with no such agreement. Perhaps it would have been better for Schubb if he’d actually consulted an attorney before going down this road.

When Schubb is not busy trying to seize ownership of home-grown volunteer efforts, he’s part of an effort to tone down Democracy Now!, and get rid of host Amy Goodman. In a memo to Pacifica’s Board of Directors and Executive Director dated 10/18/00, Goodman describes a 9/14/00 meeting with General Managers from the five Pacifica stations: "KPFK Manager Mark Schubb, expressed his repeated criticism that audiences don't want to hear graphic details of police brutality before breakfast, or as he said last year "before I have my coffee." He criticized our coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal, East Timor and questioned why I asked Spike Lee about his affiliation with Nike." (For the full text of the memo, go to www.radio4all.org/freepacifica)

KPFK’s Fall Fund Drive has just concluded, with $465,334 in pledges. KPFK and Pacifica management may point to this as validation of all they do and how they do it, but there is more to the story. An increasing use of non-donated premiums raises questions about the net income of the fund drives, but these data are not available to us. Leftover premiums, many of which are donations secured by volunteer programmers, are sold at KPFK parking lot sales. Accounting for money raised at the parking lot sales is also not available to us.

KPFK’s website (www.kpfk.org) claims that there are 11,000 subscribers. If that is accurate, it’s almost 3,000 less than it was ten years ago. The inescapable conclusion is that more money is coming from fewer people. Those people probably fit a different demographic profile than subscribers of several years ago, and that’s probably not an accident.

One way in which we in Southern California can express our feelings about what’s really going on at KPFK and Pacifica is the KPFK Pledge on Hold (www.pacfolio.org). This is not a boycott. Whether or not you currently subscribe to KPFK, you can use this form to state how much you would contribute to the station and list your own conditions under which you will honor that pledge.

We can also attend and participate in KPFK Local Advisory Board meetings. Announcements of upcoming meetings and other information on the Local Advisory Boards of all five Pacifica stations can be found at www.stationadvisoryboards.org.

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