Cal Lutheran to Host Public Radio Station : Media: Broadcasts will carry such familiar fare as ‘All Things Considered’ and add news and entertainment with a local flavor.

Hoping to give the voice of National Public Radio a local accent, officials at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks have begun building a new FM radio station due to hit the airwaves in October.

The station, 88.3 KCLU-FM, will be the first Ventura County affiliate of National Public Radio and will be heard from Ventura to Agoura Hills starting Oct. 20.

Station officials Monday said they plan to combine the best programs from national broadcasts with an enthusiastic mix of local news, talk shows and jazz music.

“We’re going to make a real commitment to the local area,” said Dan Kuntz, the station’s general manager. “What I want to do is find out what the people want and try to deliver it.”

As Kuntz and program manager Mike West struggle to piece together programming for the station’s 18-hour days, construction workers have been hammering together the station’s new studios.

The offices, which are on the eastern edge of the Cal Lutheran campus, will include state-of-the-art facilities, including links to national computer networks and news wire services.

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Most of the ideas that will shape the station, however, will come not by laying fiber-optic cables but by pounding the pavement in the communities in which the station will air.

West, a veteran of commercial and public stations in Arizona, said he has already begun gathering ideas for programming by quizzing Ventura County residents through phone surveys and on trips around town.

“Mostly, I just want to talk to people,” West said. “I want to find out when they wake up in the morning, how much time they spend in their cars and what they want to listen to.

“I’m just starting to get a feel for the place.”

The station will target the older, more professional audience that typically tunes in to National Public Radio’s Los Angeles affiliate, Kuntz said.

“We will be running shows like ‘Morning Edition,’ ‘All Things Considered’ and ‘Fresh Air,’ which are the typical public radio fare, but we will also try to tap into the local flavor of Thousand Oaks and Ventura,” Kuntz said.

That, West said, will include concentrating on the county’s cultural diversity, with coverage of minority communities and music with an international style.

Because the station is based on a university campus, Kuntz said there are also plans to incorporate the wide interests of Cal Lutheran’s students and faculty into educational programs.

“In any endeavor that a student is involved with, be it in history or English or communications, there are applications that relate directly to people, and we want the students to bring that knowledge to the people through this station,” Kuntz said.

He also envisions programs that may some day be adopted by National Public Broadcasting and aired around the country.

In order to bring a major broadcasting affiliate onto their campus, Cal Lutheran agreed to front a number of the costs associated with the start-up, including hiring three full-time employees and building the studios.

The total cost of the start-up, which will be partially paid for with federal grants, will run between $300,000 and $500,000, Kuntz said.

“It’s well worth it because this is something we’ve wanted for a long time,” said Lynda Paige Fulford, a Cal Lutheran spokeswoman. “It’s a major asset to the university and to the community.”