It Takes a Global Village

While a lot of public radio listeners are wondering about the future of “Morning Becomes Eclectic” at KCRW-FM (89.9) with the coming departure of host Chris Douridas, the folks over at KPFK-FM (90.7) are thriving with discarded sounds--and listeners--from the rival program’s past.

With “Global Village,” a weekday morning show that was installed last April and is devoted to a wide range of multicultural music, KPFK is offering an aesthetic closer to Tom Schnabel’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic” of the ‘80s rather than the more pop- and rock-attuned programming Douridas steered in the ‘90s. Where KCRW management brags that it often exposes music before it is picked up by commercial stations, KPFK brags that it plays music that would never be heard on mainstream radio.

And to judge both from ratings numbers compiled by Audience Research Analysis and from pledges made during KPFK’s fund drive two weeks ago, it’s striking a chord among listeners. KPFK is still behind KCRW, classical KUSC-FM (91.5), jazz KLON-FM (88.1) and talk- and news-dominated KPCC-FM (89.3) among area public stations, but it’s made significant strides since “Global Village” went on the air.

In the ratings survey for the fall 1997 quarter, average weekly listenership for the “Global Village” 10 a.m.-to-noon slot increased an impressive 68% over the time period’s rating in fall 1996. That led the way for a nearly 40% overall increase for the station in the same stretch.

And while it’s hard to say how much of that consists of old “Morning Becomes Eclectic” listeners, informal evidence suggests there is a strong presence.

“We’ve got quite a few calls from people who say they listened to KCRW in the past and say, ‘I don’t get what I want anymore there and now you guys are giving me what I want,’ ” says Betto Arcos, KPFK’s operations manager and the architect of “Global Village,” as well as host of the program’s Monday installment.

“The competition and comparison will always be there,” Arcos says. “But what we want to do is to make the sound as diverse as the town we live in.”

The program was developed in the wake of the June 1996 death of Mario Casetta, whose global roots music programming had been a fixture at KPFK since long before the world music boom of the past 15 years or so. Arcos stepped into Casetta’s Monday and Wednesday slot and then helped develop the overall concept that would expand and update the concept throughout the week.

Now “Global Village” features five volunteer programmers, each with a distinctive but overlapping aesthetic. Arcos’ primary strength is Latin American and Caribbean music; Tuesday host C.C. Smith’s specialty is African (she hosted “The African Beat” on KCRW from 1984 through 1995); new Wednesday host Yatrika Shah-Rais is anchored in Middle Eastern music; Thursday’s John Schneider has been KPFK’s main classical music programmer for many years; and Friday’s Tom Nixon, who had hosted the vastly eclectic “The Nixon Tapes” on the station since 1974, will play just about anything.

But under Arcos’ concept, each reaches far beyond their specialties to show the common grounds and cross-pollinations of both traditional roots and modern explorations from around the world.

“Our idea is to play music from around the world that’s not being played anywhere else,” Arcos says. “Each of the programmers has interests and tastes and background knowledge. But we want to be truly as world-music eclectic as we can.”

The result is a day-to-day continuity and unified sense of purpose that had been missing from the music on KPFK.

“I remember the moment when the five of them simply sat in a room the first time just to talk about music,” says general manager Mark Schubb, who came to the station in 1995. “Before that, the programmers here each had their own thing; it was essentially leased time, isolated shows, and the programmers’ only contact with each other was if they’d pass in the hall.”

It wasn’t just the music programming that seemed fragmented at KPFK, one of five stations owned and operated by the Pacifica Foundation, a national organization with a decidedly leftist sociopolitical agenda. Once a shining example of community-funded radio, the station fell into cycles of constant chaos and dissension in the mid-’80s--just as KCRW, under the management of former KPFK general manager Ruth Seymour (then known as Ruth Hirschman), ascended as perhaps the most successful public station in the country. Much of the KPFK programming seemed to reflect more and more specialized interests and issues, adding up to Babel-ish disarray that turned off many old listeners.

But under Schubb and program director Kathy Lo, KPFK has made great strides to establish a sense of order and purpose. In addition to “Global Village,” they’ve installed a lively magazine, “Up for Air,” with hosts Marcos Frommer and Kathy Gori from 7 to 9 a.m., and recently complemented it with a 4 to 5 p.m. culture and politics review hosted by New Times writer and longtime KPFK contributor Marc Cooper.

And in many ways, it is “Global Village” that can set the tone for the station’s direction.

“To be honest, it never occurred to me that it would work as well as it does,” Schubb says. “We have very distinctive hosts. But the cross-pollinating is working very well, and even the hosts that have been here a long time have bigger audiences now than they ever did before.”

First Impression: The new morning team at KYSR-FM (Star 98.7) only started on Monday, but already it’s setting standards for the market. The trio of Jamie White, Frank Kramer and Frosty Stillwell, in just its first few days after moving from Denver, has managed to top Mark and Brian of KLOS-FM (95.5) in the area of laughing at their own quips. Yup, they really crack themselves up.

But since their whole thing seems to be to toss out as many one-liners as they can in chattery, rapid-fire mode, that means there’s not much left besides quips and cackles--like substance, say, or direction. Topics--and perhaps that term is too generous--have been base and unimaginative (“lesbians” for part of Monday, “cheating” on Tuesday).

The one thing they seem to be pushing most is White’s lack of shame or self-censoring when it comes to talking about her (and anyone else’s) sex life. This is Hollywood, Jamie. Take a number.