KPCC’s New Management Doesn’t Get L.A.

Has Minnesota Public Radio galloped into L.A. on a white stallion with matching hat? Although that’s the scene described in your recent article “Building KPCC’s New Framework” (by Judith Michaelson, April 1), some see both a hat and a horse of a different color.

Public outrage over MPR’s takeover and make-over of noncommercial KPCC-FM (89.3) can be sampled daily on the Web’s KPCC e-mail discussion group. MPR reacts with dead silence or identically worded replies that insult the listener’s intelligence.

In this town, the only concept more closely guarded than a parking spot is our privacy. We prove it with the nation’s highest instance of unlisted phone numbers and addresses. But MPR “doesn’t get” L.A. any more than it does its citizens’ priorities. While KPCC had previously pledged to keep its subscriber lists confidential, MPR now intends to “market” them--with neither permission sought nor “opt out” provisions offered. MPR’s insistence that “occasional” after-the-fact warnings shall suffice is a position straight out of “the divine right of kings.”

MPR has already characterized the Minnesota attorney general’s fraud investigation into such unauthorized privacy invasions as “meaningless and frivolous.” So now KPCC subscribers must choose between receiving geometrically increasing junk mail and telemarketing calls--or ceasing to support the station altogether. To MPR, all subscribers are replaceable.

Another MPR promise is a 12-member “local news team.” Yet MPR’s working definition of “local news” comes from its own “for-profit” news service. Add MPR’s intention to go up against (read “steal listeners from”) commercial news stations KFWB-AM and KNX-AM, and the notion sounds even worse.

MPR’s most popular show isn’t a local news program: It’s the nationally syndicated variety show “Prairie Home Companion,” already a Saturday night staple on L.A.’s No. 2 public radio station, KUSC-FM. But now MPR counter-programs this fund-raising cash cow at the same time and night on KPCC--without reducing the price tag to KUSC.

Going after subscribers of No. 1 public station KCRW-FM, KPCC now counter-programs MPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” in the same manner.

A locally committed MPR sees no contradiction in bumping KPCC’s highest-rated local program, “Air Talk,” from afternoon drive to 9 a.m., trimming an hour a day and a good segment of its potential audience in the process. MPR “doesn’t get” that L.A.’s educated public radio subscribers listen to news and “intelligent talk” during freeway commutes--not while we’re at work.

MPR axed all of KPCC’s local music shows to create this “all news and talk” format. But apparently MPR’s “Prairie Home Companion” host Garrison Keillor never got that memo. KPCC listeners can now hear him and his musical guests sing twice weekly for a pair of two-hour stretches.

To make room for Keillor’s Saturday slot, KPCC gave the boot to its only minority broadcaster, Daniel A. Castro, the sole professor on a noncommercial frequency that remains licensed to Pasadena City College. His Saturday night “The Sancho Show” was KPCC’s one program with an outreach to potential school dropouts. Sancho’s reward for 15 years of public service was denial of a farewell broadcast. In this one programming misstep alone, MPR shows it “doesn’t get” the concepts of ethnic diversity or education for all.

According to The Times and MPR Vice President Craig Curtis, MPR is here to “strike gold,” to get “a foothold in the L.A. market” and “to do something with the entertainment industry.” To this reader and subscriber, that adds up to a schedule of “Hollywood Home Companion” variations: national, not local, programming, a la “Entertainment Tonight,” merchandised with catalogs of overpriced souvenirs and lowest common denominators to match.

Robert Adels earned his master’s degree in communications from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as program director of WXPN-AM and producer-engineer at WXPN-FM. Now living in Los Angeles, he has written for the Philadelphia Daily News, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone and Broadcasting.

Counterpunch is a weekly feature designed to let readers respond to reviews or stories about entertainment and the arts. Please send proposals to: Counterpunch, Calendar, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles CA 90053. Or fax: (213) 237-7630. Or e-mail: Counterpunch@latimes.com. Important: Include full name, address and phone number. Please do not exceed 600 words. We appreciate all proposals and regret that we cannot respond to each.