If you tried to tune into the University of San Francisco college radio station KUSF yesterday, you would have been startled that it just seemed to have vanished from the FM frequency 90.3 - and the website for the station where you can tune in live and check the program was just gone. For KUSF listeners this means new music, opera from the NY Met, andcultural programs broadcast in nine different languages and more were zapped overnight.
KUSF was sold for $3.75 million.The station that has been on the air since 1977 is now going to be a streaming radio Internet station only. None of the staff or volunteers who have created some of the most dynamic music and cultural radio broadcasts on the air in San Francisco were informed. They showed up for work and the doors were locked.
After the fact, the USF officials say KUSF is a college radio station after all, and now they can do more for the students. They report that KUSF as an Internet radio station will reach thousands of listeners instead of the 100 listeners online who have tuned in to the radio station up until yesterday. This is true. But what about the radio listeners using the FM dial in San Francisco?
The hundreds of seniors who don’t have a computer and who have listened to KUSF opera on the weekend will have to tune into other stations - and the taxi drivers, the commuters, the people who don’t own computers or who don't have broadband - or the folks who just plain like radio, public radio.
This public radio station is gone, the radio station without commercials. KUSF FM 90.3 is now silent and all the listeners who have followed the shows for years will have to tune into KUSF on their computers for streaming web radio. Some of the programs that were part of the cultural and music program were:
Movie Magazine International * features movie reviews, film festival reports, star tributes, weekly trivia contests, local ticket giveaways, and interviews with directors and actors from yesterday and today.
Shoestring Radio Theater * the radio drama program featuring original radio plays by contemporary writers as well as adaptations of traditional favorites, from classic murder mysteries, "radio noir," and historical dramas to contemporary comedies, thrillers, and science fiction.
The Classical Cowboy, the hour long program of exquisite classics will no longer air locally.
Yes, it is a good thing that many of the community shows will continue to be broadcast on KUSF streaming web radio. We might as well reconcile ourselves to the fact that one day radio will no longer be on FCC approved FM/AM frequencies but will only be heard on the internet.
Still, the way things were done yesterday by the folks who yanked KUSF off the air is sad: the listeners who weren’t prepared for the sale and tried to tune in to KUSF on their dials yesterday and the staff and volunteers that showed up for work and the doors were locked. Because the sale of KUSF wasn’t explained in advance, listeners had to read about it in the papers or online today. Was it enough compensation to learn the day after that probably some of the community programs wil now be able to be listened to around the world?
The sudden yank of the station off the air is indeed symbolic of the way things are done in corporate USA - how you can arrive for work one day and find someone else is sitting at your desk, or discover that the building is boarded up , sold for millions of dollars, or worse the operation has just gone bankrupt and is out of business.
For public radio this is a blow, because we know that the Internet is public. And although replacing KUSF with streaming radio means that you can probably still listen to your favorite shows on the Internet, why did everything have to be done with so little consideration for the people who have made it happen on KUSF– since 1977.
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Note:
KUSF has stopped broadcasting on FM radio so if you want to listen to Movie Magazine International and Shoestring Radio Theatre at its usual time at 9.00 pm and 9:30 pm Pacific time on Wednesdays, please listen here:
http://www.shoestring.org/listen.html
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