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Cutbacks at KCSM

RadioJunkieMike

RadioJunkieMike

Leading Participant
Sunday nite was Harry Duncan’s final “In the Soul Kitchen”. Ditto Ron Pelletier’s “Jazz From Gallery 41", and in fact all the 10pm "live" Evening Jazz shows are no more. Replaced by pre-recorded stuff. Apparently San Mateo Community College District (the license holder) insisted KCSM drastically cut budget. Given that they have pledge weeks every 3 months and nearly always make their goal, this seems odd, and of course "programs curated by actual live humans" is sorta what makes the station unique. Complain to the SMCCD if you're a KCSM fan, I'm told.
 
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/artic...ropped-the-ball-on-auction/1776425178673.html

Update on KCSM

Who should take the blame for the failed sale of the College of San Mateo’s television station is the source of a legal battle, as school officials and a company hired to negotiate the acquisition are locking horns over which side muffed a lucrative deal.

Opposing civil lawsuits filed in county Superior Court indicate San Mateo County Community College District officials and LocusPoint Networks representatives disagree on why KCSM-TV was excluded from a $114 million auction sale.

LocusPoint Networks, hired by the district to sell the station, claim school officials dropped the ball on their most basic duty to culminate the deal while district employees believe the responsibility fell to the contractor.

The unperformed move inviting the legal finger-pointing was a failure to formally enter the station into bundled auction of stations holding broadcast licenses from the Federal Communications Commission.

District officials believe all steps tied to the station’s sale were the responsibility of LocusPoint Networks, which also hired accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to assist in the process.

“We filed suit last week because we believe that LocusPoint and [PricewaterhouseCoopers] failed in multiple ways including multiple negligent failures and breaches of contract,” said district spokesman Mitch Bailey in an email. “We are confident the court will agree with the college district.”

Alternatively, LocusPoint Networks’ attorneys claim district officials are to blame for the sale falling through, according to their lawsuit.

“The district failed to take the most fundamental ‘action necessary’ to successfully participate in the auction — placing a bid,” according to the LocusPoint Networks’ court filing.

Work began to sell KCSM-TV in 2011, under an effort to eliminate a nearly $1 million annual deficit. It was launched in 1964 and broadcasts a variety of programs, some of which were used for educational purposes before online courses came into favor.

Under an agreement struck nearly four years ago, the district and contractor had agreed the sum from any pending sale of the financially troubled station would be divvied up with LocusPoint Networks receiving 36.5 percent of the auction proceeds and the district keeping the rest.

As part of the deal, LocusPoint Networks offered the district payments to keep the station running. The company’s lawsuit alleges officials knew of the failure to participate in the auction last November but kept taking operation payments, amounting to a breach of contract.

Bailey acknowledged the station was excluded from the sale, and said despite the best effort of officials, the station could not be reinstated in the process.

In its lawsuit, LocusPoint Networks is seeking an undetermined amount, but wants value commiserate to the money it would have received had the purchase gone through, plus the more than $3 million paid in operating expenses and interest. Final sales prices from the auction have not yet been published, and are expected to be available later this month.

District officials counter with claims LocusPoint Networks and its associates were contractually solely obligated to assure the sale was completed.

“LocusPoint was responsible to take ‘all such other actions as may be reasonably required by the college district as its bidding consultant and agent to achieve its successful participation in the auction,” noted Bailey in an email, including a passage from the agreement suggesting LocusPoint Networks was responsible to “submit all bids in the auction for the college district.”

He added after the station was excluded from the sale, PricewaterhouseCoopers representatives failed to assure the auction process was navigated correctly, and admitted to the error.

The outcome left the school district no choice but to file a lawsuit, said Bailey.

- See more at: http://www.smdailyjournal.com/artic...ction/1776425178673.html#sthash.Ojly2TTk.dpuf
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https://current.org/2017/09/krcb-to-acquire-kcsm-in-bay-area-public-tv-deal/

Update KRCB-TV PBS Affiliate of Santa Rosa is Taking over KCSM in this article.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7395409-181/krcb-tv-to-acquire-a

Sonoma County’s public broadcasting television station KRCB announced Thursday it will take over a South Bay public television station in a $12 million acquisition aimed at broadening its reach across the Bay Area’s nine counties.

The Sonoma County channel will take over San Mateo-based KCSM-TV, currently run by the San Mateo County Community College District, doubling its coverage area from about 3 million to 6 million people, and potentially saving the financially imperiled South Bay channel from being turned into a commercial operation. The acquisition does not include KCSM’s jazz radio station 91.1 FM.

“It will give KRCB a broad Bay Area-wide, Northern California footprint,” said Nancy Dobbs, KRCB president and chief executive officer.

KRCB can afford to expand because of a $72 million cash infusion it received earlier this year under an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission to sell its channel and switch to a different band.

The transaction, and others like it in a nationwide auction, freed up a stronger transmission band for the expanding wireless telecom industry and its demands for more bandwidth.

The windfall propelled the KRCB governing board to look for ways to expand its regional coverage and secure the local public television station’s future, board president Eric McHenry said.

With more people choosing streaming television content and getting rid of cable subscriptions, the station is preparing for an influx of people looking for quality broadcast channels, McHenry said.

“You’ve heard of the cable-cutting — people, more and more, aren’t buying Comcast. They’re streaming and they’re putting up high-definition antennas and getting phenomenal TV signals,” McHenry said. “This (deal) strengthened that, it set us up correctly for the future.”

KRCB will gain a prime antenna on Mount Sutro in San Francisco and Channel 27, a strong UHF transmission band, for public television programming.

KRCB’s Channel 5 draws about 825,000 weekly viewers who watch by way of cable subscriptions, satellite and over the airwaves using a less-powerful VHF band, a change made due to the FCC deal. Its transmission tower is on Sonoma Mountain.

The transfer of KCSM’s license to KRCB likely won’t finalize until next spring, once the FCC approves the deal after allowing for a period of public comment.

The San Mateo County Community College District had been trying to sell its license to KCSM-TV since about 2011 because of financial pressures, after having run the station for nearly half a century.

The station drew about a half-million weekly viewers in 2011 and was carried on about 60 cable systems, according to a report in the Mercury News.

A representative from KCSM couldn’t be reached Thursday.

Dobbs said the television station has not produced local programming for several years and there are no plans to bring KCSM staff to Sonoma County. It aired non-commercial national and international programs.

All operations will move to KRCB North Bay Public Media’s offices on Labath Avenue in Rohnert Park.

As part of the acquisition agreement, KRCB will still run an internship program for San Mateo County Community College District students and air a half-hour of student-produced programming each month.

The station will broadcast as KRCB on Channels 5 and 27 in Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Marin, Solano, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

KRCB will begin asking viewers across the region for input as they build a plan to broaden and sharpen content for the broader Bay Area.
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RIP KCSM, 1964-2017. While TV 60 had a far less budget than KQED or even KTEH in their locally-based days, they provided plenty of great public television programming and telecourses for students.
With KRCB taking over, I guess they will become a full simulcast until they can start producing some Bay Area shows.
 
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It would be great irony if KRCB-TV also acquired KCSM-FM. The signal of KRCB-FM on 91.1 FM has been severely hampered by reception of KCSM on the same frequency in Sonoma County. Higher terrain in Sonoma Co. makes the San Mateo signal come in miles outside of its projected contour. It makes listening to KRCB-FM in much of its city of license (Santa Rosa), especially when driving up US101, nearly impossible. Turns out it is possible to hear two FM signals at the same time, in addition to lots of "picket fencing."

For whatever reasons, Ms. Dobbs at KRCB has never successfully tried to improve the radio signal, beyond a low power translator on 90.9 FM, all while a pretty big handful of other stations have crowded up the FM dial at locations KRCB once could have applied for to improve their coverage to "listenable."

I do know that the KCSM staff thought ill of KRCB, when it cut into their reception after it signed on as a local public radio/NPR outlet for Sonoma County (or at least for part of the county). KCSM-FM eventually put up a translator to keep the jazz programming listenable up to the Russian River. While today, KRCB-FM continues to limp along with a barely audible signal until you get north of Windsor. And no indication from their earlier press release about the monetary windfall that any of it will be used to engineer or purchase a decent signal for their FM service.

Perhaps their radio signal will at least be carried on a subchannel of the San Mateo TV signal, which I understand has been the case for some Comcast subscribers who get KRCB-TV in Marin County. But opening up 91.1 FM in San Mateo, Alameda, San Francisco and Marin counties to KRCB programming sure would be interesting. I'd bet if they did this, they'd add more hours of jazz programming to their schedule, since the success of KDFC on the big 89.9 signal made them drop their classical format a few years ago. I wouldn't count out the radio angle on this story, tho', from my observations, I also wouldn't count on anything happening with any urgency.
 
Worth noting: KCSM is in Pledge Drive mode -- their Fall drive ends Sunday and they are only halfway to their goal. That's unusual -- they almost always meet their goal or come very close. I have to wonder if what happened in February has finally caught up with them; perhaps their more casual listeners are just now figuring out that the deejays who did "live" shows every night at 10pm are gone, replaced by pre-recorded stuff from Chicago, for reasons that were not exactly well-explained? Certainly an interesting coincidence that they're having a bad drive for the first time in many moons.
 
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RadioJunkieMike said:
Worth noting: KCSM is in Pledge Drive mode -- their Fall drive ends Sunday and they are only halfway to their goal. That's unusual -- they almost always meet their goal or come very close. I have to wonder if what happened in February has finally caught up with them; perhaps their more casual listeners are just now figuring out that the deejays who did "live" shows every night at 10pm are gone, replaced by pre-recorded stuff from Chicago, for reasons that were not exactly well-explained? Certainly an interesting coincidence that they're having a bad drive for the first time in many moons.
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Once again, KCSM is just days away from the end of their Pledge Drive and once again they are barely halfway from their stated goal. They may have to abandon "quiet pledge" and go back to 2 weeks of yelling.
 
RadioJunkieMike said:
Once again, KCSM is just days away from the end of their Pledge Drive and once again they are barely halfway from their stated goal. They may have to abandon "quiet pledge" and go back to 2 weeks of yelling.
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And for the record, they ended up about 40K short of their 300K goal. Which I think is even worse than they did in Sept.
 
http://padailypost.com/2018/07/26/kcsm-tv-getting-a-new-owner-new-name/

Update as of August 2018 KCSM-TV is renamed KPJK-TV by KRCB Public Media.

The San Mateo County Community College District board will vote tonight (July 25) to finalize the sale of the noncommercial station for $10.5 million. The college district bungled the sale of the station in an FCC auction, missing out on $144 million. KRCB was successful in the auction and got $72 million, some of which will be used to buy KCSM.

New call letters

On Aug. 1, the station’s call letters will change to KPJK. The first K is because of FCC regulations, the PJK has a sentimental meaning.

“When we were looking for new call letters it was hard to find letter that were indicative or playing off of KRCB,” said Content Manager Darren LaShelle. “And it was also hard to find anything that was expressive of the area, like SB or PEN…so I applied for the (KPJK) call letters because the founder of our station is Professor John Kramer.”

Kramer founded the station in 1984 with his wife Nancy Dobbs, who is still the executive director of the station today. Kramer died in 2014 at age 75 following a battle with brain cancer. He was also a political science professor at Sonoma State.

LaShelle said the station is trying to obtain some studio space in San Mateo or San Jose for local programming. The local programming could include town halls and programs created by local students from the San Mateo County College District or colleges in San Jose.

No PBS

The station will not carry PBS programming. KCSM dropped PBS in 2009 due to the cost.
LaShelle said they wanted to have a PBS membership for Channel 60, but their request was denied because PBS has been trying to eliminate duplicating stations in the same markets. In this case, Channel 60 would have competed with KQED Channel 9.

However, KPJK will have viewer pledge drives like other noncommercial stations, LaShelle said.
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To reiterate: this thread started out as being about KCSM the radio station, not the TV outlet.

KCSM-FM is already promo-ing their Fall Pledge Drive, 3 weeks in advance (it begins Labor Day) which means they must've been spooked by their shortfalls in the last 2 drives. Be interesting to see how they do this time around.
 
RadioJunkieMike said:
To reiterate: this thread started out as being about KCSM the radio station, not the TV outlet.

KCSM-FM is already promo-ing their Fall Pledge Drive, 3 weeks in advance (it begins Labor Day) which means they must've been spooked by their shortfalls in the last 2 drives. Be interesting to see how they do this time around.
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For the first time in a year, they actually made their goal. Of course, they pulled out all the stops this time :) including getting local sponsors to underwrite day-long matching funds ("Double Your Money Wednesday sponsored by the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley", etc). And it worked.
 
Let’s talk about KCSM’s oddly disjointed Spring pledge drive. The last two times around, they really pulled out all the stops, getting creative and amping-up the energy level. And it worked: they made their goals twice, after a year of shortfalls. It seemed they’d gotten their pledge “mojo” back.

But this time: WTF? It was scheduled for barely two weeks, instead of the usual three – but they were still expected to raise the traditional $300,000 in two-thirds the time. Whose idea was that? It might’ve made sense if they’d been firing on all cylinders, but they seemed to be going thru the motions. The only special programming involved Miles Davis’ birthday (which had just passed) and Duke Ellington’s 120th, which had been 5 weeks before. And the “celebration” of the latter involved replaying the NPR “Jazz Profiles” about Ellington, which the station HAD JUST AIRED on consecutive Thursdays thru April and May. The whole drive was more dependent on NPR reruns than usual. Except for Harry Duncan’s fine tribute to his late friend Mac (Dr John) Rebennack, it was very paint-by-numbers. Then, when it became clear they were falling behind, they added 2 more days to the drive… and then another 2 more, so that it ended on Father’s Day. And they still wound up $24,000 short when all was said and done. Seriously, who was in charge of organizing this thing? Perhaps it’s time to ditch “Quiet Pledge” and go back to daily yelling – maybe then they can get the thing done in less time.
 
Fund Drives = Beg-a-thons. I don't know who here on the board has done them on a non-comm, but IMO, they aren't fun. You're basically begging for money. And if you do a fund drive 3 times a year (or even two), you're constantly trying to be creative and original. To do that, sometimes you really have to psych yourself up, if you don't have a lot of support staff. I'll always hate doing them, but of course they need to be done. So I wouldn't come down too hard on KCSM FM. I'm sure they're trying their hardest, but Fund Drives can be physically and mentally exhausting.
 
Brian Bowers said:
Fund Drives = Beg-a-thons. I don't know who here on the board has done them on a non-comm, but IMO, they aren't fun.
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I agree...I've done them for non-com, and I've sold spots for commercial radio, and it's MUCH easier to sell spots. At least then you know who you're selling to. On air fundraising is so tough because you don't see the listeners, so you don't know if you've got their attention. But the fun part is when it's going good, you can hear the connection between what you're saying and the phones ringing. I often sat in the phone room so everyone could hear them ring. I'd even say, "I hope that's you calling right now."
 
As of this week, "Jazz Night in America" moves to Mondays, while Patrick Wolfe's "Have You Heard?", Marian McPartland's "Piano Jazz", and "Jazz Profiles" are all GONE. Are they really that expensive?
 
RadioJunkieMike said:
As of this week, "Jazz Night in America" moves to Mondays, while Patrick Wolfe's "Have You Heard?", Marian McPartland's "Piano Jazz", and "Jazz Profiles" are all GONE. Are they really that expensive?
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To follow-up: per the station, the licensing on "Piano Jazz" and "Jazz Profiles" has expired. Wolfe's show has ended as he recently became head of the jazz Dept at the College of SM and I guess no longer has the time.
 
Last day of KCSM's Fall Pledge Drive, and they are $103,000 short (!) of their goal. And here's why I give them grief at pledge time: they lost a LOT of listener trust after the great clusterf*** of Feb 2017. And yet there was Alisa Clancy this morning, going on about how there's "always" a live person on the air. Except there isn't -- we get canned programming from Chicago in the 10p to 6a hours. There *used* to be live deejays in late-nite, but the College of San Mateo messed up the sale of their TV station and tried to recoup by forcing the radio station to eliminate 30 hrs a week of live programming, which served the added purpose of sticking it to the announcer's union. Sad situation all around, but fudging the facts doesn't help.
 
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