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THE FIGHT TO SAVE PROGRESSIVE KPFK FM

Yeah, personally I think it's time for Darwin to step in on Pacifica so that a serious broadcaster can make something out of the electrons being wasted on KPFK and their other signals (which come and go apparently).
Except that those "six guys" that Miss Tuned mentioned can't and emotionally won't give up their "big voices of dissent and reason" even though nearly nobody actually listens.

Oh, and when someone brings up the fact about "nobody is listening" the "six guys" and all the program providers and even the receptionist will say, "our kind of people won't participate in that kind of procedure" while all along believing that in dark rooms at every home, apartment and tent there are secretive Pacifica listeners spending hours every day learning the truth about "things of importance".

(Darwin is dead, and can't listen. Doing so would have him reverse his theory of evolution to a major extent.)
 
Everything one could say about Pacifica could also be applied to Family Radio, owners of WFME in NY or KFRN 1280 in Los Angeles, or many other small religious groups who own radio stations around the country. There are lots of these stations that don't even show up in the ratings, so they're off the radar. It's all about the mission, not about the audience.
 
Everything one could say about Pacifica could also be applied to Family Radio, owners of WFME in NY or KFRN 1280 in Los Angeles, or many other small religious groups who own radio stations around the country. There are lots of these stations that don't even show up in the ratings, so they're off the radar. It's all about the mission, not about the audience.
I'd say Pacifica is in a class by itself. Many religious stations (EMF included) depend on contributions from their listeners, so they definitely have more than one would think based on their income. Pacifica is a basket case, they owe a ton of money, sometimes can't even pay rent on their facilities etc. There are in a league of their own.
 
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Pacifica is a basket case, they owe a ton of money, sometimes can't even pay rent on their facilities etc. There are in a league of their own.
A key difference between Pacifica and anyone else is that they operate in 4 of the top 5 markets. If they were exactly the same but they were in Mobile, Selma and Philadelphia (Mississippi), no one would have heard of them.

Those kinds of places are where you find the struggling religious interests. Perhaps most especially when the leader dies. The example I have is the Buddy Tucker Evangelical Association, which turned in the license for quite a few AM stations, all of which were in poor repair, after Mr. Tucker died

 
A key difference between Pacifica and anyone else is that they operate in 4 of the top 5 markets. If they were exactly the same but they were in Mobile, Selma and Philadelphia (Mississippi), no one would have heard of them.

I used Family Radio as the example because they are also in 4 of the Top 5 (NY, LA, CHI, and SF) but they're AM stations that sold their FMs, and they don't subscribe to Nielsen. So they're off the radar. If Pacifica didn't subscribe, and wasn't grandfathered to such powerful FMs, they'd be in the same boat.
 
Family Radio, which I think was a fair comparison (they were in a some top markets decades before EMF was even known by anyone), did have top down control, I believe, from the Rev. Camping. Once he relinquished a lot of control and eventually passed, Family Radio made a decent effort to move on from that past and update their sound and programming while still “getting the message out”. Family Radio until 2012 or so was an extreme time warp.

Unfortunately, while on the subject of Family Radio and Pacifica, the structure for Pacifica makes any change similar to Family Radio’s modernization impossible. I posted a while back on the NYC board I’d be interested to see what the WBAI facility looks like. I’m envisioning a bunch of vintage equipment, bungee cords and duct tape, but I’ve been wrong before…
 
I’d be interested to see what the WBAI facility looks like. I’m envisioning a bunch of vintage equipment, bungee cords and duct tape, but I’ve been wrong before…

There were pictures of the workspace in various articles written during the crisis a few years ago.


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