KPFA

KPFA
City of license	Berkeley, California
Broadcast area	San Francisco Bay Area
Branding	Pacifica Radio
Slogan	"Listener Supported Pacifica Radio"
Frequency	94.1 (MHz)
First air date	1949
Format	Public
ERP	59,000 watts
HAAT	405 meters
Class	B
Callsign meaning	PaciFicA
Owner	Pacifica Foundation
Website	http://www.kpfa.org

KPFA (94.1 FM) is a listener-funded progressive talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station was founded in 1949. The aim of the station are to promote cultural diversity, promote pluralistic cultural expression, contribute to a lasting understanding between individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colours. It also promotes freedom of the press and acts as a forum for various viewpoints.^[1]

History

Launched in 1949, three years after the Pacifica Foundation was created by pacifist Lewis Hill, KPFA became the first station in the Pacifica Radio network and the first listener-supported radio broadcaster in the United States. Previously, non-commercial stations were licensed only to serve educational functions as extensions of high schools, colleges, and universities. This departure into listener-oriented programming brought many detractors as KPFA aired controversial programming. The first interview with anyone from the gay political movement was broadcast by KPFA, as well as Allen Ginsberg's ground-breaking poem Howl in the 1950s. In 1954 the broadcast by a group of marijuana reform advocates extolling the pleasures of cannabis resulted in the tape being impounded by the California Attorney General. In the 1960s KPFA and Pacifica were accused of being controlled by the Communist Party, and several challenges to its license were waged, none of them successful.

KPFA was the first station to broadcast a radio show specializing in space music, with the debut of Stephen Hill and Anna Turner's Music from the Hearts of Space in 1973. Later in 1983, the show was syndicated in the U.S. to NPR stations and also remained at its first home at KPFA.

Labor disputes

In 1999 the station was effectively taken over by KPFA's governing Pacifica Foundation, after Dennis Bernstein, the long-established host of the station's Flashpoints news magazine, was forcibly removed by police for airing grievances on air over a labor dispute.^[2][3][4] A broad cross section of protesters joined in direct action outside of the station^{[5][6][7][8][9]} in a weeks-long lockout during which station management spent over half a million dollars on security measures.^[10] At one point, listeners created a separate fund to accept listener pledges that would be directed away from the Pacifica Foundation.^[11]

In 2007, KPFA derecognized its Unpaid Staff Organization. The staff claimed that Pacifica Radio had been making network more corporate, softening its voice of dissent, and attempting to get rid of some of the volunteers at the station. In 2008, a forcible removal by police of a pregnant KPFA volunteer highlighted the concerns between management and volunteer staff.^[12] A member of the KPFA board suggested that it was problematic that there was no grievance procedure for unpaid staff at the station.^[13]

Affiliated Stations

KPFA sister stations are WBAI, KPFT, KPFK, and WPFW. Pacifica continues today to be a listener-supported network of stations. The main KPFA transmitter is a 59 kilowatt class B, though there are also two smaller boosters, KPFA-FM2 in Bonny Doon and KPFA-3 in Oakley.^[14] KPFB 89.3 is a smaller station, also in Berkeley, that covers areas of Berkeley that KPFA can't reach. It also carries some separate programming specifically for its Berkeley audience. KPFA programs are also rebroadcast by KFCF in Fresno. KZFR in Chico also carries KPFA's programming from 2:00-6:00 a.m. daily. In the Bay Area, Comcast carries KPFA's broadcasts on cable channel 967, as part of its digital radio offering. The channel is labelled "Variety/Berkeley".

References

• Lasar, Matthew (April, 2000) Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network (American Subjects Series). Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-777-4
• Lasar, Matthew (January, 2006) Uneasy Listening: Pacifica Radio's Civil War Black Apollo. ISBN 1-900355-45-0
• Walker, Jesse (June, 2004)"Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America".

See also

The lists in this article may contain items that are not notable, encyclopedic, or helpful. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article. (December 2008)

External links

• KPFA official site
• The Lengthening Shadow: Lewis Hill and the Origins of Listener-Sponsored Radio in America
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KPFA
• Radio Locator information on KPFA
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for KPFA
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KPFB
• Radio Locator information on KPFB
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for KPFB
• List of "grandfathered" FM radio stations in the U.S.
• KPFA: A Historical Footnote (Seventy five hours of programs and interviews from the 1960s)