Tag Archives: kpfk

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

Even Candidates Can’t Get Ballots

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Berkeley-Pacifica’s 2015 board elections are scheduled to end on January 4th, 2016 after being extended for as long as possible. The troubled process has been marked by many members having extreme difficulty getting ballots, which haven’t been received by as many as 25-30% of the network’s 55,000 members. Two stations, WBAI in NY and KPFK in LA may not have hit quorum yet, so members at those stations who haven’t voted are encouraged to look for online voting instructions they may have received on October 22nd, or fill out an immediate request for them at elections.pacifica.org. Pacifica in Exile’s candidate recommendations can be found  here. Continue reading Even Candidates Can’t Get Ballots →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

Zulu Sex Therapy

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Berkeley-Notes left on a conference room white board overnight at KPFK-FM in Los Angeles outlined GM Leslie Radford’s plans to replace the station’s longstanding and popular Roy of Hollywood overnight program Something’s Happening with programs on sex, therapy, and poetry labeled “Zulu” and “Friday Night Fights”. The contents of the white board can be seen here (picture below). While it isn’t clear why Radford would leave the information exposed except to create a hostile work environment, the proposed changes target the most lucrative of the station’s evening programs. The proposed change would reduce revenues, delaying if not finishing off entirely the station’s broken promise to SAG-AFTRA union staff that they would be returned to normal work schedules. Continue reading Zulu Sex Therapy →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

One Judgment and More To Come

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Berkeley-Long-time alternative health host Gary Null announced on WBAI’s air yesterday that there was a strong possibility he would soon be filing significant litigation against Pacifica Radio. Null did not mention the subject of the lawsuit, but referenced federal authorities and stated he was in possession of compelling evidence to support his charges against the national radio network. You can listen to his on-air announcement here. Continue reading One Judgment and More To Come →

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“We Want Him Off The Air”

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In a candidate forum, Siegel/Brazon candidate Chuck Anderson said the station “absolutely did not want” to keep paid programmers, called overnight programmer Roy Tuckman “goy of hollywood” and said “we absolutely want him off the air”.

Tuckman, who goes by the nom de plume Roy of Hollywood runs KPFK’s overnight programming from Monday to Thursday from midnight to 6am and is the only Pacifica programmer nationwide to substantively monetize the overnight hours.

Anderson mis-stated numbers: 70% of KPFK’s budget is not for “paid programmers”, it’s for salaries as a whole including engineers, membership/subscriptions staffers, managers, IT, traffic etc. The station, when fully staffed, has about 9 FTE for paid programming, about 1/2 of the payroll.

 

 

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

Latest Audit In History

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Berkeley-Ten days after Pacifica’s interim controller issued a long list of accounting schedules and bank reconciliations to meet a projected start date on November 30th for the 2014 audit, it looks likely that deadline, the latest in a long series of blown deadlines, will be missed. Requests from board members for a copy of a signed engagement letter with auditor Armanino have been met with silence. The last meeting of the board’s audit committee wasn’t attended by either the committee chair or the secretary and disbanded rapidly. Continue reading Latest Audit In History →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

System Breakdown

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Berkeley-The Pacifica Foundation, 19 months into a coup by the Siegel/Brazon faction, is starting to project its internal demolition onto on-air operations. In the past two weeks, LA station KPFK’s website has collapsed at least three times, once for 4 entire days and the station fell off terrestrial broadcast, the website at www.pacifica.org went dark, the website at www.kpfa.org went dark, WBAI-FM aired the Progressive Radio Network’s internet stream having misplaced its own programs, and the LA archives failed, storing only 15 of the last 132 hours of programming since 6:00am on Monday November 16th. Continue reading System Breakdown →

Pacifica in Exile Newsletters

Bankruptcy Is A Beginning

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Berkeley-The Pacifica National Board had an informal “strategic planning” meeting Thursday night. In the hour-long meeting, KPFA director Jose-Luis Fuentes pushes for the Pacifica Foundation to move into voluntary bankruptcy, which is described as “a beginning” by PNB director George Reiter. The board indicates they wish to consult with their FCC attorney John Crigler about filing for reorganization, although Crigler is an FCC and copyright attorney, not a bankruptcy attorney.  Options on the table are described as a sale of Berkeley’s national office building or a lease, sale or swap of WBAI’s broadcasting license. PNB members Adriana Casenave and Tony Norman insist the board’s discussions about selling real estate, leases, swaps or sales of broadcasting licenses or “debt reorganization” be held in executive session where the network’s members cannot hear them, and discuss how these decisions are “political”. The full meeting audio is here, a seven minute clip is here.  Continue reading Bankruptcy Is A Beginning →

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KPFK Website Gone For Hours

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Wednesday night, at the stroke of midnight, LA station KPFK’s website disappeared from the Internet for about three hours, putting a sad cap on a month-long fund drive that ended on Friday 11/6 at $608,000 or $142,000 short of the goal.

Why did the website completely go down? KPFK didn’t pay the bill.  Continue reading KPFK Website Gone For Hours →

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4th KPFK Host/DJ Quits On-Air

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Melting Pot host Michael Barnes announced on Friday November 6th that his last program would be that evening after five years on KPFK.

Off-air, Barnes said he “was done with the place and how badly it was being managed”.

Barnes is the fourth consecutive on-air host to announce a same day resignation citing new manager Leslie Radford’s mismanagement of the station.

Barnes kept it classy on the air, and here is his on-air goodbye to KPFK.