Terry Green Blogs About KUSP

For the past few days we’ve been announcing a special event for our listeners — a live performance of This American Life via satellite from New York, transmitted to specially-equipped movie theaters across the country.

KUSP is the sponsoring station for two screenings — in Salinas at the Century 14 Northridge Mall, and in downtown Santa Cruz at the Regal Santa Cruz 9 on Pacific Avenue.

The show plays at 8:00 PM our time (the show goes out live to theaters in the Eastern and Central time zones, tape delayed for us).

Click on this link for Santa Cruz tickets, or this link for Salinas tickets. The event is also playing at theaters in San Jose, Cupertino, and Monterey, but KUSP is not sponsoring those screenings. You can see all the theaters where the show is happening by combining these lists: here (big chains), here (independents), and here (Canada!)

Today Ira sent out an e-mail with more about the show than we have room for in our on-air announcement. He writes:

Our all-star lineup for the May 10th cinema event has gotten all-starrier! David Sedaris will join David Rakoff, Mike Birbiglia, Tig Notaro, Glynn Washington, Ryan Knighton, the Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company and OK Go.

I’ve been so busy putting this show together I fear sometimes that the promos we’ve done for it have not communicated just how special and different it is. We’re trying to make a show that’s more visual than any stage show we’ve ever done, so there’s animation and dancing and a little movie and we’ll be performing the whole thing in front of a rear projection screen that we use throughout, to enhance the stories.

In short, we’ve been trying to think of things that can’t be done on the radio. Things that are best done in a movie theater. Making this our most ambitious live show ever. I was talking to a friend last week and realized, right, this is either going to be the most amazing thing we’ve ever created onstage, or it’s going to be a complete train wreck and there is no in-between.

You should be there.

And if you still need more inducement, we’ll have special giveaways that night for folks who come to the Salinas or Santa Cruz shows. I hope you’ll join us!

The New York Times’ media blog summarizes today’s ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case brought against the FCC by KMTP-TV in San Francisco.

The ruling keeps in place the prohibition in the FCC rules of commercial advertising by regular businesses on non-commercial radio and TV stations (KUSP included, of course), but eliminates bans on “issue advertising” (such as state ballot propositions) and advertising by political candidates.

For most of us in public broadcasting, this court opinion came out of nowhere. There has been no coverage of the case in Bay Area media, as far as I am aware, or in the trade press for the broadcasting business. KMTP challenged all of the advertising restrictions as they apply to noncommercial stations; indeed the case got started because KMTP had been fined $10,000 by the FCC for running illegal announcements on behalf of, among other companies, State Farm Insurance, Asiana Airlines, and Chevrolet. The appeals court sustained the fine for violating the advertising rules as they apply to commercial businesses; but in the post-Citizens United age, political advertising just kind of got sucked into the argument, and in the view of a 2-1 majority of the judges hearing the case, deserved special treatment.

[Quick digression in hopes of providing some clarity: for about 30 years, the FCC has permitted stations like KUSP to run on-air announcements that acknowledge donations to the station from businesses and describe the business in fairly minimal detail. About 75 Monterey Bay Area businesses support us in that way. We can say where they are located (including things like phone numbers and web addresses), and what products or services they offer customers, but that's basically it. Both the FCC and the IRS draw a distinction between "program underwriting" (the fancy name for this kind of support acknowledgment) and advertising. Listening to KUSP for half an hour, and listening to a commercial radio station for half an hour, will make the differences between advertising and underwriting pretty evident.]

The terrifying prospect for me, as KUSP’s manager, is the possibility that the government will march another step down this road and force non-commercial stations to take political advertising. One of the lesser-known features of the political broadcasting rules is that commercial stations are not free to reject political ads, generally speaking. Political ads overwhelm the airwaves at election time because politicians wrote the rules to ensure they had access to the airwaves, on an “all-you-can-eat” basis. It’s a mixed blessing for commercial radio and TV stations, to say the least.

The freedom public radio and TV enjoy from the kind of saturation onslaught other broadcasters experience at election time is one of the things that (I believe) undergirds our credibility and reputation for fairness. If the federal courts put us in the same boat as our commercial brothers and sisters — and eliminate this “safe harbor” for citizens seeking relief from the distortions and negativity that are part and parcel of political advertising in America — it will be a dark, dark day for Americans who use and support public radio and TV.

On the day that Apple begins retail sales of its new iPad, we learned that a major public radio piece about Apple was not what it purported to be.

The week of January 8, KUSP broadcast an episode of This American Life titled “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory.” The program was an adaptation of Mike Daisey’s one-man show, “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” In the stage show and the radio program, Mike Daisey takes Apple and a major contractor, Foxconn, to task for their labor practices in China.

The TAL episode took off – becoming the most downloaded program in the series’ history, and it brought even more attention to the already accelerating news coverage of Apple contractor business practices in China.

Among the listeners to the radio show was Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for another of our programs, Marketplace. As a reporter based in China, Schmitz has first-hand knowledge of Apple’s operations, and had doubts about some of the specifics in the radio program.

Ultimately, Marketplace and TAL joined forces to better understand what parts of Mike Daisey’s account were verifiable, and what wasn’t. As it turned out, many important details in the story didn’t stand up.

Consequently, TAL has decided to retract the original story in its entirety. Here is Ira Glass’ blog post about the situation.

A segment of tonight’s Marketplace (3:00 and 5:30 PM on KUSP) will report on the story, and next week’s broadcast of This American Life (Sunday 11:00 AM, repeating next Friday at 7:00 PM) will also cover the situation. That program will include an segment with Rob Schmitz; Ira will also be interviewing Mike Daisey.

TAL has always used both straight reporting and fiction to tell their stories, but with bright lines around each. It’s to their credit that they have moved strongly to set the record straight in this situation, and I am eagerly awaiting the upcoming broadcast…

During today’s 5:30 PM broadcast of Marketplace, KUSP switched back to our main on-air studio for the first time after renovating the studio — completing our Upgrade 2011 project.

Just after we started the program, Chief Engineer Brant Herrett made some last-minute changes to the software configuration of our new Wheatstone digital audio control surface. Brant had been working in this room pretty much non-stop over the past few days ironing out the last few kinks in the installation.

Marketplace has one local break, about halfway through the program. And so it was, at 5:46, that our new afternoon news host, Duncan Lively, turned down the Marketplace transition music, switched on the mic, and did our first post-upgrade local break from the main studio.

The number on the back of Mic 1 has always been upside down, for reasons I have never understood. Why mess with tradition?

Here is another view of the new studio, looking over Duncan’s right shoulder. You can see J.D. Hillard, who oversees all our news, talk and information programming, looking as if he’s cueing Duncan to do something, which as best as I can remember, he wasn’t. You can also see an indication of radio’s obsession with time: there are no less than four clocks visible in this picture!

We are all very happy to have successfully completed this project — KUSP’s first major studio renovations in fifteen years. Thanks go out again to the hundreds of KUSP contributors who made a gift in support of Upgrade 2011. Looking back at the blog posts from this project, I hope you’ll be able to see what a tremendous positive difference your generosity has made at our station.

Later on this spring we’ll have an open house at the studio, so you’ll be able to see all of this in person!

On his way to becoming one of public radio’s most talked about producers, Jesse Thorn brought his weekly program to KUSP. Admittedly, not all that many people talk about public radio producers, but anyway…

Bullseye, previously known as The Sound of Young America, arrived at KUSP in 2006, and it’s still here — Sunday nights at 8:00. It had started across town at KZSC and, after a short gestation period here, moved into national distribution via PRI, Public Radio International.

At the time Jesse’s show hit KUSP it already had a large following as a podcast — iTunes regularly featured it as one of their top picks. Jesse methodically built the audience for his show and introduced more podcasts about people and things that are awesome.

As part of “Transom,” a web site devoted to the making of radio (particularly public radio), Jesse has revealed his “12 Point Program for Absolutely, Positively 1000% No-Fail Guaranteed Success.” It’s a great insight into how independent media works (or doesn’t work) — and it does describe some of the qualities that have enabled Jesse to accomplish things in his profession in ways almost none of his contemporaries have.

And it’s a fun read.

Today the White House released the President’s budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts on October 1, 2012.

The budget keeps the annual appropriation to support public radio and television (through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) at $445 million, which is the same amount as was passed into law for the fiscal year we are in now.

Public broadcasting supporters are generally very happy to see an initial proposal that does not cut federal funding to public broadcasting below present levels. That said, the appropriations process is very long and sometimes convoluted, so it will take some time to see how this all turns out.

Federal funding is only one of the tax-based parts of public broadcasting’s economy. Historically, many states (though not California) have also budgeted support for their local stations — though that support has eroded greatly in the past two years. This story in Current, a trade publication for public media, reports on the latest developments.

On Monday 1/30/2012 Marketplace ran an installment of their series, “My Life Is True.” The series presents personal narratives of people struggling to make things work in today’s economy. The story was about Leo Webb, who told about being an Iraq war veteran and coming home with little in the way of marketable job skills.

Listeners wrote and called in expressing their skepticism about the commentary. On Wednesday Marketplace announced that the facts in the story could not be verified, and concluded that it probably had been fabricated. The web version of the story has been pulled off their site and they’ve issued apologies to the listeners, and to us.

We regret it any time a KUSP producing partner or contributor makes this kind of error — but we’re happy that Marketplace followed up when listeners contacted them questioning the veracity of the commentary, and took action based on what they found (or in this case, didn’t find).

Accountability does matter.

This week we’re very happy to add one of the best radio features about science to the KUSP schedule. EarthSky airs just before 1:00 PM seven days a week.

Deborah Byrd, now the program’s Editor-in-Chief, started the program in 1991. In the past twenty years EarthSky has expanded its reach and diversified its content. Today, supported by over one thousand science advisors, Deborah’s team reports on all facets of the natural world through a worldwide network of over twelve hundred stations.

With this change we bid farewell to Sandra Tsing Loh and The Loh Down on Science (which is still available here via its producing station, KPCC).

The change puts a first-class team of science reporters on our air every day, and makes a little more room available in our morning and afternoon news schedule for news and information of all kinds. As always, we welcome your feedback…

Greetings from the land of studio construction!

Here are some photos from the construction of KUSP’s new on-air studio — the last step of Upgrade 2011.

The last on-air break for our old equipment was at the end of Your Call with Rose Aguilar on Wednesday, January 11. Morning Host Jim Sintetos did the honors, bringing down the curtain on a studio configuration that had stayed pretty much the same for the past fifteen years.

We moved on-air operations across the hall to Production Studio 1 over the course of the next few hours, in time for Wes Sims to host Marketplace and All Things Considered from the temporary set-up. Here’s one of Wes’ All Things Considered breaks on Wednesday afternoon.

As soon as we were up and running in Production 1 our construction brigade started tearing out the old on-air gear. When we removed the audio mixing console we were astounded by how much stuff had gotten stuck under it over the last decade and a half!

Among the finds were a KUSP program schedule from 1997 — the year this equipment was installed — and a pledge form we lost during the Spring 2009 pledge drive! Happily, the member who made the lost pledge came through again later on that same year.

In what seemed like hardly any time at all, the equipment was pulled out and the recyclable materials sorted into piles.

Here the interview microphones (which we will keep using) are resting next to some of the hundreds of feet of analog audio cable that we no longer need.

We dismantled the cabinetry and pulled up the worn-out carpet — and were reminded that, once upon a time, people were permitted to smoke in the on-air studio! The carpet pad never lies. Once we got all the floor covering out of there the odor dissipated fairly quickly. Our carpet installers fixed up a few problems with the floor and applied the most environmentally-friendly adhesive we could find.

Our new carpet, selected with help from Lorri Kershner Design, went down next. The transformation was amazing.

This morning, the new studio furniture arrived, custom designed for KUSP by cabinetmaker and host of It Takes All Kinds, Bruce Larsen. The first puzzle was to figure out how all the pieces fit together; a challenge successfully met by Bruce and KUSP Lifetime Member Mac Hartley, pictured here.

While Mac and Bruce assembled the furniture, KUSP Chief Engineer Brant Herrett attended to the studio plumbing — literally. Though these plastic pipes will pass the high-speed Ethernet cables that connect the on-air studio’s equipment to the rest of the station.

After a few hours, Mac and Bruce got all the pieces correctly oriented, level, plumb, and square. While it appears that Mac is engaged in a religious observance, he is in fact holding two sections of the furniture together while Bruce (not visible) puts in the requisite fasteners from the other side…

On the way out the door tonight, Bruce said we were past Step 5 of the project. I’m glad someone is keeping track. Next we assemble more cabinetry and install the mounts for the various computer screens that will let our on-air staff know what’s going on. Stay tuned…

This is likely to be the last post in this blog for the year (unless something especially interesting happens in the next week) — and I wanted to finish by showing you how our Upgrade 2011 studio renovation is coming along.

There are three studios at KUSP. Renovations in one are essentially complete, and another studio is nearly finished. Here’s a look at how they turned out!

Production Studio 2 was the first to get overhauled, starting in September. You can see its skin and bones back at this blog post.

This picture shows J.D. Hillard at work this afternoon. To his left is the “control surface,” which is where studio users mix the different audio sources and send them to the right destinations. This was always called “the board” (or by some of my British friends, “the desk”). Up to now at KUSP, a wire with the audio running down it would connect each source of audio to the board, and mixing and switching would happen inside the board itself. Now, what we have (in combination with the computer screen behind it) is more of a virtual device that sends instructions to wherever the audio is coming from (or going to) — anywhere in the station. Gigabit Ethernet switches connect everything together.

In front of J.D. is another computer screen on which we record and edit digital audio files; typically, the audio sources for that editing (such as the microphone in the picture) are what we have assigned to the volume controls, on-off switches, and other knobs (real or virtual) on the control surface.

I’ve written about the “blades” that are at the heart of the system before. These are the devices that take analog or digital audio signals into the system (converting the signals to packets that can move around on the audio Ethernet environment), or convert an output stream to a standard digital or analog audio signal so it can leave the studio (or be fed to speakers or headphones). This pair of blades has been rolling along nicely in our audio server rack for about two months now!

Once we had Production Studio 2 up and running, we started in on our main recording studio, Production Studio 1. Here, Bruce Larsen is carving the right-sized hole in the countertop for this studio’s control surface.

And here’s how the room looks today, back in operation. There is still a little bit of finish work to do but we’ve been using the room most of December. The first KUSP show to be produced here, by the way, was Bonnie Jean’s fine late-night program, “The Playlist.” Blades and source equipment (CD players, tape decks, and so on) are installed in the upright racks to the right and left of the control surface, which is a bigger, more versatile version of the one in Production Studio 2. People we interview sit on the opposite side of the counter, and the window looks into the Peter Troxell Performance Studio (also known as “Studio T”), which will finally get permanent equipment about ten years after my predecessor, Peter, started that project.

This close-up gives you an idea how much control we have of each audio source now. Any audio signal at KUSP can be assigned to any control channel in any studio; the display in the middle of the channel strip tells you what’s assigned right now. The blue and white buttons at the bottom turn the audio on and off; the vertical slide fader adjusts the sound level; and the buttons above the display let you select different destinations for the audio.

What’s left to do? We’ve been sidetracked somewhat by delays in getting carpet installed in the last studio to upgrade, which is our main on-air studio, but today we got word that the carpet should finally get to Santa Cruz the middle of next week. We will speedily move our on-air operations into Production Room 1 (so if you hear some unusual flubs on the air right around New Year’s, don’t blame overindulgence by the hosts!) and get the last renovations done. Then it’s on to 2012!

Once again, I want to express my gratitude to the hundreds of KUSP supporters who made special gifts in the first half of 2011 to match our federal grant and make Upgrade 2011 a reality. It’s a joy to produce radio in such a flexible and up-to-date facility, and we owe it all to you. See you next year!