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.