Stations may join hands across Monterey Bay
Two pubradio stations on opposite sides of California’s Monterey Bay are eyeing a partnership to streamline operations and strengthen local programming.
Over the next six months, the managers of KAZU-FM in Pacific Grove and KUSP-FM in Santa Cruz will work with Public Radio Capital to assess possible combinations.
They will then discuss any changes with the organizations that hold their licenses, KAZU’s Foundation of California State University Monterey Bay and KUSP’s ’Pataphysical Broadcasting Foundation. Both stations are financially sound, their managers say.
KUSP’s signal entirely engulfs KAZU’s, and both stations air NPR’s newsmagazines. "Our sense is that that’s a lot of hours to be devoting to similar programming," says Duncan Lively, g.m of KAZU.
"[W]e want to strengthen our ability to provide the services that we’re doing now in the market as we get ready to take the jump into a more complex media world," says Terry Green, g.m of KUSP.
Talks about collaborating began after Lively joined KAZU in 2005, and last year’s national New Realities planning process, led by NPR, "crystallized some of the challenges that are lying ahead," he says.
Collaboration might not require staff cuts. "We are both so understaffed, we’re really operating two half-stations," Lively says. "If we combine the staffs, it would probably put our head count close to what it should be for a station of that size."
Web page posted Feb. 21, 2008
Copyright 2008 by Current Publishing Committee