SubGenius has foe done in

Date: Thu, Jan 10, 2002 6:01 PM

From: parsee@whale-mail.com (King St. Edwin)

Beleaguered KPFT boss to announce resignation
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1205786

Back in March 2001, the KPFT manager and his wife, also a station
employee, had me arrested on false charges. The best defense firm in
town represented me pro bono and the charges were dropped after 6
months.

Since then, the wife resigned her paid position, and as of tomorrow,
so does the husband. They were bringing home a combined salary of
about $100,000 per year. Another employee, who also gave false reports
to police, will also be leaving.

I knew "Bob" would back me up on this one.

http://www.houstonradioreport.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Fredric L. Rice" <FRice@SkepticTank.ORG>

One for the good guys. And I see a cousin of mine wrote it. }:-}

--
http://www.SkepticTank.ORG/ http://www.KeithHenson.ORG/
http://www.SkepticFiles.ORG/ http://www.SlatkinFraud.COM/
http://www.RaulLopez.ORG/ http://www.RonTheNut.ORG/
http://www.BobMinton.ORG/ http://www.CrackPots.ORG/
http://www.ToryMagoo.ORG/ http://www.HolySmoke.ORG/
http://www.Xenu.NET/ http://www.Raids.ORG/ http://www.Nots.ORG/
http://www.MoneyCult.ORG/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: wbarwell@starbase.neosoft.com (William Barwell)

Victory! Now that goofy ol' Ganter is leaving, looks like they need
a new station manager. Hope they can find somebody not a jerk.
Where'd Duane Bradley?

Pope Charles
SubGenius Pope of Houston
Slack!

Pacifica's Audience Drops Sharply
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Pacifica Campaign Release - December 10, 2001

Audience Drops Sharply at Pacifica Radio Stations

WBAI in New York, KPFT in Houston See Big Declines

Calls Mount for Accountability and New Leadership at Embattled Network

NEW YORK, (Dec. 10) - Nearly one year after dramatic management
changes and mass firings at the five-station Pacifica Radio network,
audience figures have dropped sharply at the nation's oldest public
broadcaster, according to recently released Arbitron estimates.

At WBAI 99.5 FM in New York, the station's share - or its percentage
of all radio listening, the most commonly used Arbitron estimate -
has plunged 40 percent since Fall 2000, the last Arbitron's released
before December 2000's "Christmas Coup" that ushered in mass firings
and new programming.

Audience figures at Pacifica station KPFT 90.1 FM in Houston also
fell sharply between Fall 2000 and Summer 2001, according to Arbitron
estimates. The station's share dropped from 1.5 percent of all radio
listening in Houston to .9 percent, a 40 percent decline. In
addition, the station's cumulative weekly audience dropped from
145,000 to 104,000, a fall of nearly 30 percent.

The dwindling audience is just the opposite of claims that the
changes Pacifica managers have instituted at WBAI and around the
network were aimed at "expanding and broadening" audience.

In fact, three of the five Pacifica stations saw drops in all key
Arbitron measurements. Only one station showed audience growth in all
five areas. The fifth station showed mixed results.

"Even by their own standards, the policies of the present Pacifica
leadership have failed," said Bernard White, former WBAI program
director and Pacifica Campaign staffer. "It is now time for the
mismanagement and chaos to end. WBAI, KPFT and Pacifica desperately
need new, competent, and accountable leadership."

Last December, Pacifica executives launched the "Christmas Coup" at
WBAI, changing all the locks overnight, bringing in security guards,
and firing, banning, and suspending 25 producers and staff. Those
fired included the stations' most successful programmers such as Polk
Award winning journalists Amy Goodman and Robert Knight.

The move followed the 23-day lock-out of community and staff from
Pacifica station KPFA 94.1 FM in Berkeley in the summer of 1999. The
lock-out ended when more than 10,000 people marched in the streets of
the East Bay in the largest protest since the Vietnam War.

Pacifica reform activists say network chiefs want to eliminate
Pacifica's traditional hard-hitting programming, de-link the stations
from the communities they were intended to serve, and sell-off some
of the valuable licenses estimated at more than $500 million. Three
out of the five Pacifica stations already feature music and soft,
non-controversial programming.

Only WPFW in Washington, DC, saw all key five Arbitron indices rise
over the last year. This is largely due to its position as the only
remaining jazz station in the nation's capital. Pacifica stations
KPFA in Berkeley and KPFK in Los Angeles reported mixed results.

At WBAI, the number of listeners tuning in to the station, the
Average Quarter Hour (AQH), dropped 46 percent between the Fall 2000
and the Summer 2001. And the Time Spent Listening (TSL) to the
station declined 40 percent, from 7.6 hours a week in Fall 2000 to
4.6 hours in Summer 2001, according to Arbitron estimates.

In the 1990s, WBAI established itself as the largest and most
successful station in the network. It recorded the first one million
dollar on-air fundraising drive in community radio and, during the
Fall quarter of Sept.-Dec. 2000, the station had the highest recorded
listenership in its history, more than 200,000 listeners a week, the
largest in the network.

In the latter half of the 1990s, WBAI's audience diversity was unique
in all of public broadcasting. Arbitron estimates revealed that some
41 percent of WBAI's listeners were Black or Latino and that the
audience was evenly divided between men and women.

In addition, WBAI won more than 45 national programming awards during
that time and its journalists won the top awards in US journalism.

By contrast, KPFT positioned itself as the "Sound of Texas,"
featuring country music for a largely affluent white audience in a
city that is more than half people of color. But, according to
Houston area press reports, KPFT has been facing stiff competition
from a commercial country music station.

The Pacifica Campaign is an organization of staff and listeners alike
calling for democratic accountability at the 52-year-old network. The
campaign has called for the return of fired and banned staff who
possess the skills and experience necessary for the long-term success
of WBAI and the Pacifica Radio network.

--END--

**********************************
Pacifica Campaign
51 MacDougal St., #80
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 646-230-9588
pacificacampaign@yahoo.com
http://pacificacampaign@yahoo.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: HellPope Huey <hellpopehuey@subspamgeenyus.com>

>Victory! Now that goofy ol' Ganter is leaving, looks like they need
>a new station manager. Hope they can find somebody not a jerk.
>Where's Duane Bradley?

Duane is an honorable cat and would do it up right. We always hit it off like
champs because he's legit and has no dumbassed agenda.

You wanna get KPFT rolling again & start fixing that 40% ratings drop?

Hire Duane as manager, make me music director @ $30k a year and gimme the
Friday morning drive slot again, maybe an afternoon one as well. I'll sprinkle
stardust on yer damn ass, 2002 style. I was gettin' a meaningful 4.3 in the
Arbitrons when I was politically ditched for a LESBIAN SHOW 'cause the manager
was a clueless one herself. I have a Masters in getting the taste of bad radio
out of an unwashed listening audience's mouth.

Hey, if you wanna come back, come back big.

HellPope Huey, hellpopehuey@subgenius.com
Just say no to tarantula souffle

"Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck,
a good physique and
not too much imagination."
- Christopher Isherwood

The moral of "SHREK:"
You can be accepted for being yourself if
you are ugly, but not if you are short.

"Mentally, I'm already playing
the nickle slots in Atlantic City."
- Night C
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: wbarwell@starbase.neosoft.com (William Barwell)

I was one of the few post-midnight DJ's that ever managed to
actually make my pledge goals and then some.

From 1.4 Arbitrons to .9? Hey that's where most boring religous
radio stations hang out. Spanish gospel music stations do that.

When they bumped me (Too much Subgenius stuff, too much Burroughs,
too much angular and complex progressive music), I had a little
errr... discussion with the prick of a program director whose idea
of programming was AAA music, no news, no pesky volunteer DJs and
lots of taped programming. They had had a mandate from above to
boost minority and women listeners. And had promptly axed many
minority and women producers.

Pacifica had wasted $5000 for Walrus Consulting to lay out the
arbotrons for them and advise them on programming issues. There,
Walrus had reported with some nice charts that KPFT's AAA
programming showed an IMMEDIATE drop in both women and minority
listeners. Drastic and deep dropoffs. We were not supposed to
know what this report told managment, but the one time they
allowed somebody to borrow it it had gottened xeroxed and passed
around.

I pointed out in my going away 'interview' that this was a problem
in light of the then managment mandates. A big look of shock and
surprise was soon all over the mugs mug. I never did learn if it
was shock and surprise that I KNEW, or shock and surprise that his
beloved programming style and the official Pacifica mandate clashed
and he hadn't noticed.

Whatever. Garland kept this all even when Jeff, his all music (but
not good music) and no news program orientated director decamped to go
pester somebody else. (Reports were that everybody at the radio
station he was at, some public station in New England held a party to
celebrate his leaving. We all celebrated his leaving too.)

Garland soon layed off all volunteer programmers for a mediocre paid
staff from morning to evening.

AND IT DIDN'T WORK!

The fave part of KPFT daytime programming, the BBC news, was kept ONLY
because the otherwise weak backboned advisors led by one woman who
cared, strongly hinted that it was not going to fly to end ALL news at
KPFT.

Garland had run off their news department director, a man who did very
much with next to nothing, and was therefore dangerous. Might make news
popular.

"Bob" knows how the next director is going to turn this fiasco around.
Hopefully by starting laying off paid staff and rounding up talented
volunteers, and finding a way to get news going again.

I KNEW this was coming. That it was going to drag ass until it sank to
low levels of moribund mediocrity. KPFT's not far above what it was 10
years ago when the transmitter conked out twice a week with regularity
and programs and producers were shuffled around semi-randomly once a
year and Jean Palmquist would have to hold emergency fund drives because
KPFT had $200 in the bank and a $500 electric bill past due. Except it's
MUCH more boring now than anarchic as then.

Bring back Huey! Bring back Chuck Roast! Bring back Art Gnuvo! First we
fumigate...

Back to document index

Original file name: Pacifica Fucks Up.txt - converted on Friday, 20 September 2002, 16:07