KPFA

KPFA

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City of license	Berkeley, California, United States
Broadcast area	Berkeley/San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, California
Branding	Pacifica Radio
Slogan	"Listener Supported Pacifica Radio"
Frequency	94.1 (MHz)
First air date	April 15, 1949
Format	Public Radio
ERP	59,000 watts horizontal only
HAAT	405 meters
Class	B
Facility ID	51246
Callsign meaning	PaciFicA
Owner	Pacifica Foundation, Inc.
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	kpfa.org

KPFA (94.1 FM) is a listener-funded progressive talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, U.S., broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed on-the-air April 15, 1949, as the first Pacifica station and remains the flagship station of the Pacifica Radio Network. The aims of the station are to promote cultural diversity, promote pluralistic cultural expression, contribute to a lasting understanding between individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colours. It also promotes freedom of the press and acts as a forum for various viewpoints.

The station's studios are located in Downtown Berkeley and the transmitter site is located in the Berkeley Hills.

History

Launched in 1949, three years after the Pacifica Foundation was created by pacifist Lewis Hill, KPFA became the first station in the Pacifica Radio network and the first listener-supported radio broadcaster in the United States. Previously, non-commercial stations were licensed only to serve educational functions as extensions of high schools, colleges, and universities. This departure into listener-oriented programming brought many detractors as KPFA aired controversial programming. The first interview with anyone from the gay political movement was broadcast by KPFA, as well as Allen Ginsberg's ground-breaking poem Howl in the 1950s. In 1954 the broadcast by a group of marijuana reform advocates extolling the pleasures of cannabis resulted in the tape being impounded by the California Attorney General. In the 1960s KPFA and Pacifica were accused of being controlled by the Communist Party, and several challenges to its license were waged, none of them successful.

KPFA was the first station to broadcast a radio show specializing in space music, with the debut of Stephen Hill and Anna Turner's Music from the Hearts of Space in 1973. Ten years later, the show – now known by the shorter title Hearts of Space – was syndicated in the U.S. to NPR stations, while remaining at its first home at KPFA.

Labor disputes

In 1999 the station was effectively taken over by KPFA's governing Pacifica Foundation, after Dennis Bernstein, the long-established host of the station's Flashpoints news magazine, was forcibly removed by police for airing grievances on air over a labor dispute. A broad cross section of protesters joined in direct action outside of the station in a weeks-long lockout during which station management spent over half a million dollars on security measures. At one point, listeners created a separate fund to accept listener pledges that would be directed away from the Pacifica Foundation.

In 2007, KPFA derecognized its Unpaid Staff Organization. The staff claimed that Pacifica Radio had been making network more corporate, softening its voice of dissent, and attempting to get rid of some of the volunteers at the station. In 2008, a forcible removal by police of a KPFA volunteer highlighted the concerns between management and volunteer staff. A member of the KPFA board suggested that it was problematic that there was no grievance procedure for unpaid staff at the station.

In November 2010, the management of Pacifica laid off most of the staff of the popular KPFA Morning Show. The union representing the paid staff of KPFA claims that the lay offs were done in violation of the union contract. Pacifica management says the lay offs were financially necessary and done according to staff seniority. Pacifica management replaced the paid staff of the Morning Show with an all volunteer crew.

Affiliated stations

KPFA's sister stations are WBAI New York, KPFT Houston, KPFK Los Angeles, and WPFW Washington. Pacifica continues today to be a listener-supported network of stations. The main KPFA transmitter is a 59 kilowatt class B, though there are also two smaller boosters, KPFA-FM2 in Bonny Doon and KPFA-3 in Oakley. KPFB 89.3 is a smaller station, also in Berkeley, that covers areas of Berkeley that KPFA cannot reach. It also carries some separate programming specifically for its Berkeley audience. KPFA programs are also rebroadcast by KFCF in Fresno. KZFR in Chico also carries KPFA's programming from 2:00-6:00 a.m. daily. In the Bay Area, Comcast carries KPFA's broadcasts on cable channel 967, as part of its digital radio offering. The channel is labelled "Variety/Berkeley".

See also

2

External links

• KPFA official site
• Pacifica Radio Archives
• The Lengthening Shadow: Lewis Hill and the Origins of Listener-Sponsored Radio in America
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KPFA
• Radio-Locator information on KPFA
• Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KPFA
• Query the FCC's FM station database for KPFB
• Radio-Locator information on KPFB
• Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KPFB
• w9wi.com List of "Superpower grandfathered" FM radio stations in the U.S.
• KPFA: A Historical Footnote (Seventy five hours of programs and interviews from the 1960s)