KGPR - History, forgotten and suppressed....
The following is a report I made to the KGPR Board on May 17, 2001
I sent this copy to Joe Jewett, who was the first person to systematically present classical music programming at KGPR (actually, the Rev. Tim Christenson recorded and played back GF Symphony broadcasts before, as Joe mentions below, but he didn't do any regular DJ presentations of classical music, and he was opposed to our becoming an independent station in 2000).
Joe also started the Youth Symphony in his first tour here as Concertmaster in the mid-1980's - a fact which Gordon Johson has repeatedly denied in order to take credit for that project. After Joe was fired (for making a Worker's Comp claim, and protesting nukes with me at a BRAC hearing), Gordon took over the Youth Symphony because the Symhony Board (mostly music teachers) insisted on it.
Joe's reply is found at the end of this document.... - Paul Stephens, June 23, 2017
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May 17, 2001 Report to the Board, Programming Committee, and greater KGPR community from Paul Stephens, recently appointed Classical Music Director at KGPR.
Some questions have arisen over my recent appointment as Classical Music Director of KGPR. I hope the following Report will re-assure anyone who has doubts or questions about my tenure in this position. Please feel free to call me or write for further discussion about these issues.
Resume/history
I have been preparing for this responsibility since I first went on the air at KCSB in Santa Barbara, California in 1971. As a Great Falls native, I began attending Great Falls Symphony concerts when I was still a high school student, during the 1963-64 season. At that time, you could still hear a few classical music broadcasts on commercial radio in the form of the Texaco Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, and a Sunday afternoon broadcast of the New York Philharmonic. While I was a student at UCLA, I began to build my own classical music collection, attended concerts by some of the great performers of the century, and regularly listened to KFAC, Los Angeles, one of the great big-city commercial fine arts stations.
When I moved back to Great Falls in 1972, I talked with the station managers at all the local commercial stations, and none saw any market or public demand for classical music broadcasting. And, of course, we had no public radio here, or anywhere else in Montana at that time. In the early 1970's, KUFM was a low-power university station intended as a training base for student broadcasters, and it had a range of only a few miles. Later in the 1970's, they hired Terry Conrad from Detroit, where he had been a DJ on an all-jazz commercial station. He had also played trumpet in an Air Force band, and had a degree from a Chicago university in music education. He was hired to transform KUFM into a full-fledged NPR affiliate with the power and reach to serve a larger audience in western Montana, and his success is certainly well-known to all of our listeners here at KGPR.
Having passed the test and acquired an FCC Class 3 License with broadcast endorsement (then required for anyone doing a live show), I apprenticed under Terry in 1979 as a literal "walk on" at the then largely volunteer-staffed KUFM. I originated an overnight show called "The Late Shift" from 2-8:00 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. During the last fund-raising week I spent in Missoula, 1981, the goal was $40,000, which we barely exceeded by the vigorous and insistant haranguing of the listening audience -- a practice which KUFM still maintains with its present goal of $350,000.
After the death of my father in 1981, I returned to Great Falls. My decision to remain here was contingent on the fact that a group was forming under Bruce McKenzie to establish a public radio station here, which would initially re-broadcast the KUFM signal. I wrote a letter to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which was used to obtain the original license and grant to build a transmitter, and expressed an interest in doing local classical music programming, which Bruce assured me I would soon be able to do.
Later in the 1980's, as a Board member and Vice President of the Great Falls Public Radio Association, I broadcast the first Great Falls Symphony and Cascade Quartet playbacks on KGPR on Saturday afternoons, taking the initiative to go the Symphony office, get the cassette tapes, and broadcast them. I was also the designated spokesperson for public radio, and addressed groups such as the Tuesday Music Club about KUFM's classical programming. I was also a member of the first Programming Committee, which consisted of those Board members who did local programming, and included John DeLair, an airman, Kerry Callahan, and John Torstveit. We did a public affairs program for several years which later became Voices and Views produced by Tim Christenson and Kerry.
Throughout this period, there was no systematic broadcast of local classical music until the 1990's, when Joe Jewett initiated the "Classical Performance Series" to replace the KUFM request program on Thursday nights. This was part of the first expansion of local programming to the evening and late-night hours when Tim was the half-time station manager.
The economics of local public radio
Now, everyone who is on the air in Missoula is paid a minimum of $10/hour. Terry's final salary (he recently retired) has been reported as something over $60,000 a year, which is paid by the University, not the listeners and underwriters. We have one staff person here at KGPR, who is paid $10/hour for 40 hours, and often works another 40 hours a week for nothing. Yet, we are mocked in the Great Falls Tribune for raising only 1/3 as much money for our own station as was sent from Great Falls to Missoula! Their story should have emphasized that our percentage of local public radio pledges closely reflects our percentage of local "prime time" broadcasting hours.
Some of you may recall that I strenuously opposed the "moratorium" on expansion of local programming, partially on the grounds that it was an obstacle to our receiving the full KUFM signal which many of you expressed yourselves in favor of having. During the last fund-raising drive, we should have maintained continuous local programming in order to take advantage of that fund-raising opportunity. Apparently, there were Board-imposed and contractual prohibitions on this course of action.
Our financial viability absolutely depends on our having a yearly full-time pledge week, regardless of where we get our programming for the remainder of the year. You, as a Board, must decide whether we are to go forward with the expansion of public radio in Great Falls, or remain stagnant and "starved out" by the Golden Triangle group.
Is anyone surprised that Great Falls is now Montana's 3rd city, and that Missoula has claimed second place? Three fourths of the few local community dollars we can raise for public radio are now channeled to Missoula to support their programming and bringing their signal here, and to support the hugely expensive National Public Radio programming which is corporate and federally controlled, but listener financed.
I stopped sending or raising money for KUFM quite a few years ago, mainly because of the cost of such shows as "Car Talk" and "A Prairie Home Companion". These two shows alone cost KUFM listeners about $20,000 dollars a year. Both of these shows (along with "St Paul Sunday Morning" and some other NPR and PRI shows) are semi-privatized. This means that the money we pay for these shows is captured, in part, by their producers, who have become millionaires as a consequence of your support.
And National Public Radio news, although better in many respects than what the corporate media provides, relies heavily on free-lance or other foreign correspondents employed by the BBC and other foreign sources. It is also carefully supervised by government authorities, so it has become politically responsive to (and dependent on) the Washington bureaucracy's approval and support. This was the very danger which conservatives warned about in the 1960's, when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was established. Now that these same conservative, corporate interests control the government, they are less concerned about government news management and censorship.
We, in Montana, pay dearly for this news programming -- about $90 for each hour of "All Things Considered" and Morning Edition, according the latest KUFM figures announced during their recent pledge drive. Probably half or more of the $350,000 raised by KUFM was forwarded to NPR, PRI, and other national services. And the more money raised, the higher these fees become. We could get the same or better services here in Great Falls as an independent station for a small fraction of the cost which KUFM must pay for them. And there is three or four times more material on NPR and PRI than we have ever heard from KUFM. More importantly, there are thousands of locally-produced news and public affairs programs from all over the country -- and the world -- which are virtually free for the asking.
But the point to keep in mind is that the vast majority of people in Great Falls never listen to public radio of any kind, whether it is local, national, or from Missoula. More local content is the only sure way to increase local listeners, membership, and support. KUFM has hardly changed its programming over the past 20 years. Only by frequent changes and rotation in programming can we keep up with what is happening in public radio, and give more local people the opportunity to participate.
An apparent majority of Great Falls listeners (or at least contributors) have been persuaded to subordinate Great Falls and its interests to Missoula. Why is this so? Should we otherwise become a colony of Missoula? Should we dissolve our city government and ask Missoula to step in and govern us? Should the Great Falls Symphony disband, so that we can listen to all our symphonic music from Missoula? If anyone in Great Falls thinks so, they're not admitting it. Yet, opponents of local public radio have been allowed to set policy over our local public radio station, and prevent us from expanding our locally-produced, community-supported and -supporting programming. This is just plain wrong, and I know that many of you who have become involved as a result of the Golden Triangles attacks on local public radio are no longer associated with that group. The fact is, they cost us (and Missoula) $35,000 in lost pledges last year, and this year, they have continued to divide community support even for the radio station which they help to manage!
Most of their support was based on their claim to support and expand classical music programming. The difference may be that I want to expand local classical music programming, while they wished to use nothing but national or Missoula classical music programming. This is pure foolishness. We have a larger and better classical music community in Great Falls than either Missoula or Bozeman, and our school music programs, which I am covering extensively in my shows, is nationally known and rated, which neither Missoula or even Billings can claim.
With the departure of Joe Jewett, we lost the only regular KGPR classical music staff person. Joe is a personal friend of mine, and I see my role as taking over where he left off. I am also personally acquainted with most of the classical music performers and leaders in the Great Falls area, and I hope to balance and include many kinds of local live music and the people who produce it which have heretofore not been heard on KGPR. I think most of us here at KGPR see ourselves as serving and promoting the live performing arts community, rather than being in competition with it.
Long-term planning
My intention, as a long-time public radio volunteer and activist, has always been to bring in the full Missoula signal on its own frequency, and more recently, to expand classical programming to double or triple its present level. This can be accomplished by bringing in KEMC from Billings, which is more classical music-oriented than KUFM, and by expanding local classical programming to some appropriate prime-time hours, such as Sunday evening from about 8:30-midnight, as I have already proposed to the Programming Committee. As the station expands its listener and support base, it should be possible to pay additional staff and even the on-air personnel, as KUFM has done, now, for almost 20 years.
By now, we are way off track for becoming an independent station. Since we have become a membership organization, our opportunities for receiving tax money and grants is somewhat diminished. I would rather see us licensed to the Great Falls Public Schools, the City, or the County (we are most like the public library in this regard, which receives both city and county mills, and always has at least one school district representative on its Board).
This is an issue which will continue to split our membership, staff, and listeners until it is satisfactorily resolved. You, as a Board, need to make a public appeal for more local members and support. Every year I was on the Board, and for several years thereafter, I raised at least $600 in pledges and premiums for local public radio. The public should have been informed that if they want to support our local public radio station and local control of it, then they need to become members for a minimum contribution of $25/year, and vote for Board members who reflect our interests, not Missoula's.
Any attempt to count contributions to KUFM as the basis for voting membership at KGPR should (and will) receive a legal challenge. The whole point of being a membership organization is to maintain local control over our local public radio station, and to use our local dollars for the benefit of this community and this radio station, not someone else's. KUFM already gets more than $400,000 in state taxpayer support through the University of Montana, which owns it. We, the members of the Great Falls Public Radio Association, the Directors, staff, and volunteers at KGPR own this station, and we all need to provide better leadership, stewardship and support than we have provided thus far.
Paul Stephens 564-2201, greateco@gmail.com Classical Music Director, KGPR Host of "The Literature of Music" and "The Classical Music Scene"
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Paul H Stephens wrote:
Hi, Joe.
I found your e-mail address in the KGPR files, so I thought I'd send you this report on the state of classical music broadcasting in Great Falls. The same battles are still going on, as you can see, but we might still get there. The Youth Orchestra is doing great, and I'm trying to get more time and more people involved in doing classical music on KGPR.
Hope you are doing well, and enjoying conducting.
paul
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Hey Paul,
Good to hear from you. I'm glad to see that you are up to your standard bearing ways. Who knows what Great Falls would be like with out folks like you and Arlene etc. Now I don't want to play into any sort of messianic complex but truly the Philistines would have open field. I' sorry to see that the radio dispute drags on. It is a shame that people can't seem to pull together for the sake of community....
One correction about your report. Perhaps you were unaware that Tim actually started Classical Performance Series and trained me to take it over. I did many more shows before I quit than did he, but credit should go where it is deserved. I thank you for mentoining me so favorably. I hope that I have left a good reputation behind me in Great Falls and Montana despite the fact that I had the temerity to leave town...
I do miss the relative peacefulness of the Montana lifestyle. There are amazing musical opportunities and challenges here in the Boston which are counterweighted by a very fast paced aometimes harried way of living. Take care,
Joe
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