"The Pacifica Network has a fraction of the listenership it had when I started listening to KPFK in L.A. in 1977 and KPFA when I moved up to No. Ca. in '81."
This is not be true, and you offer nothing to back up your assertion other than a vague reference to arbitrons. An objective measure of listenership is money raised from listeners. This figure has only increased over the last two decades. So people are defintely listening and voting in support of the station with their money. In other words there is at least an increase in the number of people subscribing - which may or may not correlate with the number of people listening.
In any case, arbitrons are a dubios measure of listenership especially for public radio since arbitrons were designed primarily to measure the commercial radio listenership.
In terms of programming, people obviously like different things. So its okay if you only like Sasha and CS's programming (Against the Grain) Some people around Berkeley refer to KPFA as 'KPLO'. However, Dennis Bernstein's Flashpoints raises a lot of money for the station showing that it is more popular than Against the Grain at least in terms of listeners voting with their wallets. So while you may not like Flashpoints, like many others, many do and many others like both programs as well as others.
As it happens, I don't care most for the music of KPFA either. I remain a big fan of Charles Amirkhanian and his crew at http://www.otherminds.org. For me, the best music station in the Bay Area is KPOO - www.kpoo.com
>From: Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Facts in KPFA Dispute Hard to Grasp
>Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 17:09:51 -0600
>
> Have some Arbitrons that show increasing influence, local,
>nationally, globally over the last few decades?
> The Pacifica Network has a fraction of the listenership it had when
>I started listening to KPFK in L.A. in 1977 and KPFA when I moved up
>to No. Ca. in '81. No one on KPFA has the wit or political
>sophitication of a Dorothy Healey who had a show for decades on KPFK.
>besides Sasha and C.J. Soong.
> The staffers, Maldari et. al. put out a professional news
>broadcast. About the only hour besides Sasha Lilley's worth listening
>to on the station. Flashpoints is whiny ranting. Same guests over and
>over. "And today, Michael Parenti and Barbara Lubin for the thousandth
>time." A listenership that objects to John Zorn or other avant music
>in favor of boring, hippie "folk" music.KQED and KALW are far better
>stations. The music on say WFMU is far more adventurous. Since Charles
>Amarkanian left or was fired the music has sucked bigtime on the
>station.
>
>
>
>--
>Michael Pugliese
>
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