Fund drive success at KPFA: Uprising brings in the bucks

Sonali Kolkathar
Sonali Kolkathar

KPFA’s recent fund drive ended ahead of schedule, and exceeded its goal by more than $20,000.

The station’s biggest fundraising totals came from its newest show:  Uprising with Sonali Kolhatkar, which airs at 8 am.  Following an ambitious off-air fundraising campaign, Kolhatkar is set to follow in the footsteps of Democracy Now! by launching her show as a national television program on Free Speech TV.

KPFA’s new general manager Quincy McCoy has announced to staff an ambitious campaign to shrink the length of KPFA’s next fund drive, scheduled to begin in October — listen for details in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile, check out KPFA’s newest book talks by Diane Ackerman, Naomi Klein, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Reese Erlich, Vandana Shiva, Molly Antopol and others here.

KPFA listeners stick around for Uprising at 8AM

uprisingThe new 8AM lineup featuring award-winning Pacifica programmer Sonali Kolhatkar‘s Uprising Radio is doing well. Uprising follows Upfront with Brian Edwards-Tiekert at 7AM. Since the program began in late May,audience retention from the hours of 7 to 8 has improved.

KPFA’s interim general manager Richard Pirodsky said he put Kolhatkar’s show in the 8AM slot for just that reason — to solidly keep KPFA’s audience listening during peak drive time of 7 to 9AM, and it appears to be working. The previous morning hosts have been given airtime in the afternoon.

Pirodsky delivered a report to last Saturday’s LSB meeting describing his reasoning, and asking critics to take a step back and consider the needs of KPFA’s entire listening community. | LISTEN to iGM’s report, READ iGM’s report, LISTEN to LSB meeting: part a, part b, part c

New programming a hit, permanent KPFA manager expected to be appointed soon

With this spring’s new majority on the Pacifica National Board and Reese’s ouster last month, the network is moving forward once again.

uprisingAfter special broadcasts of Sonali Kolhatkar‘s Uprising Radio pushed KPFA’s spring fund drive far above its goal, the station’s interim general manager Richard Pirodsky added the program to KPFA’s morning lineup at 8am, following the very popular UpFront with Brian Edwards-Tiekert at 7am. Along with Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! at 9am, and Mitch Jeserich’s Letters & Politics at 10am, the drive time programming has been overwhelmingly popular with listeners, and is important in giving the station a sound financial footing, at a time when it one of the few of the five Pacifica-owned stations not in the red. The Morning Mix hosts are now broadcasting in the afternoon.

If you haven’t yet, please drop KPFA’s manager, Richard Pirodsky, a thank you note at richard@kpfa.org, and cc us at votesavekpfa@gmail.com.

Word is that the new interim executive director appointed by the national board, Bernard Duncan, is on the verge of announcing a new permanent KPFA general manager for KPFA from among three finalists.

Staff and community members who were introduced to these finalists during a “meet and greet” session in May have described each of them as “excellent,” “outstanding” and “promising.” This exciting development is long overdue. The Local Station Board chose the finalists and submitted their names back in November 2013 to Pacifica’s then-interim executive director, who failed to fulfill her obligation hire one.

“After an era period of transient managers and interference by Pacifica administrators with their own agendas,” said Local Station Board secretary Craig Alderson, “we’re now looking forward to a permanent general manager, vetted by local representatives, who will actually be able to address the KPFA’s critical issues instead of just treading water. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”