Djfrresh and the rest of the KPSU air staff need the experience of working at a radio station during a format change. I think KPSU needs a format change. All that station does is play the same music offered on other Portland stations.

KPSU is not serving the public interest, playing the same songs. I think it would be a learning experience for the KPSU staff to change it's format and offer something not being aired in Portland. The format I'm thinking of is "Country Oldies".

Djfrresh and the rest of the air staff would get the experience and the benefit of working an additional format, where they can grow as DJ's becoming more versatile and more valuable to their next radio employer.

Here's a list of artists I would program. Djfrresh you can start reading up on these pioneers of Country Music on the web:

Roy Acuff
Bill Anderson
Eddy Arnold
Johnny Cash
Skeeter Davis
Jimmy Dean
Dave Dudley
Red Foley
Tennessee Ernie Ford
Lefty Frizzell
Don Gibson
Merle Haggard
Johnny Horton
Ferlin Husky
Stonewall Jackson
Sonny James
George Jones
Claude King
Hank Locklin
Loretta Lynn
Willie Nelson
Buck Owens
Webb Pierce
Charley Pride
Jim Reeves
Tex Ritter
Marty Robbins
Carl Smith
Hank Snow
Hank Thompson
Ernest Tubb
Porter Wagoner
Jimmy Wakely
Kitty Wells
Slim Whitman
Wilburn Brothers
Hank Williams
Faron Young

Can anyone else offer advice to Djfrresh in regard to the new format he'll be presenting?

Why not do Punk Country instead? I think that would be better tailored to a young demographic.

For those too young to remember this pioneering radio format from the seventies, here's a link to the demo:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/04/365_days_111_tm.html

I think classic country can work as a format, but I'm thinking mid 60smid 80s with just a sprinkling of the older....... again, personality is a MUST!

As for your original post Craig, it isn't valid because you didn't add

.....wat u all tink bout dat

Please add the rockabilly women:

Lorrie Collins,
Brenda Lee,
Wanda Jackson,
Charline Arthur
Jean Chapel

And the Carter family

Throw some Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys in there and I'd listen every day! "Ah Ha".

The obvious format opportunity is for "Classic Lesbian Country," of course.

Who's in that genre? (Besides KD Lang, maybe?)

Christine Gaines.

How 'bout Eskimo Disco?

"Across the Alley from the Alamo" is my favorite Bob Wills tune. I'd play that all day.

I'd like to see an all-encompassing country format that would include all of those above plus more modern and alt- country acts for example
The Jayhawks
Son Volt
Old 97s
My Morning Jacket
Bottle Rockets
Tift Merrit
Neko Case
Golden Smog
Everly Brothers
Uncle Tupelo
and many more

Greenway, so would I! I love all those artists. Unfortunately, you really never hear them on the radio, at least not here.

Hey, if we're doing country oldies, let me throw in:

Patsy Montana
The Delmore brothers
The Dixon Brothers
The Monroe Brothers
Jimmie Rodgers
Milton Browne & his Brownies
Chet Atkins
Uncle Dave Macon
Darby & Tarlton
Spade Cooley
Merle Travis
Maddox Brothers & Rose

How about some Buzz Martin for true northwest authenticity?

I hope Djfrresh is taking some notes because I'll be contacting his P.D. about KPSU's format change.

Tell "DJ" to contact Ed Dailey over here in the Tri-Cities for any and all playlists regarding Oldies Country. Ed teaches the Radio/TV program at the Tri City Area Vocational Skills Center aka: TRI-TECH. Ed has had and continues to produce an Oldies Country syndicated show for stations west of the Mississippi, this he does as his own enterprise. He would be quite willing, I am sure, to assist with a wealth of experience to a public radio/educational entity like KPSU.

Ed Dailey Instructor :TRI_TECH, KTCV FM 88.1
509-222-7300

Does anyone else ever DX 1060?

I'd go Americana. Oldies Country + other roots music like zydeco and blues + alt.country + harder-rockin' folkies. I'd sure listen!

Does anyone else ever DX 1060?

I listen to 1060 out of Calgary every so often, and remember them when they were Mix 1060 (in AM Stereo) back in the 90's.(I don't exactly know how to classify the format of the old Mix 1060 in the 90's, maybe Adiant can chime in with more info. I just remember Mix 1060 playing a lot of "Crash Test Dummies" due to the fact that they were "Canadian Content".)

For a classic country station, CKMX 1060 seems to pull in at least respectable 12+ numbers in Calgary (a 3.2 share in 1st Quarter of this year) Even though it is in a Canadian market with fewer stations, that's still not too bad for a niche programmed, music playing AM station. And, yes, country stations of some sort are obviously going to perform better in Calgary than in most other markets.

Right now I am listening to CFWE, the Aboriginal radio network out of Edmonton. CFWE plays a lot of "classic" and non-current country music.(Oh yeah and they air "Radio Bingo" twice a week! Viva La KECH 22!)

1060 is still in Stereo, by the way.

I have some Stereo Airchecks of the AC format they were playing prior to the current format on CKMX, and I have several stereo airchecks of the Classic Country.

what on earth would make you think kpsu would want to "change formats"
Its a college radio station programmed by students the way college radio was intended.

different show every hour.
NO "format". the way it oughta be!
so how do you say it's the same music thats on all the other stations?

are you listening in the daypart when it's the high school students? thats when it's the weirdest honestly.


perhaps this is continuing discussion/rant regarding dj fresh.
i haven't looked back on the previous topics yet.

Craig - No offense, but (as Jay said) there is no "format", and to claim that it's all the same stuff heard on the commercial stations is pretty far off the mark.

I don't believe KPSU's intent is to train DJs for a the commercial market, ala MHCC (as if there were any point anymore). They simply provide a community outlet for people who want to broadcast their preferred genre. Did you know that the offer is open to you as well? Anyone can do a show, you don't need to be a student.

To bastardize a well known saying about rock music - If it's too "the same", you're too old.

"Does anyone else ever DX 1060?"

I used to when they were still a Soft Rock station late 1990s-early 2000s. Used to listen on my Grampa's Crosley late at night while I was doing my homework.......they had a soul/R&B/AC programme block throughout the night called "Candle Light & Wine" if I remember right. Needless to say it did help break up the motony of those long cram sessions and reports for Biology class (Oh God I hated that course)...........

Haven't really paid too much attention to it since then, tho.

are you listening in the daypart when it's the high school students? thats when it's the weirdest honestly.
This brings up a good point.
The only fulltime KPSU station is 98.3 FM, on Portland State's campus. No FCC license, however many times it sounds like the signal's much stronger.
1450 AM is still owned by the Portland Public School District, and KBPS is the actual station... Portland State leases time from KBPS, and the money goes to keep the broadcasting program at Benson H.S. running. (I've noticed that when the KPSU folks ID, it's usually "KBPS-Portland-KPSU Portland's College Radio evenings and weekends...")

And here I always thought the goal of new DJ's was to eventually get paid to do what you love.

Maybe I've got it all wrong! Maybe I should have stayed at Portland Community College's KPCC. This would have marked my 31st year! Think of my seniority!

I can't believe nobody has mentioned...

WAYLON JENNINGS!

C'mon people...

Actually, I thought Craig was just making a sarcastic joke, and a 'controversial' topic starter, a la DJ Frresh's style of posting.....

Not that I'm speaking for Craig (and no, we don't know each other or anything), but I'd be very surprised if Craig were serious about the so-called 'format change'.

Newflyer said:
>>>This brings up a good point.
The only fulltime KPSU station is 98.3 FM, on Portland State's campus. No FCC license, however many times it sounds like the signal's much stronger.
1450 AM is still owned by the Portland Public School District, and KBPS is the actual station... Portland State leases time from KBPS, and the money goes to keep the broadcasting program at Benson H.S. running. (I've noticed that when the KPSU folks ID, it's usually "KBPS-Portland-KPSU Portland's College Radio evenings and weekends...")>>>>>

Re; the FM: the FM is only 4 watt and the tower is on top of Smith Center.

Re; the ID: that ID that you mention above is only for the hours that are actually broadcast on the AM. The rest of the time, it's just "KPSU, Portland's College Radio..."etc.

Speaking of 98.3 FM - driving around North Portland, I have picked up a station on 98.3 called The Peak - "80's 90's and anything else." Is this a station out of Washington?

98.3 is licensed to Rainier with its antenna in with other Longview stations.

Actually the whole idea of this thread was to show Djfrresh what it's like when YOUR station is talked about in a bad light. He's doing it to others all the time. So keep this thread going. I don't care what you post on it! It keeps the Header up "KPSU - Not Good".

> Its a college radio station programmed by
> students the way college radio was intended.

The only factual statement that I can make about the "intent" of college radio is that at one time, these radio stations had the words "Non-Commercial Educational" printed on their licenses, and they had to provide proof that some of their broadcast schedule consisted of educational programs. When I entered the world of these stations in the 1990s, documenting educational programming was no longer required, although there was a vague requirement that some programming on subjects of importance to the community had to be broadcast.

From a formatic viewpoint, there is a whole spectrum of collegiate broadcasters; it all depends on the management of the station and the school. There are some stations that program and market themselves for specific niches, such as KMHD. Some fill large parts of their broadcast day with NPR/APR programming. There are some in which the whole broadcast day consists of different sounding blocks of programming, much like cable-access TV. There are some which playlist their entire broacast day, others that have very strict rotational systems, and others that have a very loose rotation system--or none at all.

...."Actually the whole idea of this thread was to show Djfrresh what it's like when YOUR station is talked about in a bad light."

Don't you just hate it when you throw a party for someone and they never show.........

> Don't you just hate it when you throw a party for
> someone and they never show.........

Very well said!

There are many college stations that put together good programming and serve the community. Here are a few examples of great college radio:

CITR 101.9 fm in Vancouver -- http://www.citr.ca/first.php

"Radio K" 770 am in Minneapolis/St. Paul -- http://radiok.cce.umn.edu/

KAOS 89.3 fm in Olympia -- http://kaos.evergreen.edu/index.html

CKDU 88.1 fm in Halifax -- http://www.ckdu.ca/

WRUW 91.1 fm in Cleveland -- http://www.wruw.org/

WUOG 90.5 fm in Athens -- http://www.wuog.org/

KVRX 91.7 fm in Austin -- http://www.kvrx.org/

Yes, in this town I think that the "best" is KMHD. However, I think that a majority of the programming on KPSU qualifies as "great college radio" too.

I like your experiment Craig. It would teach folks to adapt in a hurry -- or wash up on the beach. Sometimes though, the suits make the arbitrary move, and while knowledge is power, it is not powerful enough.

I like the weekend oldies on WRMU.......

The following is just my opinion on the concept behind "educational" broadcasters: On paper, the idea behind the NCE licenses was really great. Universities have highly educated people, and their faculty members are often regarded experts in their respective fields. The radio station could work with the faculty of the various departments to produce programming about science, technology, medicine, economics, current affairs, the arts, etc. Graduate students could even talk about their research and why it is important. Possibly, this is what some early collegiate broadcasters sounded like. I think that it was a laudable goal of the FCC, in the early days of FM, to try to get more of this type of programming on the air by facilitating the licensing of university stations on the new band and even setting aside a portion of the band specifically for them.

Over the years, however, it seems that the programming on most college stations inevitably drifted towards students just playing records because that type of programming was easy to do, and the generations of students who grew up with music radio formats expected radio to specialize in musical entertainment. In my opinion, collegiate broadcasters today often have a lot of untapped resources.

That has always been the question about NCE's...

Is the goal to educate students in the broadcast program...

OR

To educate the listening public.

It's not an either or proposition.

Clearly we need to educate up and coming broadcast people. No brainer there.

As for educating the public, it's a serious value add that needs some exploration, IMHO. Education can be broad in scope. Audio lectures are a great alternative to more traditional sleep aids. Probably not a good use of the resource in general.

However, music programming can draw a potential audience. Without that, other efforts don't mean much. So doing that is fine right?

Doing some content innovation is educational in general as well. To me, that's where we can gain a lot from these kinds of stations.

IMHO, the Internet and radio has a lot of untapped potential. The industry is working hard on getting us there and that's good. Adding to that effort, on these kinds of stations, just isn't a bad thing.

If anything, the goal should be to improve the value proposition radio has for the listening public in general. Airing programming and music that is diverse, or niche, or maybe just different enough to warrant some testing, learning, tweaking, etc... is totally in line with that.

Because the returns are few and far between, split the difference and air some great tunes and talk programs to snag some mind share and add value that way too.

which brings up a question.... so, Craig (or anyone else for that matter) - if you were in charge and could change format for KPSU, what would you do?
Or any other college or free format station, doesnt have to be KPSU. Could be KBOO (if you wanted).

I'd like to see KMHD go to Traditional Oldies after K-Hits drops the 60s in a few years!

> which brings up a question.... so, Craig (or
> anyone else for that matter) - if you were in
> charge and could change format for KPSU, what
> would you do?

Today, I am out of touch with the up-and-coming artists and music. However, back in the great decade of the 1990s, I might have taken one of the following strategies:

Before 1995: Contemporary rock with some classic 1980s "post-modern" and indie artists. The rotation system would consist of 60 or so new rotation songs on carts and recurrents on any available medium in the studio. The ratio of new songs to recurrents would be around 60/40, depending on daypart. I think that this format would have had a decent following until the advent of "alternative"/modern rock formats on commercial radio in the mid 1990s.

Mid 1990s: Attempt to tweak the music selection *and marketing* of the above format to focus on up-and-coming artists and songs not yet on commercial radio. Shift the new to recurrents ratio slightly higher, say 70/30, and pick some "sure fire" songs to go into heavy rotation. The idea here would be to build the image that, "we're ahead of the curve."

Mid or late 1990s: Americana format incorporating folk, alternative country, blues-rock, and "roots" rock. A lot of stuff like this was coming out back then. This would also use some kind of rotation system, but it would be more relaxed, perhaps with a 50/50 new to recurrents ratio and less emphasis on high-rotation new songs.

In my last year of college, I attempted to implement "Americana" style programming on WITR. However, this was largely unsuccesful, as the volunteer staff that we had at the time generally did not care for this type of music. Some even complained that this was stuff that their parents might listen to. It seems that most of the people we had attracted wanted to hear rap or electronica. I consider my stint as program director of that station to be such a failure that it is not something that I put on my resumes.

I did post this in another thread (the one about Elvis), but for those of you who like old time rock & roll and rockabilly and such, Miss Meghan (a DJ on KPSU) has a show called Songs the Lord Taught Us - she plays everything from Elvis to the Carter Family, etc.

to listen, click here:

http://archive.kpsu.org:8080/station/archives/193

And Thanks for Your contribution to the **KPSU-Not Good** thread.

You're welcome, Craig.

Anything I can do to help.

Speaking of college radio(just to keep this thread near the top) my friends and I remember listening to the Linfield station at 90.3(KSLC) when I was in high school...100 watts at the time in glorious, full spectrum mono!(It didn't sound like they even used a 15kHz low pass filter, but I'm not sure...the station seemed to have a whole lot of high end.)

Our favourite show was a one-hour programme aired on Monday nights called "The Crossover Show" which aired some or the raunchiest punk and post-punk/niche metal records of all time(early mid 80's). This programme was a laugh riot, especially for a bunch of 16 year old boys. The DJ usually arrived for his show in one of a myriad of "altered states." He also didn't seem to care if the record he was playing was in decent shape or not.(Warped records playing slightly faster or slower than normal speed were unitentional but regular features of his show.) I'm not sure, but I think he got kicked off of the air for some reason-maybe it was one too many plays of one 'The Mentors' "Rape-Rock" type songs or maybe it was because he was stoned and out of control on the air.(in pro wrestling parlance being "stoned and out of control" would be called "battling personal demons") I wish I still had those old cassette airchecks that my buddies and I recorded--I could send them to that Really Bad Radio website!

hey i jus herd kpsu not good yall tink they bad

Ehh... I decided I'd edit this post to say nothing.

> The DJ usually arrived for his show in one of
> a myriad of "altered states."

Many years ago, on one of the Atlanta area non-commercial FMs, I remember an incident that smelled of the wacky tobacky: A 33 1/3 RPM record starts playing at 45 RPM. Shortly thereafter, the female DJ starts laughing hysterically. The turntable is then switched to 33 1/3 RPM. Those days are long gone! (vinyl and stoned DJs)

You've really not experienced what being a disc jockey is like until you've switched a 45 on your turntable from 33 1/3 to 45 RPM while it's spinning on the air.

These days, most college stations have gone one of two routes:

1. They are a publicly supported PBS station, based on a college campus and using college students as interns, gophers, reporters, and maybe an airshift or two. Their format is determined by their board of directors, who also oversee the funding.

2. They are supported by college activities fees collected each semester, to serve as a "college activity" for students, just like the soccer team and the newspaper. Their mission is usually defined as serving the campus student community.

There are almost no colleges left with stations designed to train broadcasters, so there is no mandate to either serve the larger community with a competitive format, or to teach the airstaff and student management the ways and means of a commercial broadcasting career.

If I were teaching college radio again, I'd require students to spend the first semester of their junior year researching a niche format, targeted at the 16-28 age group. They'd have to design the format, image it, and set up playlists, clocks, everything. They would spend the second semester executing it part time on the campus station. Their goal would be to get the format placed on one of the market HDs at the end of the semester. Part of their senior year would be spend as a paid intern at the station that picked up the HD format.

IF HD is ever to succeed, it will because young people start using it. If the HD process ever becomes widely accepted, my fantasy college career would allow students to create upper demo formats as well. But it would take years for that to happen.

(I will accept this fantasy college job anywhere but Oklahoma. Been there, done that, bought the teeshirt "Ski Oklahoma")

I got one of those "Ski Oklahoma". They actually had a small hill in tulsa, that had artificial snow.

But if you went back to Oklahoma, you would have a head start, you would already know the OKC Sonics lineup. And since you've been there before, you shouldnt have any problem with the language.

Mine had a cartoon of a guy skiing down an owahl rig.
(And when I taught announcing at OkSU, I used the foreign languange lab to teach them.
"Tahr" "No, Tire"
"Wahr" "No, Wire"
"EYou shore talk funny, Mizz Dayner")

What is an owahl rig?

Terri's two fates of college stations ring quite true, though #2 has probably been in the making for at least the past 20-25 years. Another thing that probably has hurt the "training" aspect of college stations is the demise of carrier current AM sister stations at most campuses. A variety of campuses at one time had both and would put the novice DJs on the carrier current AM and eventually promote them to the over-the-air FM side.

Concievably, a modern equivalent to carrier current AM could be developed by creating a streaming audio site and webpage that would only be accessible from within the school's LAN. There could even be podcasts for students to download, in addition to the live stream. However, the interest from students at most colleges for such a project might not warrant doing it.

What is an owahl rig?

Semoochie, I believe that's southern drawl for 'oil.'

Yep, "owahl rig" = "oil rig"

Secondary pronunciation: OHLL

Spent two years with some great people in OKC... Loved the Okies, but was allergic to tornadoes...

Thank you for the translations! I've always found TDanner hard to understand.

there is nothing wrong with kpsu. they serve their audience fine.

Question: Why doesn't Djfrresh post on this thread?

I have YET to see Djfrresh EVER post a second time on a thread. There can be little doubt that the majority here think he is an idiot. But we must now also consider that his "hit and run" posting is a source of entertainment for him.

What a loo-hoo-ser.

I'm glad that this thread came back because I'd like to ask Teri what kinds of tools her students would use to do their research. Years ago, when I was at a university radio station, we were at a dead-end when it came to trying to figure out what our listeners' expectations were of our programming. It seems that trying to pin down the desires of prospective listeners would be even harder!

Reverand Horton Heat
Mike Ness (solo stuff)
Supersuckers

kpsu need a new program director austen rich cant seem get kpus to 1 what yall think about this

kppu neeed change formats when z100 is hesd of you a station thats got young djs do u think daren bridenbeek /switch formats

K-PUS?
K-PP-U?
KP-P-U?

i tink u gots potty mout! P.U.