Search Results for: KDNA

If you’re tired of hearing the same old thing on the radio, even if it is your favorite tunes, or if you would like to take a breather from commercials, you might want to check out radio station KDNA-FM at 102.5 on the FM dial.

KDNA is a non-commercial, listener supported station that plays just about every kind of music imaginable, mixed with talk about a variety of topics.

On KDNA you will hear country and bluegrass music mixed with Beethoven, the Beatles, jazz and folk singers from foreign countries. Of special interest might be Jeff Cook’s Bluegrass Show where you often will catch local groups playing live in the KDNA studios.

KDNA is supported entirely by its listeners, one of only eight stations in the country that operate that way. They are also interested in listeners’ ideas for programs. So tune them in, give a listen, and give them a call about what you think. It will certainly be radio like you have never heard before.

(Originally published in C&W Music 7/5/1972).

KDNA, “free speech radio,” the only place in St. Louis where you could hear decent jazz, live local musicians, unreleased tapes of Firesign Theatre, and one of the few, struggling listener-supported-no-commercials stations in the country, has been sold to a commercial business interest. Free radio, for many the only radio, is in perilous straights (sic) in St. Louis.

To put it bluntly, the two legal owners of KDNA’s frequency (102.5 FM) have sold the station in order to pay off debts incurred by the station’s original good angel, Lorenzo Milam. The sale price? The latest figure mentioned is a cool 1.1 million dollars.

But the money from the sale of the frequency to Cecil Heftel (owner of several “successful” commercial stations) will not be going to KDNA, nor to the dozens of people who have worked at starvation levels to help the station grow. It will be divided between Lorenzo Milam and Jeremy Lansman. The sale was made necessary by a series of events stemming from the beginning of KDNA.

In the beginning, there was an open frequency at 102.5 FM which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was about to allot. As has been the usual practice, hearings were held, and petitions submitted by those who were interested in owning the frequency. The main contenders for 102.5 were a church and Jeremy Lansman. Jeremy spent five years trying to get the frequency and, with a little help from his friends, he finally succeeded. Lorenzo Milam fits into the picture here. At various points in KDNA’s youth, as it was on its way to becoming “listener-supported,” he donated about $250,000.

Thus, KDNA was begin as a partnership: Jeremy’s work and Lorenzo’s money. As it grew, Lorenzo faded out of the picture. He criss-crossed the country helping to establish other listener-supported stations, and KDNA came to be run by a substantial number of “volunteers.”

Then one stormy night, Lorenzo appeared at the door of KDNA’s gaslight square studio-cum-office-cum-living quarters and told the sad tale of economic demise. It seems that he had spent rather recklessly, squandering his entire fortune on various ventures and had in fact, racked up about $400,000 in debts. The station was Lorenzo’s only major liquid asset.

A plan was formulated optimistically allowing for the greatest benefit to both Lorenzo and the station staff. It involved the formulation of The Double Helix Corporation, a non-profit corporation which, when the money was raised, would buy out Lorenzo’s share of the station and insure local ownership of the station forevermore. Lorenzo would get out of debt and the people of St. Louis would have free access to a radio station. As an incentive, Jeremy offered to donate his half-ownership to Double Helix if the money could be raised to buy out Milam.

However, raising $400,000 turned out to be very difficult. At the same time the station had to continue to run, and the $100 a day just to make ends meet had to keep coming in. By August 16, Double Helix had raised only $20,000 over and above the station’s minimal operating expenses.

Lorenzo’s creditors were knocking louder. During a recent conference of “free” radio stations in Seattle in mid-August, Jeremy and Lorenzo decided to sell the station to the highest bidder.

Lorenzo’s share will in part go to paying off his debts. The rest he intends apparently for developing listener-supported stations in other cities; he is disenchanted with St. Louis.

Lansman says that he intends to invest his half of the proceeds in a national non-profit foundation, as yet unformed, with the intention of building, as quickly as possible, listener-supported stations across the country. He and Milam have what they refer to as “the national perspective.”

There is something to be said for this “national perspective.” There are not an unlimited number of radio frequencies left in the U.S. Every so often the FCC opens up one of the remaining frequencies for grabs, and there is usually a frenzied scramble for it. According to Lansman, it is likely that all the available frequencies will be taken within a few years. His intention is to begin as many groups building free radio as possible before the medium falls into the hands of large entrepreneurs.

The lack of new frequencies is a major drawback in KDNA’s fight to survive. After the final contract is drawn up (a process involving several months) and the station is sold where will KDNA go? There are no more frequencies in the area. None. At first glance the prospects appear to be bleak.

The staff of KDNA has not stayed alive this long by taking a defeatist attitude, however. They are now pursuing a plan to share airtime with another station which only broadcasts short hours on weekdays. If they are successful they may be able to buy that frequency. At worst, they hope to be able to share the station’s air time in exchange for certain services.

In addition, the Federal government has recently changed its regulations to allow the office of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to allot grants to non-profit, locally owned stations like KDNA. The Seattle “free” station has obtained a $20,000 grant, and a Pacifica network station has received some money. If Double Helix can raise some more money, they may be able to get an HEW grant. Lansman says aid will also be available through the national fund he intends to establish.

At any rate, the deal will take several months to close, and the station will be broadcasting all that time. They need donations to stay alive and to build for the future, and they need other kinds of help to pull it off.

So all is not lost. The survival of KDNA is basically a matter of the dedication of local people to maintaining the concept. The staff of KDNA is dedicated. Many are even optimistic about its survival on another frequency.

(Originally published in St. Louis Outlaw 8/25/1972, bylined “D.N.D.”)
 

KDNA has been broadcasting to St. Louis for over three years now at 102.5 FM. In this period of time the station has broadcast talk, and interviews, and strange and wonderful musics – the types of programs which, because of their diversity (or rareness) have been ignored by all the other commercial and educational broadcast outlets in the city. KDNA was set up by two people who had worked at other community, listener-supported stations in the country…KRAB in Seattle, KBOO in Portland, and KATO in Los Gatos. It took them some ten years to go through the FCC application and hearing process, to get the station on the air, and to make it what it is today.

And KDNA is something special. There are only eight similar stations in the country: radio outlets with the independence and the fire to broadcast such a variety of talk and musical programs. There are interviews on poverty, and war, and hate, and love, and The Meaning of Life. There are musics of Spain, and Africa, and India, and Central Europe. There are concerts of rare jazz, and obscure blues, and unknown classical works. There is an entire panoply of music and talk and ideas which are always ignored by the other radio and television outlets in this country because of fear, or outrageous greed. “The history of radio in this country is littered with the bodies of those who have tried to do something better or different with the Aether – and who have been sold down the river by commercial interests,” one critic has written.

We do not want KDNA to become just another body. We want it to survive, to live, to prosper – to become a permanent part of St. Louis life.

The two original founders of KDNA are now in financial straits. They have spent all their funds on this and similar operations in the country. And comes now an offer – a very large offer – from a commercial broadcaster, to buy KDNA and turn it into something else.

These two people, being not less than human, but just like the rest of us, are very tempted, are sorely tempted. Still, they would like to see some perpetuation of their broadcast ideals for the city; but the city will have to buy the outlet from them.

A non-profit corporation has been formed. Called Double Helix, it is established to own and operate KDNA as a perpetual community broadcast outlet. But it must raise $250,000 to purchase KDNA from the present owners.

$250,000…that sounds like an enormous amount of money. It is – and yet it isn’t. It is far less than half of what the owners of KDNA have been offered by national commercial radio groups for that frequency. As we say, the previous owners are not being greedy.

But they have to pay back the enormous number of debts facing them on the construction of KDNA and three other broadcast stations. They have given Double Helix Corporation a few months to come up with the purchase price. When 20% of this purchase price is raised, the FCC will be petitioned to allow transfer of control of KDNA to this non-profit corporation. The radio station will then be set as a community operation for all the peoples of St. Louis. We would like your help in this endeavor. It goes without saying that the opportunity will never come up again…at least not at this price. Please help us to make this community station a permanent part of the intellectual, cultural and political life of St. Louis.

STAFF
KDNA is staffed by fifteen full-time and forty-five volunteer personnel. The full-time staff gets subsistence wage, which includes free room and board at the staff house, plus about $25 spending money each month. (The spending money comes from 1% per person of the total station income.) Volunteers receive no monetary compensation for their work. Full-time personnel work on an 8-12 hour day, every day, basis. Regular volunteers range up to about 30 hours a week. In addition, there is a continual stream of part time volunteers on an irregular basis.

Station policy is, generally, made on a collective basis with no distinctions drawn between full-time staff and regular volunteer personnel. Major decisions are made at weekly staff meetings, run on a democratic basis with group consensus determining most decisions. The station gives maximum freedom to each participant, and we have usually found that the effect any one individual has upon the station is closely related with the effort that individual expends.

LISTENER SUPPORTED
“You know that we can never lose sight of the fact that the sole purpose for which an advertiser spends money is to win friends and influence people. Anything that he might do, however meritorious in one direction, that makes enemies is a bad action and is to be assiduously avoided.” – memo from general manager for radio and television of a major advertising agency to Hubbell Robinson, Director of Programming for CBS Television.

KDNA has not always been listener supported radio. It started as a commercial station. But several things quickly became apparent. Commercial sponsors want to control the programming that surrounds their advertisement. They want a program that will hold the ears of just the “right audience”…THEN THEY MAKE THEIR PITCH. This considerably diminishes freedom to broadcast, an ideal KDNA was created to expand.

Few people are aware of the incredibly high percentage of time devoted to commercials on most radio stations. Even fewer know of the time staff at such stations put into lining up those commercials, matching ads to programs and producing the ads themselves. This was an energy drain on creative programming KDNA did not want.

KDNA found itself advertising products it just didn’t think people needed, using programming energies to create an attractive “package” that would tell consumers to rush out and BUY, BUY, BUY.

“We know that your series is striving mightily to do things that are different and outstanding so that, as a series, it will rise above the general level of TV drama. This is fine, but since the series is a vehicle for commercial advertisers, it must also be extremely sensitive to utilizing anything, however dramatic, however different, however well done, if this will offend viewers.” – Ibid

All these considerations indicated that KDNA should stop advertisements. Yet they were learning other things as well. As they became more familiar with the radio medium – what it is and what it can be – they began to understand that communication (and thus the media of communication) is too important a factor in the development of our society to be left to the manipulations of the commercial business world.

“As long as this series wishes commercial sponsorship, all of the creative people associated therewith must never forget that not to offend people must be an inviolate rule for guiding their operation. Narrow, prejudiced, ignorant, or what you will, though any part of the population may be, as a commercial vehicle the series must be ever alert not to alienate its viewers.” – Ibid

Mass communications is an art, a science that must grow and develop according to ppeople’s needs – not their needs to sell or buy, but their need to communicate with one another. The KDNA staff felt that communications should be supported by and responsible to the people of its community directly. People should learn of the need for open and effective communication and be willing to support it. Broadcasters should be accountable for the content and quality of their communications to all area citizens, not just advertisers.

KDNA became a listener supported station in 1970. It was hard at first. St. Louisans had to understand the concepts KDNA was talking about before they could be expected to offer support. That took time – time in which finances reached often precarious levels. However, the situation soon began to stabilize. The subscription list has constantly expanded as more and more listeners “get the message” and as more and more subscribers see that supporting KDNA is more than a one-time gift.
For over one-and-a-half years now, listeners have totally supported KDNA’s day-to-day operations. What that means is that KDNA is supported by its community more than any other station in the United States.

PROGRAMMING
We believe our world has too many categories, barriers and divisions in how we act, how we think, how we live our lives. These barriers keep us from seeing true relationships among people, among ideas – the whole reality around us. At KDNA we try to break down some of those compartments in our lives. That’s why we think no one person should just answer the phone, or just manage the station, or just be an announcer.

And that belief is reflected in our programs as well. Music can be used in many different ways. News should not be a five minute phenomenon, or a neatly encapsulated two-minute nothingness. Everything should be public affairs. Everything should be entertainment; nothing should be just entertainment. Everything should be political; nothing should be just politics.

But breaking down artificial barriers doesn’t mean blinding ourselves to the differences that make up the variety of our existence. And recording the mayor’s press conference is a different process than selecting the right record to play following a phone-in program on ecology. So we’ll talk about the different areas of the station’s programming and the different techniques that it is possible to use. Yet we hope there will remain a clear theme of integrated communication by and for the people of our city.

EDUCATION
Think of “educational broadcasting”: for a moment. Other than Sesame Street, a few special programs and the Great American Dream Machine, the vision is probably pretty bleak. Yet KDNA conceives of itself as educational radio – and that concept lies behind much, if not all, of its programming.

KDNA has no affiliation with an educational institution, nor is it licensed as an educational station. But KDNA provides more educational services than any other broadcaster in the St. Louis area.

Both students and faculty from local colleges, universities and high schools have made extensive use of KDNA’s broadcast facilities. Mark Seldon and Jeff Shevitz, two nationally known professors from Washington University, have a regular program at KDNA. So does Chuck Lomas, a graduate student in urban planning at SIU. Mary Lehman of the St. Louis Learning Resources Exchange hosts the Spotlight on Education, regularly bringing in people who are at the cutting edge of crisis and creation in the educational field. These are but a few examples.

A recent arrangement with KFRH, the Washington University student station, is yet another kind of service. Through direct link-ups between the studios of the two stations, students will have access to the entire KDNA listening audience. Staff members will work with the students, training them in production work and effective radio communication.

Local high school students have access to KDNA broadcast facilities, providing “real” learning experiences. Occasional broadcasts of projects prepared for classes give a special extra value to the work.

KDNA will often broadcast speeches, discussions and other special programs from local educational institutions, as well as programs recorded at colleges and universities across the country. This sevrice makes it possible to share the resources of these institutions with a mass audience. A regular listener to KDNA will hear more lectures by top ranking authorities than most students at a typical university.

Other services include the continual availability of KDNA staff members to speak to classes and seminars on a variety of topics; the instant availability of nationally known speakers to our listeners for direct interchange through our phone lines; and the recent publication of the KDNA Handbook, a how-to-do-it guide for producing radio programs, making documentaries, covering news stories, etc.

In addition to these services, perhaps the most important educational contribution of KDNA is the continuing broadcast of music, poetry, drama and discussion heard nowhere else in this area.

It all merges together in a layered collage, at times entertaining, at times grating to the ear, at times reinforcing, sometimes knocking you down, but always pushing at the borders of your mind, and that, in the end, is what education is all about.

(Originally published in Fat Chance 4/1972).

The grand experiment that was KDNA in the 1960s appears to be part entrepreneurial, part pie-in-the-sky and part fun. It didn’t work, mainly because voluntary donations from listeners couldn’t overcome the station’s red ink. 

Ostensibly the brain child of Jeremy Lansman and Lorenzo Milam, KDNA-FM went on the air on February 8, 1969 on a commercial FM frequency, 102.5 mHz. The two men had met in Seattle at a similar type of radio station with the call letters KRAB. Lansman had dropped out of Clayton High School here and gone to radio school.  

Milam reportedly put up $50,000 to start KDNA, but it was several years before the Federal Communications Commission granted the duo a license because there was a competing application for the frequency from the First Christian Fundamentalist Church. There were even charges that the radical group Students for a Democratic Society was behind the station’s founding, a charge Lansman denied.  

KDNA developed a loyal audience among students at both Washington and St. Louis Universities. Staffers were paid, albeit not much, to do their programs, and Lansman told listeners he wouldn’t sell ads so long as their voluntary contributions covered costs. Studios were at 4285 Olive in Gaslight Square in an old house. Lansman, his wife Cami and their young son lived upstairs, and rooms on the house’s third floor served as a dormitory for some staff members.  

Some might call the programs wonderfully “free-form.” Music seemed to have no sense of format except that the songs heard were those the disc jockey wanted to play. Listeners were treated to unexpected monologues espousing personal opinion or discussions of social problems. There were on-air conversations with Jeannie, the affectionate name for the station’s transmitter, sometimes chastising her for allowing the frequency to wander. The St. Louis Symphony’s Leonard Slatkin would drop in every Thursday afternoon to spin records.  

But there were detractors.  

These were the late 60s and early 70s, and anti-war tensions ran high. People with long hair were deemed the enemy by many.  

Police raided the KDNA studios on a drug search. Lansman and two staff members were charged with violating the state’s drug laws. Lansman said the drugs had been planted. The charges were later dropped. A very vocal challenger appeared in the person of evangelist Bill Beeny, who sought to have KDNA’s license assigned to himself and lawyer Jerome Duff.  

They ultimately failed, and so did KDNA. The writing was on the wall for the station’s demise when it began a “pledge drive” with a goal of $400,000 and collected only $20,000. Lansman had said he would use the donated money to cover the station’s debt and buy out Milam’s half. The remainder, he said, would be used to form an umbrella group to oversee community radio in St. Louis. The group’s name, he said, would be Double Helix Corporation.  

Lansman sold the station to Cecil Heftel for $1.4 million in 1972 and the call letters were changed to KEZK. Proceeds of the sale were split 50/50 between Lansman and his partner Milam.  

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 10/97)