Live from Sac State
by Craig Koscho
While commercial media operations downsize news staff, close outlying bureaus and reduce the scope of their coverage, Sac State-based Capital Public Radio continues to expand its popular mix of national and local news, interviews and music programs. Sac State holds the license to the station, bringing together two valued community resources. It’s an arrangement that has benefits for both sides, says Rick Eytcheson, CPR president and general manager. The main studio, built in 2004, is owned by Sacramento State and leased by CPR, which helped the station build a state-of-the-art facility that was also an investment for the campus.
The station’s close proximity to the University’s faculty gives the network a terrific base of experts on issues reporters might cover. “Sac State is a great resource for just about any kind of story,” news director Joe Barr says, adding they’ve turned to instructors for expertise on stories ranging from government and politics to health and science.
And the door is always open to Sacramento State students looking for internships.
The stations
These days, KXPR programs classical music 24 hours a day, six days a week, with a few popular specialty shows featured in the mix on Saturdays. Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m., all the music is selected and locally hosted by classical music director Cheryl Dring and KXPR’s classical staff.
KXJZ begins its day at 3 a.m. with National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” followed by a series of other national programs. To explore issues closer to home there’s “Insight,” a locally produced news and public affairs program. When the sun goes down, the talk gives way to “Excellence in Jazz,” from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., kicked off each night by jazz music director Gary Vercelli.
Weekends feature NPR offerings such as “A Prairie Home Companion” and “Car Talk.”
The news
NPR’s ”Morning Edition” covers a six-hour block from 3 to 9 a.m., and contains plenty of opportunities to cover the local news scene. There are five-minute blocks of local updates hosted by Donna Apidone, plus long-form pieces by local reporters that are placed throughout each hour.
Those longer reports are one of the ways public radio differs from commercial news services, Barr says. “You have a lot of room to do an in-depth take on a story and delve into it,” he says. “That’s what makes it fun.”
In addition to covering state news for its own stations, CPR offers its reports to public radio stations throughout California, reaching about 2.7 million listeners, Barr says. He expects to expand the sevenmember news department soon by at least one position, with more down the road.
Barr believes CPR’s freedom to explore different themes and do more in-depth reports are the reasons it’s expanding while news services in the private sector are shrinking. Cutbacks at commercial outlets have reduced the substance of their coverage, and the public recognizes that, Barr says.
For longer looks at local issues, Jeffrey Callison hosts “Insight” from 2 to 3 p.m. on KXJZ.
Variety is the key to scheduling Callison’s guests, senior producer Jen Picard says. On any given day, program participants range from local and state officials or community leaders to regional musicians or authors and artists visiting Sacramento. Recent guests have included U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Conner, Sacramento Ballet dancer Ilana Goldman, and proponents and opponents of the Arden-Arcade incorporation.
Callison knows how to get something different out of his guests. “That’s the challenge of people who have been interviewed countless times—trying to find a way to talk with them in a manner they’re not used to so they don’t just ‘mail in’ their responses,” Callison says.
That was illustrated with Callison’s interview of comic Tommy Chong. Callison downplayed his long-time partnership with Cheech Marin, and focused instead on Chong’s earlier music career.
“It was something most people don’t know about Tommy but it means a lot to him,” Callison says.
The music
Finding a balance that will appeal to a wide audience is important when selecting the music for the stations.
Because classical music can be further divided into a number of styles, classical music director Cheryl Dring has to satisfy all its fans, rotating the genres often enough to keep the entire audience listening.
Mixing things up works just as well on the KXJZ side of the operation. “We try to play a brand of jazz that can appeal not only to a jazz fan, but also to someone with no previous association with the music,” jazz music director Gary Vercelli says.
Both music directors note that while they don’t face the same ratings pressures of commercial programmers, they don’t want to play music so narrow in appeal that they lose the audience.
There are those who love classical music, and those who like it, Dring says. Offering a variety of styles could very well turn the “likers” into “lovers.”
Vercelli agrees. “I always try to keep in mind we’re not the ‘Jazz Institute of Sacramento,’” he says. The two try not to make artistic compromises “but we do try to play music that will keep people listening,” Vercelli says.
With satellite radio and television stations, and cable TV all giving listeners ever more selections, it would seem CPR would have a tough time competing. Just the opposite is true.
“Satellite radio was sort of the big scary monster for a while, but it hasn’t really panned out,” Dring says, adding that the satellite networks barely make a dent in public radio listening. She attributes that to the local connection as well as radio’s portability— you can listen to it in the shower, at work or anywhere without any added equipment or subscription.
CPR is not taking the satellite challenge for granted, though, and is using technology to reach a wider audience by streaming its programming over its website, www.capradio.org. Fans have called in from Wisconsin, even China, Dring says, to tell them how much they enjoy CPR’s blend of programming.
Those pledge breaks
CPR gets more than half of its $5 million budget from listener memberships, Eytcheson says. The stations pay a significant amount of money for NPR programs, and the combined funding of underwriting, grants and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting doesn’t come close to covering the network’s needs, he says.
So the pledge breaks are needed to attract new members, most of whom will remain loyal listeners and contributors.
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