KRCL at 30: Bruises and new blood

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2009, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Talk to KRCL listeners, volunteers and staff, and you'll still hear references to "The Changes," the station's dramatic restructuring nearly two years ago that ditched daytime on-air volunteers in favor of a professional staff.

As the station gets set to celebrate its 30th anniversary in December, it's facing a major management transition, with the retirement of general manager (and founding staffer) Donna Land Maldonado. With Brolly Arts founder Amy McDonald taking over the reins, the radio station is at a hopeful -- but tenuous -- position.

Despite losing many volunteers and listeners who felt betrayed by the switch, KRCL has recorded its highest listenership ever. Yet against the backdrop of the economic downturn, fundraising has plummeted, and some longtime supporters are still complaining of bruised feelings and animosity spurred by The Changes. Skeptics, concerned that the station has lost its way, point to the controversial firing of popular morning host David Perschon in June.

"In the past, people have confused professionalism with commercialism," is how Maldonado explained the ongoing controversy.

McDonald, who started her job Nov. 2, was hired for her collaborative team-building skills, and she's eager to help the station move forward. At the same time, she understands the emotions sparked by The Changes. "You can't move forward without understanding its history," she said.

Cue burn

KRCL was launched in 1979, several months after selecting Maldonado to be its Native American programmer. Planners envisioned the station as a voice for Utahns who were underserved by the commercial media.

Over the years, listener-supported non-music programs such as "Democracy Now!" and "Radioactive!" have survived, but the bulk of the radio station's programs play music. The station's seven full-time employees, according to program director Ryan Tronier, are joined by 64 volunteer disk jockeys who work at night, in the early mornings, and on weekends. In the past, before The Changes, all of the disk jockeys were volunteers.

As with other nonprofits, scrapping for dollars is crucial to KRCL's survival. But the station's efforts have been hampered by a revolving door of development directors, including the resignation just last month of most recent full-time fundraiser, LuAnn Valentin.

The station's main federal funder, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, prompted the changes, according to Brian Seethaler, chair of the station's board of directions, when it complained to management about the station's low number of listeners, which was dropping despite the region's population growth.

The corporation awarded KRCL $195,000 in a "station-renewal" project grant. That money, with matching station funds, was to pay for an aggressive marketing effort, including focus groups and consultants. In return, KRCL would have to show an increase in its audience. "We were losing listeners, and losing funds," Maldonado said.

Maldonado, along with Tronier and the board, developed a strategy aimed at increasing consistency in its music programming as well as targeting younger listeners. KRCL wanted listeners to listen longer, which was difficult to do with KRCL's short blocks of eccentric programs. "It was extremely erratic listening," Tronier said.

For consistency, KRCL decided to hire three professional hosts from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. While the hosts would be free to program their own music, there would be thematic unity during the morning and evening commutes.

Phase shift

In January 2008, station officials announced the changes. KRCL would replace 18 volunteer on-air hosts with three paid disk jockeys, selected from a pool of 39 applicants. Hired were: Ebay Hamilton, local blues musician "Bad" Brad Wheeler and David Perschon, all former volunteers. For their 30 hours a week, Wheeler and Perschon were paid less than $27,000, while Hamilton earns $33,000 as the station's music director.

Listeners and donors publicly railed against the changes in message boards and in a town-hall meeting at the City Library that drew more than 100 protestors, many who felt the station had acted without consulting the community first. A City Weekly cover story blared: "Dead Air: KRCL is Getting a Corporate Makeover. Is Community Radio Done For?"

"From a business sense, it was a stupid move," said prominent real estate agent Babs De Lay, a longtime KRCL volunteer DJ. She moved her women's music show to local Internet radio station Utah FM, and decries how the station has turned away from its community roots to be a "money-oriented [business]."

Volunteers, as well as contributors, felt betrayed. The station was reading out to the iPod generation at the expense of longtime listeners, they said. "It's like a girlfriend who parted ways with you," said Steve "Doc" Floor, a longtime volunteer, and performing arts coordinator of the Utah Arts Festival. "I don't know if she cried, but I did."

KRCL's variety of music had become an albatross when it used to be an asset, said Jerry Schmidt, a 24-year KRCL volunteer at KRCL who had also worked selling advertising for the station for 16 years.

Longtime KRCL insiders, like Troy Mumm, program and operations director of KRCL from 1998 through 2005, agreed the radio station needed more professionalism, yet losing volunteers caused him to feel as if it had lost its "soul." He quit and is now co-director of UtahFM.

In May 2008, when the three former volunteers became the station's paid DJs, listenership instantly increased -- in part because of the media's coverage of The Changes. Previously, according to Arbitron numbers, 30,400 listeners tuned into KRCL at least once during a ratings period. Immediately after The Changes, that number shot up to 43,700. By spring of 2009, the number had dropped to 33,990 people.

Fundraising also dropped. In the spring of 2007, 3,743 pledges were made during the station's biannual pledge drives, amounting to $225,123. Since then, the station has never raised more than $187,329 in any pledge drive, and during the last pledge drive held in September, only 1,841 people pledged money, totaling $154,437.

Perschon on air

Just as at other community institutions, allegations from KRCL supporters and detractors can devolve into insider baseball.

For the station's most loyal listeners, Maldonado's departure this month was the most significant news event at the station since The Changes -- except for Perschon's firing in early summer. Perschon admits he has always had an independent streak, and that he often butted heads with Maldonado -- despite her hiring him as one of three DJs.

Disagreements between the two and Tronier grew more heated. The last straw was when Perschon, in a fit of passion, wrote in June an angry anti-war screed to the Wings of Freedom Bomber Group, which was about to visit Utah, using his KRCL e-mail.

The organization took offense, contacted Maldonado, and Perschon was fired. "I gave her a reason to fire me on a platter," Perschon said, acknowledging that he shouldn't have used his work e-mail for the message.

In October, Perschon aired his grievances in a letter to The Catalyst magazine, alleging that when The Changes occurred, KRCL management lied to its listeners by telling them that on-air deejays would program their own programs without the use of computer-generated playlists.

Perschon's replacement -- City Weekly music editor Jamie Gadette -- was being forced to use a program called G Selector that created its own playlists, he alleged. Gadette was only announcing what songs were being played, he claimed.

"Does this sound like community radio?" Perschon asked in the letter. "Basically what's happening is what we were told would not happen -- computer-programmed music. G Selector obviously lacks the creative element and personality that a community station deserves. Put the community back in community radio. Until then, I have had all the radio I need."

Tronier called Perschon's letter "paranoid": "We use -G Selector] as a fancy digital library. David Perschon never understood how we used G Selector. A machine does not program KRCL; humans do and they always will.

Morning becomes electric

Tronier invited The Salt Lake Tribune to the studio during Gadette's shift to show that humans, rather than computers, were programming music selections.

But Perschon pointed to a KRCL job posting sent out after his firing. The posting said that it was looking only for a part-time "Morning Program Announcer," offering "no benefits, starting at $10 per hour."

Many experienced radio deejays applied for the position and were disgruntled when Gadette was hired, despite bringing little radio experience. "They got rid of people who were there for a long time," said John Florence, a longtime KRCL volunteer, who submitted an application but didn't receive an interview.

Perschon also saw ulterior motives at work: City Weekly had consistently been one of KRCL's harshest critics, but by hiring Gadette, the station had neutralized its primary watchdog, since Gadette still directed music coverage there.

Tronier said that Gadette was hired for her music knowledge. The paper won't alter its editorial coverage of KRCL because of Gadette's part-time job there, said Jerre Wroble, City Weekly managing editor.

But even if Perschon's forceful complaints can be dismissed as those of a disgruntled former employee, still he isn't alone in being dissatisfied with the formerly beloved community music station.

Mumm finds KRCL's programming "very bland and calculating," and no longer listens much. "It's not anything unique that I can't get at Pandora or 10,000 Internet radio stations," he said.

Volunteers like Steve Floor believes there's a policy of "out with the old, in with the new" in terms of volunteers.

The station has even parted ways with one of partners, the independent record store Slowtrain Records, owner Anna Brozek said, after a disagreement over what the shop owner considered overly aggressive ways of securing pledges.

Some loyal listeners complained when Perschon was replaced. Longtime listener Kathy Christensen circulated a petition, and gathered 250 signatures in support of the displaced DJ. "The way they treated Dave was shabby," agreed Paul Tucker, another longtime listener and contributor who has since drastically reduced his donations to the station.

Looking at KRCL's radiothon report for its most recent telethon, it appears that Perschon's fundraising talent will be missed. In his last telethon this spring, he gathered more than $33,000 from listeners who called in during his shifts. In comparison, Hamilton garnered $21,280, and Wheeler gathered $36,530. Gadette is still new and needs time to build loyalty, station managers say, and she received $14,860 in pledges, including a dismal one-day total of only $775.

Coming to a radio station near you

After investing 30 years building the station, Maldonado is looking forward to spending the next two months with her husband, and hopes to eventually find work at another nonprofit.

She leaves happy with news that the station has just received the highest Arbitron listenership numbers ever. In the June 25-Sept. 16 ratings period, KRCL earned average of 51,800 listeners -- that's a doubling of the station's market share since the spring reporting period.

New donors are pledging, too, some 2,400 new members since The Changes. New donors traditionally give lower amounts in the beginning, and tend to contribute more as they grow older, Maldonado claims.

She has few regrets about investing 30 years at the station. Except for this: "I should have been more assertive in decision-making," she said. "Sometimes I waited too long to make difficult decisions."

Hamilton, the station's music director, considers Maldonado as his mentor. "It's hard to envision KRCL without her," he said. "There's no one here who knows as much about radio as she does. She's had to make some unpopular decisions, but she has the station's best interests in mind."

"I have a great deal of respect for her knowledge and what she's brought to the organization," said McDonald, whose starting salary is $60,000.

On Nov. 2, McDonald's first day on the job, she held a creative brainstorming meeting with staffers, to listen to new ideas, as well as about some past missteps. about new ideas, as well as some of the station's past missteps. "You have to play nice in the sandbox," she said about the challenge of heading a community institution such as KRCL.

Paul Wharton and Stephen Holbrook, two of the station's founders, are looking forward to continuing news coverage of the station, hoping reporters and listeners will hold the station accountable to its mission of representing Utah's non-mainstream voices.

Mumm, over at UtahFM, will be watching KRCL, even if he's not a loyal listener anymore. "I hope [McDonald] can mend some of the bad feelings that are out there," he said. "It's good that there will be new blood."