CKUA's 80th - Broadcast Dialogue article

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CKUA's 80th - Broadcast Dialogue article

Postby jon » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:03 pm

ALBERTA’S CKUA ROLLS ON, ONE LANDMARK AT A TIME
by: GEO TAKACH

Can you imagine an 80-year-old product that people get delivered free, but happily pay almost $3 million a year for because they like it so much? A product demanded by everyone from surgeons in the operating room to long-distance truckers in their rigs? A product loved so much that some 1,500 unpaid volunteers line up to help deliver it?

Imagination meets reality at Alberta’s CKUA Radio, Canada’s oldest continuing non-profit broadcaster. In eight decades, the station has weathered the ravages of shifting tastes and technology, Byzantine broadcasting regulations, indifferent ownership, mismanagement, and even a pulled plug. It has launched a litany of landmarks in Canadian broadcasting, become a favourite of artists and audiences alike, and belied an external stereotype of its native Alberta as boasting less culture than yogurt.

Today, this unique outlet enjoys the cult-like devotion of somewhere around 200,000 listeners, and 17,000 donors who keep it afloat with astounding financial, logistical and emotional support. Why are they are so passionate about CKUA? And why should it matter to Canada’s broadcasting community?

“CKUA endures because it’s willing and able to take risks,” declares its station manager, Ken Regan. “It provides a real alternative to the CBC and the private broadcasters.”

“The quality of the music and its informative presentation make CKUA unique,” agrees Doug Penner, volunteer chair of the non-profit foundation that now owns the station. “The announcers are constantly exploring and putting new music in context, rather than repeating themselves. If you hear the same song twice in one week, you know it’s a hot song!”


String Of Firsts

It wasn’t always about the music, though the station did sign on with a live piano rendition of God Save the King on November 21, 1927. Broadcasting from a little shack built at the University of Alberta (recognized in its last two call letters), CKUA fulfilled the vision of the campus’ visual-aids specialist, H.P. Brown, to bring the institution to Albertans through the new medium.

Most Albertans lived on farms then, and Brown saw radio waves as a quantum leap from dispatching lecturers to disparate rural communities with magic-lantern shows.

Here began a string of broadcasting landmarks, starting with the nation’s first school broadcast in 1929; a special wartime newscast for American soldiers stationed in the Yukon in 1944; what we now call “multicultural” broadcasting after Second World War; a pioneering stereo broadcast in 1959; the first broadcast of a proceeding of a legislative assembly in the British Commonwealth; and, Canada’s first online radio streaming in 1996.

Ownership moved from the cash-starved university to Alberta Government Telephones in 1945, and to the provincially-owned ACCESS Corporation in 1974. When the Klein government privatized CKUA in 1994, it transferred ownership to a non-profit foundation staffed by appointees who drained its transition funding and, in what became the station’s darkest hour, pulled the plug in 1997. The junior-most announcer signed off with the defiant (and prophetic) words, “We’ll be back after this.”

The ensuing dead air capped a history of struggling to survive. In the 1940s, a radio engineer interrupted his vacation to rebuild CKUA’s sole, destroyed remote amplifier from scratch, on his own time and wallet. In the 1950s, the station manager fought the feds for enough wattage to keep the signal from being drowned out by competitors. And a 1970 federal ruling prohibited educational institutions from holding broadcasting licences.

Shortly after the shutdown in 1997, a groundswell of grass-roots support from across Alberta saw donations of money pour into the silent station, and letters of protest deluge Premier Ralph Klein’s office. After weeks of occasionally rancorous negotiation, the former government-appointed board was ousted by a new, purely volunteer team led by the musician (and later, senator), Tommy Banks, and an Edmonton lawyer and occasional CFL referee, Bud Steen.

Two laid-off ex-staffers embarked on a whistle-stop, fundraising tour of the station’s 17 transmitters province-wide. An earnest, quiet pilgrimage soon became a media cause célèbre, with people donating food, gas for their vehicle, and money. The so-called Touch the Transmitter Tour raised about $25,000 in five days, but it also became a metaphor for the station’s unassailable grit, and Albertans’ refusal to allow anyone to take CKUA from them.

Meanwhile, an army of overnight crusaders raised $1 million in 14 days, generating enough phone calls to pop CKUA’s telephone circuits. CKUA returned to the airwaves after five weeks, and has stayed there since.

“The irony is that when the station went off the air for the first time, people finally understood what a treasure it represented,” explains Regan. This is echoed by the litany of volunteers who emerged to help save CKUA and by the social psychologist, Robert Sinclair, who notes that people are more likely to have their passions raised when a freedom or something important to them is taken away.


Subscription Radio

Though CKUA is eight decades old, its marketing manager, Katrina Regan-Ingram, compares it to a software start-up company in the information technology world, from which she was recently hired. “After CKUA’s rebirth, it had to start from scratch,” she points out, “and put processes in place for the next 80 years.”

Paradoxically, privatization has made CKUA more dependent on public largesse than ever. Donations accounted for 59% of revenues in 2006-07, with 19% from advertising and sponsorships, 14% from operating the province’s emergency public warning system, and five percent from renting technical services.

The station has staked its future on the novel notion of “subscription radio”, a departure from its long history of institutional backing. Management sees this as an appropriate relationship between CKUA and its audience, inviting listeners to pay as they would for magazines or cable TV.

“We have no mechanism to withhold the service,” explains Program Director Brian Dunsmore, noting that it would be impossible to maintain CKUA on a conventional business model. “So we depend on people taking personal responsibility. The honour system works.”

The numbers bear this out. There were 8,000 listeners with ongoing subscriptions and total donations of $2.8 million in 2006-07, up from $1.3 million seven years ago. Donations come from listeners in 37 other countries, including places as diverse as China, Norway and Sierre Leone.

But CKUA’s support doesn’t stop at cash donations. Volunteers contribute to every facet of its operations, be it serving on the foundation’s board, running a music information line, cataloguing and filing disks in the library, contacting donors, writing for the on-air Arts and Culture Guide, or organizing and staffing fundraisers. Their contributions total 16,000 hours, which, even if calculated at Alberta’s minimum-wage rate, saves the station at least $128,000 annually. This does not include the 10-day, bi-annual fundraisers, in which blue-hairs, blue-rinses and in-betweens chip in another 3,000 hours each time. “We couldn’t do it without them,” beams the volunteer coordinator, Maureen Workman.

Which may be the core of CKUA’s popularity. It appeals to a segment of society united not by traditional geographic, social or economic strata, but by an appreciation for expanding their horizons, an ethic consistent with the station’s original mandate of providing academic outreach to the community.

“CKUA listeners are people with their minds awake and their ears a little more open, interested in music, art and culture, and striving to improve their lives,” says Dunsmore.

CKUA’s programming is ambitious, eclectic and highly personal to announcers and listeners alike. In any given week, you can hear music from classical, choral and jazz to new age, “wide cut” country and a goulash of minimal techno, Latin house, jazzy down-tempo, IDM and hybrids called Future Funk. And the global diversity of daily programs such as Alberta Morning defies categorization, not to mention the hoary stereotype of Albertans as homogenous red necks.

Free from the dictates of pre-formatted playlists, CKUA announcers can choose from one of Canada’s leading musical collections, boasting 1.5 million pieces of music, including a basement full of 15,000 vintage 78s which one volunteer spent eight months cataloguing. “We don’t have everything,” says long-time announcer David Ward, “but we come pretty close.”

“Why do so many Albertans own music by African kora players, Tuvan throat singers, Cuban congeros or Brazilian singers?” muses Monica Miller, host of How I Hear It. “As we listen to music from places we’ve never been — Finland, Madagascar, Jamaica, Nashville or Cape Breton — we come to understand that cultures don’t fit into boxes. Music travels independent of lines on a map, and cultural fabric becomes so rich and wonderful. Our listeners understand that in a very profound way.”

“The whole thing is a joy,” states Andy Donnelly, a Brobdingnagian bon-vivant whose gentle brogue and sly wit on the monstrously popular The Celtic Show have earned him more than a kilt following. “It’s all about the music and the people. They get it. We all feel the power, the spirit and the joy of it.”


Walks Where Others Don’t

But CKUA announcers don’t just play and talk about the music. They live it. Their ranks brim with accomplished vocalists and musicians in jazz, folk, bluegrass and blues, along with writers, actors and arts impresarios. A staple on the Celtic circuit, Donnelly is on a first-name basis with many of the acts he plays on-air. Lionel Rault (Nine to Noon) is an acclaimed folk-roots guitarist and songwriter with a career approaching the 40-year mark. Holger Peterson (Natch’l Blues, Canada’s longest-running blues program) is a producer who runs Stony Plain Records, a Canadian roots music label of over three decades’ standing. Tom Coxworth has some 6,500 folk records in his collection and a recording studio in his basement.

“We have a responsibility to the community and to the culture of the province in addition to the newsmakers,” says Coxworth. “We’re probably the most leading-edge in promoting local musicians who need to be heard. Many artists are respected and earning a living wage because CKUA gave them their start.”

CKUA also has a long and strong record of contributing to arts, culture and education.

“We tell people there’s something good happening in Alberta,” says Chris Allen, host of Arts Alive. “I doubt there’s a single arts or cultural group we haven’t supported through our coverage. Other stations won’t talk to the Cow Patti Theatre from Clive, Alberta unless the theatre pays for it. We do.”

Then came programs such as Innovation Anthology, profiling science, research and technology; Ecofile, an award-winning environmental entry; and Heritage Trails, a series of 500 historical vignettes. Though no longer on the air, the latter two are made freely available to Alberta schools and researchers.

CKUA’s monumental 24-part series, The Folkways Collection, scooped the likes of PBS in documenting a vital slice of Americana, the amazing legacy of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records. The series profiled the 30,000 musical performances, narratives, rituals, sounds and spoken word from around the world captured on that historic label. CKUA launched this unprecedented bi-national project by connecting personally with Asch’s son, Michael (a fan of the station and then a University of Alberta professor), and the Smithsonian Institution, which contributed funding and research assistance. This partnership continues with Folkways: My Father's Record Company, a show hosted by Michael Asch, launched earlier this year.

A recent 20-part series, Inspiring Leadership, explored best practices in, and the challenges of, leading in the 21st century. “Most people would look at that as a radio concept and laugh,” enthuses Regan, the station manager. “But we feel that leadership in government, companies, communities and our own lives is fundamental to our society, especially today. It goes back to being willing to take chances. If we can present intelligent, credible content to our audience, even though it may be challenging, they’ll listen and appreciate it.”

CKUA is a strong advocate for community radio, fighting for a fund to support the operating activities of non-profit broadcasters. “CKUA might survive, but we fear that a lot of community and campus broadcasters won’t,” opines Regan. CKUA is lobbying for the creation of a community radio support fund, financed initially with government seed money and contributions from private-sector BDUs.

Regan believes the fund could become self-sustaining. He proposes a formula whereby community (non-profit) broadcasters would access monies on a matching-grant basis, drawing only an amount equal to what they earn through local community donations. He believes this would provide incentive for stations to be as relevant to their local audiences as possible. Community stations receiving funding could reinvest it, and hopefully provide even better service, benefiting the stations, their communities and the broadcasting industry as a whole.

“Remember, we don’t own our broadcast licences, we’re granted them,” says Regan. “It’s not a right, but a responsibility. At CKUA, we believe to the core that we have to work hard to earn our licence, and to serve the public interest. We have to keep working with our colleagues in the public and private sectors to make our industry as strong as possible.”

Yet the station remains an anomaly. Unlike the CBC, it no longer receives government funding. And unlike commercial radio stations, it is restricted by licence to four minutes of advertising per hour. This is why it seeks a support fund for community broadcasters.

“On one hand,” says Regan, “we’re prohibited from competing on an equal footing with the CBC and the private sector. On the other, we have no choice but to compete with them because we need an audience as much as they do. We face exactly the same challenges but have none of the benefits they receive. I’m not complaining about the situation, but there is an inherent inequity in the way our current system is structured. A community radio support fund, structured along the lines of what CKUA suggests, would at least give our sector a fighting chance for survival. At least it would make our survival less dependant upon external factors, and more closely tied to our actual performance as broadcasters.”

Beyond the competitive pressures of the marketplace, other daunting challenges lie ahead. Lacking a conventional capital budget, CKUA lives in a century-old building badly in need of upgrading, if not vacating. Its 17 transmitters are also past their best-before dates, held together by what staffers affectionately call “glue, baling wire and duct tape.” And the station must digitize its musical holdings, a half-million-dollar effort that will take years.

But Canada’s oldest non-profit broadcaster remains optimistic, even in a world of increasing fragmentation and competition. Donations continue to rise steadily; its website attracts over 100,000 people each month; and it continues to meet its current board chair’s promise to “engage and amaze” its listeners.

“CKUA will always be around if it stays true to its guiding principle,” declares Brian Dunsmore, its program director, “which is to provide great music and useful information to its community.”

Regan concurs, citing the station’s core focus on the public interest. “We’ll always act on what’s best for broadcasting and for the public, concludes Regan, “not just for CKUA.”

Geo Takach is a writer, instructor, performer and filmmaker whose adventures include working on Radio Worth Fighting For (Lorna Thomas Productions), a television documentary on CKUA. He may be reached by e-mail at mail@geoconbrio.ca.


SIDEBAR

The fans speak

“CKUA is a source of pride to me. It helps define me as an Albertan, as a member of a culturally rich community where differences are celebrated. If music is the food of the soul, CKUA is the maître’ d of the finest restaurant in the world.”

- Bernie Fritze, listener


“CKUA: radio that is what radio could be.”

- The Reggae Cowboys, musical performers


“It’s radio raised to a level that’s really a public service.”

- Tommy Banks, senator and jazz musician-bandleader


“CKUA is for thinking people who want to be really involved in the rest of the world, people who like James Brown, Celtic music and opera, and can smile at the difference.”

- Tom Coxworth, CKUA announcer


“The constant change keeps it all exciting. Hearing a cut from Kitty Cochrane's Coconut Moon right after Eric Clapton, and right before throat-singing, is magical.”

- Marcella Dankow, listener


“The finest radio in the known universe.”

- James Keelaghan, singer-songwriter


“Sunday afternoon found me in a jeep overlooking the canyon, looking through binoculars for an escaped Black Angus steer. Or I should have been looking, because I made the mistake of turning on the radio. [There] was some incredible Irish choral music and I stopped to listen. Well, there was the coffee thermos and by the time I got the mug full, some Ben Tobiasson had glued me to the seat. I was beginning to think about feeling guilty when this over achieving radio host smacked me across the ears with Tafelmusik. I knew I was in trouble, so with firm resolve, I lunged, finger poised, for the off button as the final chord faded. I hope you’re pleased with yourself. The steer is still missing.”

- From a letter to CKUA announcer Monica Miller
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