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Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
 Posted - 07/18/2004 : 02:33:41 AM
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This story was emailed to me recently. I thought it was interesting and perhaps you will too? -Admin
Crossed signals: Parties fume over station license
Hawaiian tunes to replace former radio home of Watsonville human-rights group
By DONNA JONES
Sentinel staff writer
WATSONVILLE — Call it a collision of visions.
And in the world of low-power FM broadcasting, federal rules have left room for only one in the Watsonville area.
For Jeff and Morgan Kost, gaining control of 104.7 FM means the chance to share their love of Hawaiian music with the world, or at least a small slice of it between the northern end of the Pajaro Valley and Monterey.
For members of el Comité de Derechos Humanos de Watsonville, or the Watsonville Human Rights Committee, the loss of the one FM frequency available for Watsonville-based broadcasting represents a missed opportunity to revive a short-lived but vital community station, Radio Watsón.
"It’s a sad story," said Frank Bardacke, a Watsonville activist with a leftist pedigree rooted in the 1960s Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. "A group of people came close — the distance between your thumb and forefinger — to an authentic community radio station ... and it slipped through our fingers."
But Morgan Kost, a lifelong Santa Cruz County resident, said when KAPU launches, sometime in the next few weeks, the community will benefit from a unique musical format that has ties to cultures across the Pacific Rim.
"When you listen to Hawaiian music, it brings a kindness to your heart," she said.
Broadcast history
El Comité members say their troubles started when they chose to play by the rules.
The group was about 4 years old in 1996 when Bardacke’s Berkeley connections linked members with the burgeoning micro-radio movement and Radio Watsón was born. While broadcasting at low power wasn’t strictly legal, an ongoing court case looking at free speech issues muddied the issue, Bardacke said.
During its two-year life, the station grew from one program in the morning to several at all hours of the day and night, involving a theater group, bilingual teachers and teens. Programming covered the gamut from Spanish rock to youth soccer.
But in 1998, a judge ruled against one of the leaders in the radio movement, and soon the FCC came knocking on Radio Watsón’s door and shut down the fledgling broadcaster.
Others who received cease-and-desist orders, like Free Radio Santa Cruz, refused to leave the airwaves and still broadcast today. El Comité members considered civil disobedience, too, but since many of the participants were undocumented workers or young students, the group decided to comply.
During the next couple of years, they and others lobbied for changes to rules governing the low-wattage stations. Victory came in 2000, when Congress passed a legislation allowing for micro-broadcasters to obtain licenses. El Comité immediately applied.
Island allure
Meanwhile, the Kosts were nurturing a love for Hawaiian music, delving into the culture, collecting discs and listening to what little programming there was on other radio stations.
The music is rooted in a culture that values family and kindness, Morgan Kost said. It evokes the beauty of the land, the flowers and fish, the cane fields and the people.
Through waves of immigration, interest in the music has spread to many countries, she said. And it has strong support in Santa Cruz County, where Hawaiian musicians attract crowds to concerts.
"If you are spinning the dial, you’d stop and listen," she said.
The Kosts got the idea to start a station of their own while listening to a Salinas-based Hawaiian music program. With their knowledge of the musical form growing, they thought they could host a program of equal or better quality, Morgan Kost said. Then, as the Salinas station cut back on hours for their favorite program, the idea became an imperative. Research led them to low-power FM broadcasting about the time the FCC started accepting applications.
But their application was ranked second behind that of el Comité. Then, at the end of 2000, federal rules changed again, prohibiting people who had received cease-and-desist orders from obtaining licenses. El Comité applicants were no longer eligible. But because of the way the bureaucracy worked, their application was still in force, blocking the Kosts.
To solve the problem, Bardacke approached the Kosts with the idea of a partnership. The reworked application described a station run by a nonprofit organization of small business owners, teachers, farmworkers and wetlands advocates. The format was to include a mix of educational and public service programming and Hawaiian and Spanish-language music. The FCC approved the application in April 2003.
But the license was in the Kosts’ name, and the partners never put anything in writing. Soon tensions arose, which both sides described as a clash of styles based on differing backgrounds. The Kosts are business owners who operate a Watsonville-based seeding business. The others come from the nonprofit, community-activist sector. By May, negotiations to share air time broke down.
Morgan Kost said she and her husband spent thousands of dollars getting the venture off the ground, and plan to invest thousands more. They’ve also worked countless hours to acquire and install equipment. That gave them the right to call the shots, she said. Though the couple now plans to offer broadcast time to community groups, most of the air time will go to Hawaiian music and no other musical programming will be permitted.
"It’s really gotten back to what’s important to us, the permit holders," she said.
El Comité members take credit for getting the application approved in the first place, and say they tried to help build the station, but that the Kosts threw up roadblocks. They concede they had less money to put into the project, but would have been willing to fund raise. At this point, they are giving up.
"It’s taken a lot of energy and organizing," member Olga Diaz said. "We decided just to let it go."
Big picture
Diaz’s frustration was still evident, however, when she recently discussed the station.
"What’s really at stake here is the use of a public resource," she said. "I don’t have anything against Hawaiian music. ... We can learn from it, but it doesn’t represent the needs and interests of this community."
Kost said she isn’t so ready to decide what the community wants and needs.
"We don’t want to second-guess the listeners," she said. "(Hawaiian music) can appeal to a lot of people."
Bardacke blames federal rules and large mainstream broadcasters like National Public Radio, which have lobbied to block access to additional broadcast channels.
El Comité members support federal legislation that would reduce the amount of space left vacant between operating frequencies from three channels to two. That would open more channels for use by low-power stations.
NPR’s interest in maintaining the distance between broadcast channels is in protecting radio reading services, which support the visually impaired, from interference, said spokeswoman Jessamyn Sarmiento.
Contact Donna Jones at djones @ santacruzsentinel.com.
Copyright © Santa Cruz Sentinel. All rights reserved.
For more online stories from the Santa Cruz Sentinel visit:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com
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Jeff Kost
Aloha
2 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2004 : 11:56:48 PM
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Aloha All
We are having a grand opening at the end of August.
An invatation only event.
Send for details: kapulp @ earthlink.net
Mahalo,
Jeff Kost
KAPU-LP 104.7 FM
"Hawaiian Style witha Smile" |
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Julie H
Ha`aha`a
USA
1206 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2004 : 12:10:32 AM
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Aloha Jeff, I attended your opening and had a grand time, listening to music with friends and dining and drinking away. Thanks so much for your wonderful hospitality. The only regret I have is that I'm too far away from you to catch your station. I'm waiting for the internet connnection you talked about. You know, I just can never get enough Hawaiian music!
Mahalo nui loa, and good luck in your adventure.
Julie Hendriks
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Jeff Kost
Aloha
2 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2004 : 11:19:01 PM
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Aloha Julie,
I am working on the BSI software that will produce a dynamic website
as we broadcast. Thanks for coming to the opener. I spent the entire day next to the broadcast equipment and was only able to hear the music, not see and live it.
Stay in touch,
Jeff Kost
KAPU-lp 104.7 FM |
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