 |
| Tammy Terwelp |
Last
week, Tammy Terwelp, Executive Director of Aspen Public Radio [link],
announced that KAJX was changing its schedule to all news/talk.
That also meant that volunteer music shows were canceled.
She
new she would get complaints.
But the response from Jazz hosts and fans has been loud and
heated.
Though
dozens of NPR member stations have made this change, it is often more difficult when it happens in a small town.
Aspen is on the “a-list” of global destinations, but fewer than 10,000
people live there year round.
People in a
small town take it personally when their local public radio station cancels
programs.
According
to reports in The Aspen Times [link],
Terwelp dropped all of KAJX’s afternoon and evening music programs and replaced
them with news-oriented shows. The
new schedule began on Monday, January 20th.
The
story is now front-page news in Aspen.
 |
Downtown
Aspen, Colorado
|
Times reporter Maddie Vincent has
created a stir with her reporting about the "fired" volunteer DJs.
In a small town bad news travels fast.
Vincent has certainly hit some raw nerves. From her reports in The Times:
•
Friday was the day the music died for
Aspen Public Radio and “a slap in the face” of its longtime volunteers.
•
“Most expressed feelings of shock and disbelief, stating that their music shows
were a “labor of love” and they felt disrespected.
•
The hosts, many sharing their musical expertise on air since the late 1990s,
talked about connecting with the Aspen community
•
“Music programming is so important and was in the very beginning at Aspen
Public Radio. It’s been there from the very beginning and is what the community
has come to expect.”
•
“There’s something unique about the connection you share with someone spinning
records on the radio … it’s irreplaceable and helps us hold this small
community together.”
 |
New from Aspen Public
Radio
|
Terwelp
replied to the The Times:
“This is really hard and
I don’t want to come across as patronizing because I’m not. But [canceling
programs] kills me because it’s very difficult. We are thankful for all of our
volunteers and their hard work.”
Terwelp
told Spark News in an email:
We've made a move away
from a split-format as many stations are doing, and need to do. We are very
much on the right path by moving ahead building more community storytelling and
news reporting.
We are very fortunate
here in the valley to have a great community station, KDNK, that features many
music programs by volunteers. We reached out to their GM, and he has been very
receptive to [more] local DJs.
Programs
added or returning to KAJX include: BBC
Newshour, Science Friday, The World, 1A, Radiolab, Snap Judgment, and This
American Life.
During
the summer, KAJX will continue to air live Classical music from the Aspen Music
Festival's summer season. Chris Mohr will host the broadcasts.
NPR WAS THE BIGGEST
WINNER AT THE 2ND ANNUAL iHeartRadio
PODCAST AWARDS
On
Friday, January 17th several hundred podcast producers, publishers
and media-types gathered in Burbank for the second annual iHeartRadio Podcast Awards.
The Dropout [link], published by ABC
News, was chosen Podcast of the Year.
NPR
won four awards including the Icon Innovator Award for Life Kit.
Other
NPR winners were How I Built This with
Guy Raz, in the Best Business & Finance Podcast category; Radio Ambulante for best Best
Spanish-Language Podcast; and, Hidden
Brain, for best Science Podcast.
Public
media shops that also won categories were Nora McInerny, APM, Best Overall
Female Host; and, Krista Tippett, On
Being, Best Spirituality & Religion
Podcast.
NPR
won four of the 30 categories, the most by any single publisher. Gimmlet won in
three categories, iHeart only won two.
We
want to praise iHeart for making the Podcast Awards more trapparent, particularly the judging process.
Meanwhile,
in a galaxy closer to home:
Podcasts
that are published by NPR occupy 45%, 9 of the Top 20 positions on the Podtrac
charts. 70% of the chart comes from public media
Fourteen
of the Top 20 (70%) came from public media.
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