Highbrow Station

Highbrow Station For more than a year tiny, 550-watt Station KPFA had been fighting a losing game. Its highbrow FM programs were a big hit with a limited audience in Berkeley, home of the University of California. But without sponsors or commercials it had trouble making ends meet on the $10-a-year subscription fees paid by 300 of its listeners. Last August KPFA finally closed the doors of its two-studio station, regretfully fired its underpaid seven-man staff.

The public reaction was immediate and astonishing. Some 150 Berkeley citizens held a hasty mass meeting, raised $2,300 from the floor. Such notables as Philosopher Alexander Meiklejohn, Economist John B. Condliffe, Composers Darius Milhaud and Roger Sessions became KPFA sponsors. Dr. J. Raymond Cope, minister of Berkeley's First Unitarian Church, enrolled 250 volunteer fundraisers, who collected a total of $23,000 in contributions. And Raytheon Manufacturing Co. donated the components of a new 16,100-watt transmitter which can send an FM signal throughout the whole San Francisco Bay area.

Last week, more certain than ever that there was a place for its uncommercial brand of radio, nonprofit KPFA came back on the air. As before, there was no commercial advertising, no sponsored shows, but there was plenty of classical music, drama, talks. Highlight of the first week: the BBC recording of Goethe's Faust, translated by Poet Louis MacNeice. Running time: three hours, 20 minutes.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.