Director Tripp Sommer says.
Siporin says that as a remedy, a pure call-in format
replaced “The Blue Plate Special.” “They said to me, we can
get out of this mess that we’re in,” Siporin says in regard to
the format change. “Their argument was, you’ll be free to
give your opinion and you won’t catch any grief from us, so
that was the deal. So there is a clear case to be made histor-
ically that I was told I could give my opinions.”
“We put him in a difficult situation in that we welcomed
his analysis outside of the news,” Heine says. “And the call-
in was kind of halfway in between analysis and the news.
But yeah, we felt that the news is different from commen-
tary and analysis, and it was uncomfortable for him to nav-
igate between being a commentator with an opinion and a
newsperson without an opinion and a call-in show host.”
But Siporin argues that, as with newspapers, KLCC can
take a clear stance on issues of public concern through a dis-
tinct editorial section apart from the news, which from his
understanding, was exactly what his commentary and call-
in programs were for.
Barton’s response to that is that the management’s posi-
tion was and always has been against hosts giving their
opinions on controversial issues. “There has never been a
time from my perspective that Alan, or that anyone was free
on KLCC to use the air to express their opinions about pub-
lic policy matters or matters of controversy,” he says. That
kind of things slides through but it’s inappropriate, he con-
tinued.
Siporin says that he left KLCC mainly due to his health,
and kept his mouth shut about the conflicts he experienced
with KLCC management over his role as a show host. But
for the first time, he wants to go on the record with his crit-
icism over the mixed messages he received from station
management.
“I had three bosses who gave me three different answers.
Don and Tripp clearly gave me the signal, Don more than
anybody as the program director, that this was a talk show
and that I was doing commentaries. And Tripp edited all my
commentaries. And a lot of them were clearly opinions
about politics. And months would go by where Steve
wouldn’t say anything. And all of a sudden he would be
pissed off and he it would be like ‘you shouldn’t be doing
this, you’re not allowed to do this,’” Siporin says.
Siporin makes it a point to note that KLCC is a wonder-
ful and valuable part of the community. “I think it has a lot
of serious problems, but it’s still one of the best things we
have,” he says.
Among the many things that could be improved upon,
Siporin believes the decision making process that goes into
programming warrants close scrutiny.
The quandary that exists for Barton and staff is balanc-
ing public interest and attracting underwriting money and
donations. With public funding shrinking, public radio sta-
tions must take into consideration their listening demo-
graphic and their donor demographic when making pro-
gramming decisions.
Barton admits that the 35-45 year old age range is the
station’s biggest demographic. He does not draw a direct
The Competition
the two stations. JPR’s Jefferson Exchange with
Criticism of the lack of local talk shows on KLCC
host Jeff Golden airs live from 8 to 10 am week-
has been exacerbated by Jefferson Public Radio’s
days and is rebroadcast from 8 to 10 pm.
relatively recent incursion into the Eugene market
Air America is now broadcasting on commercial
with a daily two-hour call-in talk show broadcast
KOPT AM at 1600 on the dial, adding a third option
on KRVM 1280 AM. The Ashland-based JPR has
for left-wing news and opinion junkies.
built a growing audience in Eugene, and many
public radio fans bounce back and forth between
line between programming decisions and people who
donate money to the station, but he does say that the 35- to
45-year-old demographic tends to donate more. “As people
get older the chances to get a good donation out of them is
larger. That’s a fact of life. It’s not necessarily what drives
what we do, but we certainly recognize it as being the real-
ity of the situation,” he says.
“Car Talk” is one of NPR’s most popular programs.
Comparing “Car Talk” to “This American Life,” which
KLCC used to air and is sometimes requested by listeners to
For programming information, visit klcc.org,
jpr.org and kopt.com
Steve Barton is general manager at KLCC.
OCTOBER 13, 2005 13