KPFA just announced to staff members that they are making some major cuts to the budget.
“These are very hard times for our listeners, for the media, and for non-profits around the country,” our station manager tells us. “The residents of Northern California have been hit hard by the recession and so have we. In our recent fund drives, our listeners have been supporting us consistently, but have only been able to afford to give smaller donations, which has resulted in a significant decline in our revenue.”
I’m asking my listeners to make a contribution right now if you can afford to. I’m making a donation today, too.
If you look back over the playlists for this year and previous years, you’ll see a hell of a lot of live performances from the KPFA studios. I had Dan Hicks and band in on December 2; Hot Buttered Rum on September 9; Mushroom on April 8; Todalo Shakers on March 18; Boris Garcia on December 8, 2008; The Lindells on October 29, 2008; Free Peoples on October 1, 2008. Over the years we’ve had The Waybacks, Peter Rowan, Bob Weir and Ratdog, Wake the Dead, Railroad Earth, Donna the Buffalo, Bill Kirchen, Shana Morrison, Keller Williams, Tea Leaf Green, ALO – I’ve lost count of all the great live performances we’ve been able to put on the air free for nothin’ because of KPFA.
For that reason alone, the station deserves our support. And there are so many more reasons to support KPFA.
Please make a contribution. This page gives you several options. Any amount you can give will be hugely helpful, be it five, fifty, five hundred, or five thousand dollars.
Thanks for reading this, and thank you for supporting KPFA.
P.S. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Tony Ferro, who volunteers his time and audio engineering talent to put those live shows on the air. He, too, does this for the love of music and the music community, and I know he shares my concern for KPFA’s financial health. The sterling quality of our live performance broadcasts is Tony’s gift to all of us.