Seconds before noon Tuesday, Larry Murry smiled and intoned into a microphone: “Broadcasting from the campus of City College, this is member-supported KSDS San Diego.”
Larry Murry with you. It is Midday Jazz in the afternoon. San Diego’s Jazz FM 88.3.”
The smile was still there as the 40-year radio veteran pulled off his AKG headphones. Murray’s is one of several voices that grace the airwaves at KSDS.
The station is tucked into the “L” building adjacent to Curran Plaza on the campus of San Diego City College. It’s been around since 1951. Back then, it was a student radio station. It morphed into a public radio station in 1973, and in 1985 became San Diego’s only jazz and blues station.
“We’ve been successful in keeping that for over 50 years, which is really pretty remarkable,” said KSDS general manager Ken Poston.
But last month’s bill to rescind funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting puts a $200,000 hole into KSDS’ budget. In terms of dollars and cents, it’s less than the $4.3 million KPBS lost — but as part of the overall KSDS budget, the loss is tremendous.
“It’s 20% of our operating budget,” he said.
With a hit like that, Poston and his team wasted no time in taking action to plug that hole.
“We did a three-day emergency fundraiser last week and got about half of it back already,” Poston said. “I kind of felt that our listeners were loyal enough and would understand the circumstances enough that they would step up and they did.”
Why such loyalty? Well, just like KPBS, when Jazz 88.3 listeners tune in, they know what to expect.
One of the things that makes KSDS unique is that there are no playlists. All of the on-air hosts select their own music.
“No one tells me what to play, when to play it, or anything of that nature. So, yeah, it’s really great, you know, because at this particular station, each one of us has a preference,” Murry said. “Some like quartets, some like big bands, some like the dance music of the 40’s and it all gets mixed in, and we all sound different.”
Before the cutback in federal funding, the future of those sounds was pretty well assured. But with the cuts comes a difficult question: What if KSDS is unable to replace the lost funding?
It’s a question that’s never far from Ken Poston’s mind.
“As long as we replace it, there will be no changes whatsoever, and that growth will be able to continue at the proper rate. If we were to fall short somehow, then we’d really have to sit down and look at things and figure out what has to be done,” Poston said.
But for now, he’s confident the station’s listeners will come through. He says that’s because they understand there’s so much at stake for one of the only jazz and blues stations left in the country.
“We feel very fortunate that we’re able to do that, but we also feel a great deal of responsibility, because we realize we’re one of the last all-jazz radio stations. We have no intention of it being anything else,” said Poston.
A public media organization, dedicated to a special mission of preserving a uniquely American art form. An organization that is part of the reason San Diego is so special.
It’s easy to support both of your public media stations. Go to jazz88.org to support KSDS, and kpbs.org to support us.
