December 6, 2011 KFAI Program Committee Minutes
Members present: Program Director PattiRai Rudolph, Nancy Sartor, Jean Silverberg, Ron Thums
Members absent: Bruce Corrie, Patrick Miller, Miguel Vargas
Guests: Eve MacLeish, Lennie Chism
I. Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 7:05 p.m.
II. Review and Approve Agenda
Ron moved that the item "Review and Approve Minutes" be added to the agenda. Seconded by Jean.Passed.
III. Review and Approve Minutes
Motion by Ron to approve the June 7, 2011 minutes; seconded by Jean. Passed..
Motion by Ron to approve the November 1, 2011 minutes; seconded by Jean. Passed..
IV. Program Committee Elections
PattiRai reported on recent PC election results and appointments. Karla Caspari has resigned from the PC effective immediately. Patrick Miller was reelected to one of the listener-elected seats and Burke Zimmerman was elected to the other. Jean Silverberg was reelected to the two-year volunteer-elected seat. Miguel Vargas agreed to serve another year as a PD appointee, and the other PD-appointed seat has not yet been filled, although at least one person has expressed interest. A person is also being sought to fill the PD-appointed independent counsel position.
V. Revision of the Programmer's Handbook
PattiRai presented the PC with her short preliminary list of suggestions for the Programmer's Handbook revisions. Ron and Jean had both started lists of items to be updated. Before December 29, each PC member should send PattiRai his/her list of suggested updates to be compiled and presented at the January meeting. The committee will then discuss how to proceed with the revision. The Programmer's Handbook is out of date and has fallen out of active use, and it was felt it would be helpful to abridge it from its current length of 78 pages.
VI. Status of Applications for Timeslot Openings
The deadline for program applications for the timeslots currently held by Songs of Praise, African Rhythms and First Person Radio was December 2. (These slots were automatically opened up due to host changes in the affected programs.) The current hosts of all three programs reapplied, plus there were seven new proposals. PattiRai said she will activate the Survey Monkey program evaluation tool so PC members can review each application in preparation for the January meeting. Applications and demo CDs were distributed to the members present at the meeting.
VII. Content on Program Committee Webpage
An unnamed listener suggested to the PD that a listing of Program Committee members should be posted on the KFAI web site, similar to what is done for the Board of Directors. The Committee agreed that members' names and terms should be listed. There was some discussion adding personal email addresses or incorporating a general PC email address, and it was decided to check with the Board of Directors to see how it handles monitoring its public email address.
VIII. Other
KFAI's Arbitron ratings saw a big increase from October to November. PattiRai said other community stations saw similar increases and perhaps it was due to interest in the Occupy Wall Street movement. She plans to analyze the past 18 months of Arbitrons, and the PC will begin discussions of morning drive time in early 2012. Guest Eve MacLeish suggested that a consistent framework for morning drive times could be a magazine format, utilizing KFAI's extensive talent base. She also urged the PC to consider adding more Spanish-speaking news and culture programs.
Motion to adjourn made by Jean and seconded by Nancy. Passed. Meeting adjourned at 8:15 p.m.
The next meeting of the Program Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 3 at 7 p.m. in Studio 5.
-- submitted by Jean Silverberg