Public Radio in El Paso, Texas - KTEP
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KTEP has long provided a valuable service to the El Paso community by being the outlet for NPR, other unbiased non-traditional news, and public radio programming.
Now it seems that KTEP has lost its way. The radio station is listener supported, but not in any way listener controlled. The people who contribute money to the continued operation of the radio station are not asked what type of programming they prefer, nor do they have any input or control over programming or staffing at the station.
It would be interesting to see the results of a professional survey taken of KTEP financial contributors. The idea would be to see what types of music and programming they want. Since this information is not available at this time, one can only speculate what the listeners (financial supporters) want. Answers could be grouped either by one vote allocated to each contributor, or perhaps one vote for each dollar contributed by the contributor.
Whichever way the results are tabulated my guess is that the results would be overwhelmingly in favor of more news and public radio programs and against the massive commitment of the radio station to classical music. I suspect that the number of people wanting classical music is very small and that the money they contribute to the station is equally tiny. But that the classical music supporters are quite vocal. I’ll bet that maybe some arrogant, big mouth, tenured professors at UTEP get vastly more input on the type of programming at the radio station than the individuals who contribute financially to the continued operation of KTEP.
One thing is clear: Financial support by individuals will lag during periods of economic distress. If the radio station is not providing these financial supporters with the type of programming they want, contributions will decline even more.
In most of El Paso the public radio station in Las Cruces has an excellent signal. I find myself sometimes changing from 88.5 to 90.7 and back. Frequently I find that the programming from KRWG out of New Mexico State University more closely fits my desires. As a native El Pasoan and a graduate of UTEP I find this to be a little bit distressing.
Perhaps what is needed is for the public radio stations at UTEP and NMSU to merge. Eliminating one transmitter and much of the overlapping staff would provide more resources to pay for the type of programming that listeners want.
But what about training the college students who want to be radio DJ’s or technicians? If this is the main goal of the station then its financing needs to come from the university, not from the community. The name is Public Radio not College Radio.
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