I can't speak to what KUOW airs as we can't get a decent signal in West Seattle, but it will be a great loss to not have shows like Sound Effect available anymore. (and Art of Jazz kicks Swing Years ass btw) We cancelled our sustaining membership for the time being until we know how this all shakes out. And digital isn't an option for us, so to say that there will be more options really isn't true if it's via a medium we don't have.

As soon as I read this story, I went to the KCBS website and donated $60. They carry Democracy Now and a wide range of music programs, including jazz.

Oops, that's KBCS. http://kbcs.fm/

I'm no Cliff Mass fan, but for the love of God this feud between people whose salaries I indirectly fund (Cliff Mass and KUOW leadership) needs to stop. It's juvenile and dumb.

Also, I understand people's frustration with KUOW's programming choices in recent years, but I think some of this rage needs to be directed at the administration and Board of Regents of PLU. As a private university they are certainly under no legal obligation to subsidize a public radio station, but I would argue that they have a moral obligation to support media diversity and access in their community.

"Our whole reason for being is to produce quality valued content, connect the dots so that people can figure out the complexity of their lives, how does the Puget Sound region fit in with the nation and world—helping people make good choices as informed citizens. That's our stakeholder group. If we're doing our job, post acquisition, to give people quality news and information, some joy and discovery, and some delight, then they will give us money. Our work is to fulfill all those categories we just listed."

As part of your stakeholder group I'd like to let you know you've been doing a terrible job at that while KPLU has been doing a very good job. Perhaps you may consider firing your news staff and replacing them with KPLU's?

*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.* -- You mean this interview was even longer and less clear than what you've shown us?

Muddled words probably intended to obfuscate rather than enlighten. Or put more bluntly, BS of the first water.

None of this deal passes the smell test. I'd rather donate to KBCS. #ISTANDWITHCLIFFMASS

@9, she's not a public official.

Cliff Mass and KUOW are not feuding. Cliff Mass is simply perseverating about something that happened, what, 5? years ago. He will not let it go.

She may not be a public official, but I agree with the goobledegook. I think officials use it when they want to cover their incompetency. Ms. Mathes has diminished KUOW as far as I am concerned. If the KUOW and KPLU Boards were competent, they would have KPLU taking over KUOW.

To be perfectly honest I have never cared for the locally produced shows on either station. But the syndicated stuff KUOW brings in from other west-coast public stations is usually pretty good - none of that on KPLU now.

I live in Burien, and I was happy to hear that the repeater frequencies will be reshuffled. Since moviing out here my KUOW reception has been unlistenably poor. But from my bedroom I can recieve KPLU nice and strong, as well as their repeater on 92.1 (their website says the repeater is on 88.1, but that's out of date - 88.1 is now a powerful crappy christian hip-hop station out of the south sound).

If 92.1 became a KUOW repeater instead of a KPLU repeater, that would at least give Burien some coverage. Especially if they improved the broadcast, although that might be tricky without stepping on 91.9 over on the Peninsula.

If KUOW on 92.1 doesn't pan out, I still get two different NWPR repeaters on 91.7 and 90.9, so I can at least get the big national news shows from them. Alternately I might have to finally break down and buy an HD radio, so I could just get multiple channels off of 88.5.

My point about KUOW is that management has taken this station in the wrong direction. They have banked large amount of money, while claiming poverty, and now using it to take out the competition. There is no talk of of altering their current corporate programming approach with suppression of local content. If you read the comments on the KUOW web site and any other media outlet, you will find that listeners are overwhelmingly negative about this proposal. In the end, the only control listeners have is through KUOW's funding.

Was that woman drunk when she was interviewed? If they had to edit her for "clarity", I can't image what the original transcript must have been like.

The content on KUOW has ranged from abysmal to lackluster for years. I stopped listening a while ago after hearing one too many phoned-in interviews by Steve (Barely There) Scher. When he left, I tried tuning in again, but had they improved? Nope. Happily, I found KPLU. Alas, the competition that KPLU provided, instead of spurring KUOW to win back listeners by bettering their programming, has moved them to murder . Another shining moment for this "World Class" town. And we are poorer for it.

She says it: they've got the data now to chase ears, the same way websites chase page views, so the radio is now trying to become the same type of crummy content you see on HuffPo.

They have the data to know what we 'consume', but they don't have any data to know what we really care about. And they won't listen... because they have data.

Here it is:
"And it's like, management is always responding to listener behavior. What are you consuming? What are you listening to? We get that in aggregate form, but when you look at the numbers year after year after year, and you get patterns of usage, you can kind of tell what's really happening, and what people like and what they don't like."

So, KUOW has no idea what to do with KPLU, except they want to destroy it and its excellent local news coverage.

I was worried when this was announced, but now that I hear the MBA gobblygook and lack of vision coming out of KUOW's management, I'm afraid that a very good NPR station with a very good commitment to the local community is being destroyed for no reason.

And if KUOW has so little concern for Seattle suburbs, imagine how ill-served Tacoma and the South Sound will be.

There are three ways this can play out. People can rise up and stop the sake, KUOW can preserve KPLU as the successful station it is while learning from it and gaining some efficiencies between the two stations, or KUOW can ruin a good station, get rid of a lot if good reporters and disk jokeys, and ignore the needs of its community. Sadly, KUOW seems set on making the areas radio worse than better.

Caryn, I'm not only a "stakeholder" by being a listener, I am a "stakeholder" in that I have been a Sustaining Member for years of a specific part of what KPLU broadcasts.

One of the first things that stands out to me is that in this interview you off-handedly give away the channel I use to listen (KPLU HD2 / KPLI HD2) to something else entirely. I have three HD receivers currently tuned to KPLU HD2 - JAZZ24, and one of them is in my car.

Should drop JAZZ24, or make it more difficult to receive, you can trust that I will no longer be a Sustaining Member. Understand, this is not a threat. The only reason I am a Sustaining Member is specifically to support broadcasting JAZZ24 in my area so that I can listen to it. It goes away, so does my reason for support.

Seriously it does not sound as though you have any idea how KPLU ties in to the South Sound region, and how important it is to the South Sound, and that is not something you are likely to learn from your Seattle-centric ivory tower. This makes me sad, because I'm afraid you will destroy a good thing without even knowing what it is you have destroyed.

Tom
University Place, WA

This woman talks like a CEO announcing she is moving a factory to Mexico. KUOW is less and less relevant to Seattle. KEXP is Seattle's soul. Donate there.

If she thinks that KUOW has been producing valuable content, then she's part of the problem over there.

I gave up on KUOW a couple of years when some idjit decided they could "improve" on All Things Considered by slicing and dicing it and adding in snippets of local news, PRI's The World, and god knows what else. It's utterly infuriating to listen too.

Criticize KUOW all you want for using your donations to them to make a bad investment in another broadcast license. But if you listen to public radio over the air and like to have choices, isn't this the least worst outcome possible?

PLU wants to sell. Forcing them to hold onto the station and continue running it as they have isn't an option. Who else would you have buy it?

Total bummer considering the KPLU on-air staff just negotiated what was supposed to be a three-year contract.

I stopped listening to KUOW/NPR years ago. The last straw for me were the Fox News contributors who were also All Things Considered news reporters. NPR has become just another outlet for right wing news. NPR really does stand for Nice Polite Republicans, as the joke goes.

If I want local news I come here. If I want international news I listen to the BBC. I read The Guardian for US national news. I also like CBC's tv news program, The National, which does an excellent job cover the States. Do any US-based, national news organizations still exist*; at least those that aren't either cheerleading for a war (The New York Times), under-resourced and confused about why they exist (NBC and ABC), right wing propaganda (FOX, The Washington Post) or just irrelevant (USA Today)?

I feel bad for those people at KPLU who are going to lose their jobs. That really sucks. If there is a bright lining for them they are getting a head start over their colleagues at KUOW who will also, inevitably, be looking for jobs as well when the local news there is shut down as well.

*I should give a shout out to 60 Minutes. They still do good work.

Didn't this interview run last week?

So, on the east facing slope of Magnolia, I won't be able to get NPR anymore, as only KPLU comes in clearly there. Unless I get an HD radio for my car, and go sit in my car to listen to it.
HD Radio doesn't seem to be a very common option in most home FM receivers.
If i'm going online for NPR, then I just go to read the text of a specific story.

@24-

They're taking a page out of the KPLU playbook.

I don't know if you can fault KUOW on this. It's PLU that decided to drop the ball and take the cash. An increasingly unpopular president who is trying to burnish his image, a board of regents asleep at the switch, and a small private school with a great tradition that doesn't have a clue how to confront the competition from U of W Tacoma.

If PLU was selling, I don't fault KUOW for buying. I fault them for their recent history with the old station and for their plans with the new one. They could look at what KPLU has done differently and consider the value in what's different there.

Hey folks: in an online world, you can only survive in two ways: 1) being different. 2) shoveling the same spammy content as everyone else, but doing it more reactively and with better audience targeting.

You choose (2)? Hold on a sec. Do you realize you'll be in the same pool as the big sharks of that game, and do you really think you've got an edge on them? You can still change your answer, it's not too late.

First print, then TV, now radio. It's all noise now. If KUOW wants quality news worth listening to, it has it in KPLU staff. From reading the non-answers, that's not going to happen. Insightful, trustworthy, and informative news are a thing of the past. Imagine, local reporters who investigate, research, and write up original pieces to inform the citizenry. These days, that's dangerous stuff. Perhaps, that's the point.

"I brought the leadership of the content side of the house here at KUOW into knowledge about it..."

This interview "brought me into knowledge" as to who has been driving KUOW down the drain. I haven't supported KUOW for years, owing to its broadcast of the odious Marketplace. Now I really don't feel guilty.

Hey Stranger staff: if these great reporters are out on the street, can you step up and give them a home? I'd support that.

I have read the comments here and I agree with a couple of things: It is PLU that bailed out on this station. After soliciting donations for a new state of the art studio, they fold?!? I donated money for that building, and that really bothers me.

Second, I have NO interest in listening to Seattle-centric radio. I don't live there and don't care about many of the topics they cover. I tried KUOW a couple of different times - I couldn't warm up to it. Reading this interview just confirms that it is not for me. So where will I go with my public radio dollars???

"I don't know that there's anything KUOW could ever do to make Cliff satisfied with us. So I don't even want to pursue that, because I think he's in a particular camp and he'll never get out of that camp."

I didn't realize I was in an anti-KUOW camp! There are plenty of things KUOW could do that would make me "satisfied" with them. Bring back local programming! Cover some of the lectures at the UW! Have a program featuring UW professors! Add a program interviewing local political and other leaders and include call in! Stop begging for money when you are running huge surpluses! And invite me back to do the weather! I would be a happy camper if they did such things!