LA Public Media mission: to create new multicultural audiences for public radio

Oscar Garza, senior assignment editor for the Los Angeles Public Media Service, is “one of those people who’s been around for a while and his perspective is key to helping understand Los Angeles,” writes KCET blogger and KPCC reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, in this Q&A about the new CPB-backed start-up. Garza is a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times and former editor in chief of the glossy magazine Tu Ciudad. Los Angeles Public Media’s mission is “to create new audiences for public radio,” he tells Guzman-Lopez. “Public radio has a couple of problems. One is that their audience is older and getting older, their average audience. And they’re not very diverse. It’s an overwhelmingly Anglo audience.” The new service will target listeners aged 25-40, and the ethnic mix will reflect the multicultural life of the L.A.: “[B]ecause of the diversity of the city . . . generations . . . are accustomed to living in this multicultural, diverse environment . . . , they’re not just living in this Latino bubble. We all have Asian friends, African American friends.” Los Angeles Public Media, a project of Radio Bilingüe, plans to launch a daily one-hour radio show and online news service later this year.