4 thoughts on “Email shows KUOW saw ‘no sound business vision’ for Jazz24

  1. I’d like to clarify a few points of misunderstanding that I don’t want people to read and take as fact.

    Jazz24 is not upside down. It’s stated that we spend $150,000 on the service. That’s not true. We spend around 100K on the service, and we make between 120 – 150K in syndication fees and fundraising. Last year we netted close to 50K. (Our fundraising dollars from J24 have been steadily increasing every year.) But that’s not the point. The point is public service — especially for communities that don’t have access to a terrestrial jazz service — not making gobs of money.

    It’s also stated in the emails that Jazz24 is engaged in “distance fundraising.” In other words, we are fundraising for Jazz24 in our syndicated markets. That is not true. We fundraise on the web stream only, affiliates are sent a clean feed.

    As for the assertion that there is no “sound business vision” for the service, we respectfully disagree.

  2. None of the stated reasons for dropping a tested, syndicated brand are very convincing. It seems like they had already made up their minds and were looking for excuses after the fact.

  3. I think Matt has it right… KPLU and Jazz24 are public services that certainly should cover their costs, which its pretty clear that they do. KUOW seems to have forgotten what public service is and what not for profit means. Everything that leaks out about this sale makes me angrier and angrier. Time to give another $100 to Save KPLU!

  4. Let me put it this way, as a listener and sustaining member of JAZZ24, primarily terrestrial on HD2, but also via the ‘net when traveling, who appreciates their unique mix, I find Caryn’s emails troubling.

    It is especially so now that Caryn had moved yet another of her East Coast buddies, Steven Williams,
    from New Jersey, and he has put together *his* version of a “white label fully automated jazz channel”
    based on his tastes in music (Planet Jazz), and I find it, for the most part, flopping back and forth between strident shrieking and somnambulistic shuffling (I will admit it slowly mellowed a bit since it first popped up).

    One thing that strikes me is that the “values” of big business Washington, DC radio do not translate smoothly to the “public service focus” of the Washington in the Pacific Northwest.

    SAVE KPLU / JAZZ24

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