Thursday, January 30, 1997
COMMUNICATIONS:
New emphasis on playlists to define station’s identityBy
Jennifer Mukai
Daily Bruin Contributor
Mark Liu sighs blissfully as his manager hands him a sticker
which reads: "Parental Advisory: Don’t shop at Wal-Mart." Holding
the black and white decal reverentially, the third-year political
science student proclaims, "This can go on my snowboard!" He
pauses. "What was I saying? Something about professionalism?"
Professionalism actually is a major focus with the rebirth of
KLA, UCLA’s radio station. During the station’s absence of about a
year-and-a-half, Liu and his colleagues have worked at overhauling
KLA’s entire format.
"We want KLA as professional as we can possibly make it," stated
Liu, the station’s new program director. "We wanted to change its
image into that of a real, viable entity here at UCLA, a real
service to the students."
One major change in KLA’s new format is the integration of
regular playlists into every disc jockey’s (DJ) show, excepting
specialty shows. According to Liu, DJs were previously allowed to
play whatever they liked, which led to a lot of inconsistency. Liu
expressed hopes that the establishment of certain playlists will
not only give the station more of an identity, but will allow KLA
to prove a real training ground for students interested in
professional radio.
"In the real world, you don’t just walk into work and play
whatever you want," he noted. "KROQ, for example, has very, very,
very strict playlists."
He went on to say that though KLA will be less stringent than
KROQ, it will certainly be more structured than it used to be.
Those playlists will be formatted with a focus on "alternative
and rock," ranging from Tori Amos to Shonen Knife to Weird Al
Yankovic. However, KLA’s musical archives also include punk, metal,
techno/industrial, rap, reggae, blues and jazz. Weekends will
feature specialty shows all day Saturday, and techno, dance and
hip-hop all day Sunday.
In addition, KLA will feature weekday talk shows covering topics
as diverse as campus news, entertainment, relationships and
politics. According to Liu, news and sports updates will be
broadcast twice a day, in the morning and afternoon.
Roy Matayoshi, a fifth-year political science student and host
of a show tentatively titled "KLA Metal," said he was glad to hear
that the station is more formatted now.
"Previously, people didn’t know what to expect from KLA," he
said. Now that the station has more of a focus, musically speaking,
he said he hopes listeners will be able to better identify with the
station.
Jake Sexton, a fourth-year psychology and communications student
who worked with Matayoshi at KLA two years ago, expressed similar
hopes for a larger audience for the new KLA.
"We’ll hopefully have more of an audience since we’re using
cable instead of the old AM electrical signal," he said. "I didn’t
listen to it (two years ago) because it had such bad
reception."
When last on the air, KLA was available primarily through
Century Cable FM radio. Its signal will now be transmitted through
UCLA’s cable system, which is jointly run by the university’s
telecommunications department and its Student Technology Center
(STC). KLA will thus be available to the residence halls, Ackerman
Student Union, and any other location on campus which is wired for
cable television.
If people at these locations wish to access KLA’s cable radio
signal along with existing TV signals, however, they will need a
cable "splitter" and adapter kit. These adapter kits are available
at the STC now, according to STC manager Richard Kroon.
In spite of KLA’s limited broadcast circuit, its world wide web
site may manage to create greater access for off-campus
listeners.
According to KLA webmaster April Garfield, live and archived
broadcasts of sports events, news and other shows should eventually
be available on the Internet.
When the required software has been decided upon, she added, it
will be made available for free download off the world wide web. In
the meantime, the KLA site features a broadcasting schedule, album
charts, a listing of upcoming KLA events and a list of contacts at
the station. Garfield said she’d like to add individual pages for
each of the station’s specialty shows, as well.
The delay in air date is not the first obstacle KLA has faced in
its attempted comeback. Its struggle for structure has been made
somewhat difficult by the absence of much of the station’s older,
more experienced staff. Many of those older staff members have
graduated since KLA was last on the air.
"There are very few returning veterans," observed Interim
General Manager Jason Preston. "Anyone on the air prior to 1995 is
gone. Less than 10 people with on-air experience are still
here."
Despite the relative inexperience of the majority of the new
staff, Liu said he has confidence in them. Most of them, he
explained, have had some radio experience at stations other than
KLA. People with no on-air experience at all have been placed in
departments such as production or promotions for now, garnering
experience behind the scenes while being trained to DJ their own
shows later on.
KLA was tentatively scheduled to go back on the air on Tuesday,
but the date has been pushed back to next week. According to
Student Media Director Arvli Ward, the ASUCLA Communications Board
Executive Committee needs to hear about a few final details before
KLA actually goes back on the air.
SHAWN LAKSMI/Daily Bruin
Michelle Chang, a fourth-year psychology student, runs through
her weekly show at KLA, which tentatively premieres next week.