Companies
compete for KKJZ station
By
Allison Baldwin
Summer Forty-Niner
Assistant City Editor
Five local radio companies will submit bids to operate Cal State Long Beach’s
classic jazz station, KKJZ-FM, one of the country’s few remaining straight-jazz
stations.
The CSULB Foundation, which owns the license for KKJZ, will take bids from
Southern California radio companies and decide which will run the station once
current operator Pacific Public Radio’s contract ends in December. Pacific
Public Radio, Taxi Productions Inc., KUSC-FM, KCRW-FM and Southern California
Public Radio are all competing to control KKJZ’s operations.
However, the station’s license is not up for sale and will remain with
the CSULB Foundation. Bids are due Aug. 1 and operating rights will be awarded
in late September, according to Toni Beron, CSULB’s assistant vice-president
of public affairs and publications.
By allowing companies to bid for control of KKJZ, the CSULB Foundation hopes
to enhance the relationship between the station and the university, provide
more opportunities for students to work for the station and ensure its financial
security.
Beron said the university recognizes that the station has a strong and devoted
listener base that loves the current format, music and personnel. According
to Beron, listeners who fear they will lose their beloved classic jazz station
have no reason to worry.
“Our hope is that there is no change in personnel,” Beron said.
She said the request for proposals from companies hoping to operate KKJZ states
there is to be no change to the classic jazz format.
“Any information that is buzzing around that we are not going to keep the
classic jazz format is absolutely untrue,” Beron said.
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