FALL 2005

The Magazine of The Heinz Endowments

INSIDE: RESPECTING YOUR ELDERS A WELCOMING LANGUAGE 12

Photo by Cami Mesa HIGHER FIDELITY

HOW A BUNCH 91OF TIE-DYED 3 IDEALISTS

GOT TOGETHER

TO START A

RADIO STATION,

FOUGHT, WENT

BROKE, GOT

REAL JOBS,

LISTENED TO

THEIR HEARTS

AND RETURNED

TO BUILD THE

THIRD-LARGEST

INDEPENDENT

STATION IN

THE COUNTRY.

BY CHRISTINE

O’TOOLE 14 ay Christman, Bjork to Buffalo Springfield. DJs and recent $500,000 grant for the capital surveying Stone Mountain from his 22 volunteer hosts mine a 13,000-CD campaign to build the WYEP community terraced 10th-floor office in downtown library and computerized playlist to mix broadcast center. “But for reasons of both Atlanta, is choking with laughter. The Americana, alternative rock and country, artistic and cultural merits, we believe buttoned-down president of the city’s blues, folk and world music, often within WYEP is an important asset. It’s well Federal Home Loan Bank is recounting the same half hour. managed. It has a huge amount of his days with a scrappy community radio In its 30-year march from adolescence community support, and the station station in Pittsburgh— a low-frequency, to adulthood, 91.3 FM has followed a supports other local artists.” high-decibel, basement operation fueled path most Boomers would recognize: Through the past decade, the by zealotry, Benzedrine and hoarded youthful passion and experimentation; Endowments has contributed nearly LPs. As president of the station’s board self-doubt; longing for stability, respon- $1.2 million to the station. This includes of directors, Christman woke to the sibility and commitment; and finding six years’ worth of grants totaling ringing of his bedside phone one bitter the balance between self-expression and $600,000 to support “The Allegheny midwinter night in 1980. paying the bills. The station’s new build- Front,” the only environmental news “One night at 1 a.m., I got a call from ing, launched with the Endowments’ help, program in western Pennsylvania. the late-night DJ, W.T. Kolteck, who’d is proof that its board members, with an Environment Program Director Caren play stuff like The Clash and Elvis impressive business plan and a financial Glotfelty says the funds have helped the Costello. He was whispering,” says the surplus, have budget-conscious minds station make the program, developed by 56-year-old executive. “He told me he without having lost their rock-loving souls. volunteers, more professional. The result was being held hostage in the broadcast For WYEP, maturity means embrac- of the long-term investment is that booth by another volunteer who had ing its hometown with award-winning listener numbers are up. pulled a gun and was demanding that public affairs shows, a downtown concert “We are happy with the product, W.T. play ‘more coal mining music.’” series of national headliners, six-figure and we see opportunities for growth, The DJ, the kidnapper and the station fundraisers for causes like the Greater even to the point of becoming self- survived. But none of them could have Pittsburgh Food Bank and sales of in- supporting,” says Glotfelty. “The show predicted that their rabid, proprietary studio performance CDs. The hometown does an important local service in cover- passion for authentic music would has loved it back. Individual contributions ing environmental issues in western eventually give WYEP both the third- have doubled. Membership has tripled, Pennsylvania, but it’s grown to cover largest audience for “album adult alterna- and renewals are frequent. WYEP’s issues in the larger region.” tive” music in the nation — behind retention rate of 58.3 percent is the Such programming innovation and similar public radio stations in New York highest in the country among its peers. development have contributed to the and Philadelphia — and its own new “Because they’re heard and not seen, Endowments’ confidence in supporting performance space and broadcast center we don’t usually think of radio stations the station. on Pittsburgh’s South Side. as cultural assets,” says Mary Navarro. “As you see an institution struggling The station’s programming still defies As a senior officer in the Endowments’ to grow, you often don’t know, exactly, easy description, ranging from Beck to Arts & Culture Program, she directed its where it is headed,” says Navarro.

Christine O’Toole is a Pittsburgh-based writer whose last story for h, about changing lifestyles in the young to reduce childhood obesity, appeared in the Spring issue. Photo courtesy of WYEP

PERFORMANCESlatest, “We BecomeLikeBirds.” Will has madefouralbums,includingher Music Festivals.The27-year-oldsinger Summer at oneofthestation’srecent listeners Below: ErinMcKeownserenades WYEP fundraiserinthe1970s. balcony ofaSouthSideclubduring the from Price andhisbandrock ofWYEP’smission.Atleft:Billy part hasalwaysbeen established artists or byemerging Staging performances

Christopher Rollinson 15 Prosody

16 Each Saturday night, this program and Every Tuesday evening, WYEP airs Listeners can tune in Saturday mornings another, Blues and Rhythm, bring the best western Pennsylvania’s only to the Music Mix to hear an eclectic of local and national blues, rockabilly regularly scheduled radio program featuring collection of music that spans genres, and gospel, while mixing in jump, swing, contemporary poets and writers. generations and the globe. acoustic and rock styles.

“The Allegheny Front,” a weekly environmental Three times a week, this program helps The weekly Roots and Rhythm Mix is devoted radio program and web site, is designed listeners to discover new music or to the music of people and communities to deepen listeners’ respect for nature and find out new facts about their favorite albums. that thrive outside of the mainstream. inspire them to act in an environmentally responsible manner. Photo courtesy of WYEP Joshua Franzos Eclectic programming gives WYEP the spice that attracts a similarly varied audience. Opposite, bottom left: Maine singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne croons a tune in the station's studio. He has performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and won three awards at this year’s Boston Music Awards. This page, bottom left: Bill (W.T.) Koltek poses next to some groovy electronics in this 1976 photo. Bottom right: DJ Stephan Bontrager plays a wide variety of artists during WYEP’s Midday Mix, which airs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays. Bontrager moved to Pittsburgh from his hometown of Denver in 2001.

17 WYEP Audience Profile “At every stage, WYEP has successfully building. (The current signal is 18,000 Education taken the next logical step. If you’re really watts, less than half the strength of most High School Graduate 22% good, you get out of the basement.” commercial stations.) Some College 13% College Degree 36% Rosemary Welsch remembers the “It was off the air as much as it was Advanced Degree 29% basement days. “If you’d told me in on,” says attorney and current board September 1981 that we’d be moving into chairman Blaine Lucas, one of several Annual Income this new building, I’d have said ‘that’s a volunteers who’ve spent decades serving Under $25,000 7% $25,000–$34,000 17% fairy tale,’” says the 46-year-old Welsch, the station. “The meetings of our board, $35,000–$49,000 26% whose butterscotch voice has been a most of whom were the DJs, were fights $50,000–$74,000 19% signature at the station since then. over who took whose albums. It was an $75,000 + 31% WYEP’s new home on Bedford Square extension of a college radio station, part

Gender is a $3 million mansion compared to its of that second wave of public broadcast- Female 48% original crib in south Oakland, a typically ing stations.” Early programs, controlled Male 52% louche college neighborhood. Its Cable solely by the person commanding the Place studio was a pair of dingy sub- mike, linked art, music and politics. Age terranean rooms “whose only other use “One of the wonderful aspects was 25–34 21% 35–44 30% would have been as an S&M dungeon,” that every sexual, ethnic and political 45–54 34% recalls Christman. With a mission of interest group imaginable could and 55–64 13% “cultural ear shock,” the fledgling station generally did have their own radio Median Age 41 hit the airwaves in 1974, borrowing show — the Lesbian Republicans, the

Family Size 2.6 members space for an 850-watt transmitter atop Indian Lesbian Republicans,” says the University of Pittsburgh’s highest Christman facetiously. The Media Audit: Media Profile Report 2004 TUNED IN Joshua Franzos Tom Barr Tom 18 It was cultural ear shock all around. Rosemary Welsch and Bruce Mountjoy, market. In 1996, all restrictions on “We tried to be very respectful of that voted to restructure, in effect taking national ownership were lifted. While ad format,” recalls Peter Rosenfeld, a board themselves off the board.” revenues boomed, local programming member since 1979. “But it was con- The vote was agonizing and emo- variety went the way of Milli Vanilli. trolled chaos,” with predictable results. tional. “Some people left in protest. Meanwhile, programming at WYEP By the mid-1980s, programming There were broken relationships and edged toward a definitive style. languished. Federal funds dried up. So hurt feelings,” acknowledges Christman. “We didn’t have a format,” says did membership donations. “It wasn’t With the old board dissolved, a new Welsch. “So we trimmed off the extremes, sustainable,” says Rosenfeld. “We couldn’t executive committee put the station back took out jazz and bluegrass, and we really charge subscribers, like cable TV. We on the air in 1987. For the next two watched the phones. Our early choices were $20,000 in debt — not much, but years, they debated its identity and role. were folk-leaning. We’d occasionally play we didn’t have it. We weren’t doing what Pro bono consultants led discussions on Van Morrison or Joni Mitchell, but no the community wanted. And we were audience and programming. Beatles. We were moving into AAA— going to lose the license.” Research uncovered a demographic adult album alternative. At the time, we At the end of its first decade, Rosenfeld of mid-20s-to-50s listeners who were didn’t know what that was. Then new took the helm and convinced the board equally passionate about music, arts and artists like Sheryl Crow started breaking to take the first step to regroup: The media, and connecting to the commu- in AAA. She played in our studio and got station signed off the air. Small grants nity through volunteerism. From its col- great success with listeners.” from the Pittsburgh and Laurel founda- legiate roots, WYEP had always attracted The station sparingly added other tions allowed the station to match a youthful audience. While retaining well-known artists to the mix, heeding federal funds, creating the possibility many of those early loyal listeners, the audience requests. “People wanted to for a move to a stereo studio at nearby station began to build its numbers. Its hear the music they recognized, that no Chatham College. share of the overall Pittsburgh market of one else was playing. To guide our vol- Risking support for a station “in a million adult listeners, still small, was unteer hosts, we began to develop a list complete disarray” was a hazard for well-schooled: 84 percent of its listeners of core artists. We had to narrow down funders, says Endowments’ Arts & had attended college, and 26 percent had what we were doing — but not make Culture Program Director Janet Sarbaugh, graduate degrees. From a base of fewer it totally predictable. That’s still the who was a Pittsburgh Foundation staffer than 30,000 listeners at the beginning of challenge today.” at that time. But taking responsibility the ’90s, the station’s listeners now The balancing act between eclectic for the grant was equally daunting to number 85,000 weekly. and alternative still vexes listeners, who the station’s board. A climactic meeting With a bigger transmitter and staff, call on-air DJs, pepper the station with in spring 1986 addressed the issue. WYEP was attempting audience growth e-mails and even write to the newspaper. “The marching orders were, ‘you guys just as the ground rules of the broadcast “Compared with anything out there in have to start acting more like a normal industry shifted. After more than half of radio land, WYEP puts out great music,” nonprofit,’” remembers Lucas. “The deal the country’s commercial radio stations wrote listener Brian Connelly in a recent was, sever your on-air people from your lost money in 1990, corporations lobbied op-ed contribution to the Pittsburgh board members. To their credit, two DJs, to acquire more than one station per Post-Gazette. “But…can you be 19

WYEP takes its style of music and entertainment beyond the confines of the studio and into the community. At right: Even canine hair gets let down at this year’s WYEP Summer Music Festival. Below: Michael Penn, brother of actor Sean Penn, performs at a “World Cafe” taping. Below right: Zany Umbrella Circus performers move to their own groove at the station’s Raise the Roof event in August. Photo courtesy of WYEP Christopher Rollinson COMMUNITY Christopher Rollinson 20 non-commercial and service a commer-

Tom Barr Tom cial market?” Program Director Welsch also has heard the criticisms: that the playlist is bland “Starbucks alternative,” that it shuts out African Americans by ignoring hip-hop and rap. “That pulls a very young demographic, who at this point in their lives are not listening to public radio. We don’t exclude songs that have that element, and occasionally are criticized for that, too,” she says. As the station stepped into the vanguard of the adult alternative format, emerging local and national artists took heart. “WYEP and AAA radio are the only Joshua Franzos home a band like us has,” says 24-year- Josh Franzos old mandolinist Chris Thiles, of the Grammy– award-winning acoustic “We wanted to maximize the poten- Ferraro cites sponsorship of the combo Nickel Creek. “Sadly, there is only tial of our medium to do good things for Pittsburgh Blues Festival, which has a handful of stations that are looking for the community,” says station manager raised $100,000 for the region’s food the new — where a DJ’s taste dictates Lee Ferraro, who joined WYEP in 1996. bank, as “a perfect example. We’re about what gets on the air.” “We needed to get strategic. The Heinz music. We drive audiences to blues Quirky public affairs programming, Endowments advanced our critical shows, and they can raise money.” The a hallmark of the early era, survived thinking of how to do that.” station’s annual holiday concert benefits musical changes at WYEP. (It produces The Endowments’ Navarro concurs. child abuse –prevention programs. “Prosody,” Pittsburgh’s only literary talk “What we saw evolving was a resource Growing competition from Internet show, and airs syndicated programs like that could strengthen the whole structure radio began to worry Lucas. “If anyone “This Way Out,” a gay and lesbian news of the arts and cultural community.”At in a garage in Cleveland can get lots of show, and “This American Life,” with an Endowments-funded 1997 retreat, the CDs, put them on the air and sound like first-person audio essays.) The desire to board and staff identified four needs that WYEP, how do we protect our turf? serve local causes, musicians and concerts could benefit from WYEP airtime: arts We came to realize that, our great Web remained. But as requests proliferated, and culture, hunger, family and children, site and live streaming notwithstanding, setting priorities grew more difficult. and the environment. what was going to distinguish us was our CENTERPIEC

That was then; this is now. At far left, some of the WYEP staff in this undated photo from the late 1970s. At left, the station’s staff today in front of their new South Side building (left to right): Development Director Maura O’Neill, General Manager Lee Ferraro, Program Director Rosemary Welsch, Music Director Mike Sauter, Underwriting Sales Representative Tony Pirollo, and Marketing Director Melissa Franko.

21 local ties to the community, staying local Though the board had banked eight “A good capital campaign strategizes and having a sense of place. Embarking years of operating surpluses in anticipa- on how to bring people to the organiza- on that approach— as the rest of the tion of such a project, the capital tion who haven’t been there before and radio industry was changing into this campaign goal of $3.4 million was more offer opportunities for truly significant mass-consolidated, vanilla [industry]— of a stretch than a step. The board, now service,” says Ernie Gutierrez, Kresge’s has enabled us to set ourselves apart.” with years of corporate expertise to program director for special initiatives. A downtown concert series with head- match its passion, meticulously mapped “In that sense, WYEP appears to be a liners like Bonnie Raitt and Raul Malo a campaign that included research, a little gem.” brings audiences to theaters and events. crisp business plan and a catchy public With the capital goal met as the “We want to support the urban core,” campaign. The plan drew grants from moving vans arrive, graying veterans of says Ferraro. “So that was a natural [fit].” local philanthropies, such as the the board now face their next challenge: Since 1999, WYEP’s popular Summer Endowments and the Richard King obsolescence. “Agewise, we’re a homo- Music Festival has included a week of live Mellon Foundation, and, nationally, genous board. We run the gamut from broadcasts of “World Cafe,” a syndicated from the Kresge Foundation, which will 45 to 55,” says Lucas with a laugh. “We’re alt-music daily show. These special broad- add a bonus of $150,000 to its $350,000 bringing in new blood to figure out how casts from the Andy Warhol Museum commitment when the completed we’re going to use the performance showcase that venue and Pittsburgh to a building receives “green” certification. space, who we want to partner with and sophisticated audience at more than 200 Plans for the new broadcast center what kind of new programming we want.” stations nationwide. include an 85-person hall for live per- Those decisions will demand as much The looming end of the station’s lease formance; expanded studio space; and, patience as forging consensus on coal above Shootz Bar on Carson Street, its particularly important to Endowments mining music, but the station has the South Side home since 1994, motivated program staff, rooms for education out- chops to handle them. more strategic planning in 2001, again reach — from songwriting workshops Out of the basement and into the funded by the Endowments. This round to internships. “There are so many limelight — with a welcoming public addressed how WYEP could finally afford things we can do under our brand,” says face and a place to match its new cultural to buy a home. Rosenfeld. “Isn’t that a sickening term? stature — 91.3 continues to keep music The Bedford Square site is just blocks But when you say ‘YEP,’ people know in its soul. When Welsch cues up David from Shootz on the South Side, a funky what you’re talking about.” Bowie’s “Rock and Roll with Me” as a neighborhood described as having “both The station’s notoriety isn’t casual. rousing finale to her afternoon show, kinds of blue hair,” for its grannies and In the capital campaign, devotees pulled the audience applause may be unheard, Goths. When the existing 19th-century out their wallets in impressive numbers. but the station’s reception in town has structure proved unsuitable for rehab, Some 1,700 listeners contributed $1.2 never been stronger. h architect Kevin Gannon designed a million, topping the $1 million target for new, environmentally sustainable that group. As expected, current mem- “green” building, a requirement for bers comprised the bulk of the donors. Endowments’ funding.