Rip Robbins from KSVR Holds Affiliates Seat on Pacifica National Board
Written by Jennifer Walker
Rip Robbins, station manager of KSVR, 91.7FM in Mount Vernon, Washington, was recently elected as a director on the governing Board of the Pacifica Foundation, serving in one of the two seats that represent the affiliates of the Pacifica Network. His term runs through February 2007. KSVR has been an affiliate of Pacifica since 1997.
The Pacifica mission seemed like a good fit, and would help propel KSVR forward in its bid to catch up on a history of lost opportunity. KSVR would need to toss itself into the ring of media outlets, and become relevant in the local community for bringing knowledgeable voices to speak to national and cultural matters. Being a Pacifica affiliate opens the world for KSVR, utilizing the resources of major population centers (where Pacifica sister stations are based) to bring voices that the local community may not hear in the conventional media. Also, KSVR needed to get out from the shadow of the NPR stations, which obscure the other non-commercial entities. Pacifica affiliation also connected KSVR with other stations that believed in the viability of an alternative to the commercial/NPR news monopoly, by forming an association with other like-minded stations. At one point, KSVR was one of only a handful of affiliates, which today comprises over 85 stations. From a young age, Rip desired to be on the radio. He even received his third class radio/telephone license while attending high school in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, for the high school, he did not make it on air then. Due to his persistence, enthusiasm and talent for networking, Rip made his way in community radio not long after high school. Rip’s first radio job in Washington was at KUGS, originally as a program director, then as a manager. Rip has been with KSVR since 1994 and has worked in community radio since 1977. KSVR is located in Mount Vernon, WA, a town of approximately 30,000 people, lying just over 60 miles north of Seattle, Washington. KSVR is a community radio station licensed to the Board of Trustees of Skagit Valley College. The mission of the station is to provide a diversity of programming, relevant to its local population that is not easily found in the mainstream media. In addition, its purpose is to train students and community members in producing quality programming. KSVR splits its airtime between Spanish and English programming. In fact, it is the only station in the area to provide Spanish programming. Skagit Valley has no local Spanish newspaper or TV station so KSVR is a vital resource to the Latino community. Currently, KSVR provides 12 hours per day of Spanish language programming, with 5 hours locally produced on weekday mornings. Further, the station provides legal workshops for the immigrant community. Skagit Valley has a significant resident Latino population as well as a large migrant worker community who flock to the region annually to work in the tulip bulb industry. Skagit Valley is the second largest tulip bulb producer in the world, behind only Holland. Five thousand workers migrate to the region each year. KSVR reaches about 100,000 people in Mount Vernon and the surrounding area. KSVR has continually offered dedicated service to this constituency since it’s founding. The English programs include a rock music hour, a jazz music hour, and several exclusive talk shows. For example, “Speak up, Speak Out,” hosted by the People for a Peaceful Planet, offers interviews and a calendar of direct action and meetings by local activists and those promoting peace. KSVR is also developing a six-week series of poetry. In addition the station rebroadcasts several of Pacifica’s signature shows like Democracy Now and Free Speech Radio News. Originally, Pacifica provided content to KSVR via a free satellite downlink, but now the station is able to access Pacifica programming via AudioPort, an Internet based delivery system. Through AudioPort, stations have affordable and much wider access to the archive and daily Pacifica programs. To quote Rip, “The Pacifica archive is a national treasure equal to anything at Smithsonian.” Working with Pacifica has helped KSVR to align its mission with the Pacifica model and adopt certain practices that will help sustain the station in the long run, including fund raising. KSVR qualifies for almost no government funding, though it does receive some monetary funding from the college, as well as in kind funding such as free studio access, electricity, and telephones. One of the recent initiatives that KSVR has pioneered under Rip’s leadership is a dance drive where community members can anonymously contribute to the funding of the station. The unique nature of this funding drive allows community members, who value the services of the station but who may not wish to be documented, to invest in the future of the station. A clear success, the dances now bring 400 to 500 people together once a month. In the near future KSVR will hold its first on air fund drive, first in Spanish and shortly thereafter in English. Another recent development, KSVR secured a grant from the Department of Education. The grant is designed to give middle school and high school students the opportunity to develop radio programming. In addition the grant will afford the station the chance to hire a part-time Latino Program Coordinator. In the world of community radio, the future is always tenuous but KSVR has shown noteworthy stability. KSVR is holding its own in difficult times. |
