10
Wednesday, August 20, 1975
University Daily Kansan
Kaleidoscope of entertainment presented by KANU
By BRAD JONES
Kansas Staff Reporter
At precisely seven each morning a red rectangular light illuminates the hallway. On the light are printed the words -ON THE AIR. Beneath the light, the door leads into the number one sound booth at radio station KANI.
A man inside the door peers at dials and meters, occasionally touching a switch here or there on the massive control panel. With tens of thousands of dollars of equipment surrounding him, the man is in control of 100,000 watts of broadcasting power.
IT IS FROM THIS booth and four similar ones, filled with electronic equipment worth over $u quarter of a million dollars, that offer the voice of the University of Kansas.
FOR MIKE BERNDT, the day begins early. As music director, he is responsible for leading the band well as preparing a program log for the next day. His desk, the floor and the walls of his 8 foot by 12 foot office are stacked with more than 60 percent of KANU's airline.
Nauru's signal reaches 80 to 100 miles in any direction and has been picked up, under good weather conditions. The transmitter, one of the strongest in the country, and the fact that it joined seven cable systems, similar to those used in New Zealand, reaches a potential audience of 3 million.
The station is located in Broadcast Hall, a tiny low-key building behind Marvin Hill. Although there appears to be a hallway and simple offices inside the ballways and simple offices within bustle with movement.
Although classical music is the principal
popular show at KANU are those dedicated to
In addition to creating his own shows, Berndt buys the rights to play concerts from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras. Next year, the New York Symphony will be added to the list.
"WITHIN THE University community, the classical shows are probably more popular, but in Lawrence and the rest of New York, they are not so favorable reaction from our three jazz productions," Berndt said. They are "This festival is very special and "The Sunday Morning Jazz Scene."
Most of the money used for buying records and paying production costs comes from the yearly Campaign for Excellence fund drive, during which people in the listening area are asked to pledge money. Drive produced 817,000 in pledges last year.
In addition, the station receives a nearly grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Next year the grant will amount to $18,000. KANU is one of the five stations in the country to receive the largest CPB grant offers. To get it, the
station must maintain four full-time staff positions and broadcast at least 18 hours a day, $2 weeks a year. The University grants $100,000 to the station each year and the
UNLIKE THE MUSICAL aspect of the station, the news department is responsible
for putting together only one length show each day, "the KU Almance."
Bill Redlin, news director, said that national news was covered by the station in short newscasts which presented major news headlines of the day. Most of the
Staff photo by DON PIERCE
KANU studio
Surrounded by equipment worth a quarter of a million dollars, a KANU dice jockey can accumulate $3 million. KANU's signal reaches 89 to 100 miles and reaches an audience of 3 million.
"All Things Considered" is one of the last produced and directed radio news shows in the country. It presents a comprehensive study of national events.
national news, however, is brought to the station daily in a 90-minute package entitled, "All Things Considered." This newscast, originating from Washington, DC, is broadcast by the National Public Relations network (NPR), KNU's national affiliate.
Meet stations use the "tip-and-read" method, in which the newscaster tears the most important news stories of the national crisis to the point that people on the air just as they are, Redlin said.
THE NPR STAFF, however, goes to work on the broadcast at about 10 a.m. Lawrence stories are most important and, by three that afternoon, it has the show "set in cement" and ready for broadcast. At 4 p.m. a director points to the news moderator and
The local news, although not heavily emphasized, has occasionally been of interest to the general public.
"It was one of those hair-raising periences that I learned a lot from, but hope I never have to go through again," Redlin said, recalling the student demonstrations in 1970 that prompted the University's spring of 1970. KANU won an AP award for its coverage.
After the Union caught fire," he said. "I was the only full-time newsman the station had. We had a curfew from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. and so all the stories I got had to be done around day. We were told that if we caught the attack at night, we would be thrown in jail."
ALTHOUGH NEWS IS considered important in the broadcasting of any radio station, there are other programs that are essential to their educational and cultural content.
Because KANU is a public station, its programming isn't dictated by the commercial and advertising market, Paul Dahringer, program director, said. The station is thus more responsive to the needs of the community, he said.
"As an education station broadcasting from a university setting, the station has access to a tremendous amount of cultural resources and knowledge about community needs and wants," he said.
JAMES SEAVER, professor of history and western civilization, has presented a program for 22 years entitled, "Opa Is My Hobby." In it, Seaver discusses the great singers and operas of history. His collection of more than 20,000 operatic and classical works is one of his most important in preparing his program. Seaver decides what he wants to discuss. If he decides to isolate a particular actor, he will discuss the different roles that he played when inserting recordings of the actor, or he may want to recall a certain time period of
The most important aspect of creating a program is the editing of tape. Editing involves the editing and splicing of tape so that it can be audited. You join perfectly without audible detection.
classical music by playing recordings of music written during that time.
Mark J. Klugman, who has won two broadcasting awards for programs he has produced, is considered one of the top editors and producers in public radio.
KLUGMAN PRODUCED a program in 1971, on the life and works of Aaron Copeland, in which he developed a new editing technique.
In compiling and putting together a large number of tapes or recordings from different time periods and settings, it is often difficult to create consistent tone quality for the entire tape. To overcome this, Klugman suggests adjusting the tone quality to a scale that would produce the tone in the recordings identically.
In an upcoming program, Klugman has pieced together the eight-year history of the Belties into a musical collage. Creative musicians don't confuse with tape-splicing, however.
In the Beatles collection, Klugman has added a Sherlock Holmes radio sketch in which Holmes, with the aid of his venerable sidekick, Dr. Watson, attempts to explain the mystery of the reported death of Paul Gaugerius, which swept the world in the late '60s.
For a program in 1974, in which he discussed the works of Charles Ives, an
American composer, Khugman traveled to 'lives' home in New England to interview surviving relatives and search for old recordings by the composer.
"THE AMERICAN PAST" a program which discusses memorable moments and important themes in history, was created by Calder Pickett, professor of journalism, as what he calls his "personal reflections on the past."
For Pickett, it's not a matter of research to present the facts of a historical event or era, but, rather, of conveying one's own experience.
Throughout his program, Pickett in-
tegers from the time period he is discussing.
"I use the music as a historical document from the period I am discussing and also as a transitional gimmick," Pickett said. "If I'm doing a show about what it was like in the Roaring 20s, I'll use music from that period. Transitionally, music is good to listen; it just takes for 57 minutes, without breaks, it would be very wearing on the listener."
"A COUPLE OF MONTHS ago, I did a show on Stanley when he was sent by James Gordon Bennett Jr. to find Dr. Livingstone in Africa. So I played African tribal music in the background. For another show I did a brass band in Brazil. My Revolution I played Yandy Doole and some of the other popular songs of the revolution."
Pickett has been accused in the past of not basking his show's information on historical fact.
"I pretty much do what I want and don't
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