After careful consideration and a year of gathering input from the 2015 Listener Survey, the CAB (Community Advisory Board) and Program Committees, local message board discussions and KVNF volunteers, KVNF has decided to discontinue carrying the program Democracy Now.
We are not seeing strong support for Democracy Now among listeners during drives or on the recent survey. We are not seeing strong support for it among KVNF’s staff, board or volunteers. About half of our listeners believe it is an important program, but many admit that they often turn it off or don’t listen to it consistently. Many of these same supporters can also access the program online or on TV.
Because Democracy Now is an important alternative to NPR news and provides in depth coverage of important current issues, the KVNF program committee has worked hard over the past 10 years to find a spot on our schedule that worked. At the same time, KVNF has been working to develop and schedule more locally produced public affairs programs. It is important to schedule these programs at times that work well for the producers, hosts and listeners.
We want to make it clear that KVNF is not eliminating Democracy Now because we favor music instead of news. It is stated in our vision statement that we will "inform citizens of the significant issues facing society, thus contributing to the development of a community capable of dealing intelligently with those issues and providing a forum for citizens of the community to express those opinions.”
However, in our current media landscape, it has become more important to develop local news programming that will accomplish this and discontinue programs that can be heard elsewhere on other local stations or online.
There is strong support from all of KVNF's stakeholders to create more original and locally produced content and we are committed to doing so. We currently have (3) half hour weekly public affairs programs on our schedule now and more are in the works. This programming must be the priority on our schedule.
Starting on Monday, February 1st, 2016, we will replace Democracy Now with an extra hour of music programming on week days, but eventually we may schedule a locally produced or a nationally syndicated news program with wider appeal in that slot (or another slot which currently has music).
Here's what the new schedule will look like-
Music Programming Monday through Friday:
8-10am (no change)
10-1 (added an hour)
1-4pm (starting an hour later)
To listen to Democracy Now! online visit:
http://www.democracynow.org/
Democracy Now! is on DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Free Speech TV ch. 348 and Link TV ch. 375; and on the internet. DN!’s podcast is one of the most popular on the web.