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A pledge of service photo by Bob Pennell Jefferson Public Radio membership director Duane Whitcomb pulls some rare air time in Studio A during the station's fall pledge drive Friday. As JPR diversifies, some listeners ask about commitment to its home audience By Bill Varble of the Mail Tribune Jefferson Public Radio goes into the only weekend of its last pledge drive of the century this morning as a broadcasting mini-empire astride Southern Oregon and Northern California. From its beginnings 30 years ago as a 10-watt station squeezed into a basement of Southern Oregon College in Ashland, JPR has grown into a $1.8 million-a-year broadcasting operation with studios in Ashland and Redding. It has 36 translators, the most of any station in the country. It serves up three separate radio services to communities from Sutherlin and Coos Bay through the Rogue Valley and the Mount Shasta region to Redding, Calif. As JPR has grown, it has branched out. It is a concert presenter, an Internet provider, a landlord, a publisher. And now it is the new owner of the old Cascade Theatre in Redding, which it plans to make into a sparkling new performing arts center. The move from radio station to theater developer in Northern California has raised questions in some listeners' minds. "I wondered why they were developing a theater in Redding after apparently writing off a huge part of Josephine County," says ex-JPR member Rand Hill of Grants Pass. JPR failed to protect the frequency of its Rhythm and News Service in Grants Pass from filing by competitors, and the slot was taken over by a Mississippi-based religious programmer, a practice permitted by the Federal Communications Commission. "It felt like they ignored people around here," Hill says. "When they bought the theater it was like adding insult to injury." Jack Brown, general manager of Northstate Public Radio in Chico, questioned whether Oregon tax money was going into Northern California. JPR borrowed $800,000 for the first phase of the project with the backing of Southern Oregon University when the Oregon State Board of Higher Education agreed to assign $800,000 in 30-year bonds to JPR for the purchase and renovation of the facility. The bonds are to be retired using income from the rent of the offices and concerts. The theater building houses space for 11 offices. Phase two is separate. It's the restoration of the Cascade's auditorium. No bond money or Oregon general fund money is to be involved. Money is to be raised in a drive involving individuals, businesses, grants and any California public funding available. Estimated cost of both phases is $1.5 million or more. Like JPR's Internet service, Jeffnet, the theater project is to be self-supporting. "We take in $1.8 million and we spend $1.8 million," JPR Executive Director Ron Kramer says. "The university's stake is in the radio we do. Everything else is self-supporting." JPR has long been an active concert presenter. It co-sponsors the award-winning One World series and other concerts with Southern Oregon University's program board. JPR puts up money for the shows and stands to make money when they are successful, which they usually are. "We're doing more, frankly," Kramer says. He says the theater will fill a neglected niche in Redding, a town that has venues with 140 seats and 2,500 seats but not much in between other than a 400-seat high school theater. JPR has had a studio in Redding for 20 years but doesn't book concerts there. "We're quite excited," says Redding City Manager Mike Warren. "The theater is an unpolished gem." Warren says there was no local opposition to JPR's plans. Redding recently refurbished the block in the rundown area as a "demonstration block." Fund raising hasn't started yet. Lou Gerard, co-chairman of the Redding Steering Committee, a group formed to raise money for the auditorium, isn't sure when it will. But the retired car dealer and longtime Chamber of Commerce executive says the JPR deal sparked optimism in an area bypassed by growth. JPR plans to rent the facility out to arts groups as the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater does in Medford. Gerard says at least 35 groups in the community have expressed an interest in using the Cascade once it's up and running. "We're pretty enthused somebody's stepped forward," he says. Even Northstate's Brown sounds bullish on the venture. "If it's good for Redding, that's super," he says. Performing arts centers generally run at an operating loss and need all the help they can get. Stephen McCandless, executive director of the Craterian, says the norm for nonprofit theaters is about 60 percent of income from operations and about 40 percent from contributed income in the form of memberships, sponsorships and grants. The Craterian, another rundown old theater renovated into a vibrant performing arts center, wound up last year about $147,000 in the hole on concerts but about $50,000 above the break-even point counting contributed income. But the Craterian doesn't have the rentals the Cascade will have. "That would be a real benefit to their revenue stream," McCandless says. Kramer believes the projected budget for the new center is conservative, assuming 10 to 15 percent of the office space will be vacant. He says JPR officials talked with Redding real estate people about the local market. Warren says that vacancy rate may be achievable despite a demand for office space in downtown Redding he rates as medium to low. "We're trying to bring people back into downtown," he says. "Offices are part of that. If we're going to have it anyplace, it's probably this block." Kramer says JPR didn't go in with eyes closed. "We said, `Look, if there's going to be a performing arts center, we have the radio stations, the promotion, the infrastructure support in terms of insurance, accounting and so on, we're able to to do it more efficiently than anybody else."' "They have great programming sensibility," McCandless says. "They have the promotional resources. They can promote their shows. It costs us to do that." But what if it loses money? "It won't," Kramer says. He says projections show the theater will support itself even with vacancies and only a small amount of concert activity. JPR isn't new to the role of landlord. It has owned KDRV-TV's studio space and that of two radio stations in Klamath Falls since 1985. Does it all add up to an empire? Kramer envisions JPR as a poster child in a 21st century public radio environment beset by satellites, cable, the Internet and the combining of TV, telephone and online services into new forms. "This is where radio is going," he says. "I think public radio in small places in 2010 just won't be there, or they'll be absorbed by larger stations, or they'll be diversified as Internet providers, book publishing, concert presenters. "The ones that survive will have durable connections to their communities in the form of the Internet, theater, book publishing and so on." Donald Rubenstein, a Grants Pass lawyer-turned-mediator who criticized JPR over the loss of the Rhythm and News Service in Grants Pass, says he has no problem with the performing arts center. "I don't find myself feeling suspicious about that," he says. "It's becoming increasingly difficult for nonprofits to survive. Entrepreneurship is fine. I think they ought to be doing it if it can help pay its way." Ex-JPR board member Peter Sage, a frequent pledge drive volunteer, says JPR seems on the right track. "At pledge drive I find lots of the calls are from new communities," Sage says. "I'm not surprised that controversy over growth continues. But I tend to give a lot of credence to their enterprises. It seems to be working." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA