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I’d like to recount an early conversation I had with the station manager of KRCC.

I moved to Colorado Springs from California in the late eighties. I had been a Pacifica radio listener in California. I was a newbie back then, I didn’t know that Pacifica had been around since 1949, embattled through the McCarthy era, always advocating for the cause of freedom of speech. In fact, the recently rebroadcast testimony of John Kerry at the 1971 congressional hearing is brought to EVERYONE courtesy of Pacifica, the only news agency to archive John Kerry’s full testimony.

It was during the Iran-Contra hearings that I realized what was lacking in NPR news coverage. I remember switching back and forth between stations, incredulous to hear the differences between the reporting.

You might recall that the Reagan Administration put strict restrictions on the focus of the hearings. There was to be no investigation into allegations of drug smuggling, for example. These days we know about the drug smuggling activities of the CIA. Back then only a couple protestors raised those questions and were rapidly arrested.

PACIFICA, of course, was raising those questions. All the issues of shadow governement, of loose canon security agencies, were well known to Pacifica listeners. On NPR, on the major media, nothing.

Now of course all these things are know and accepted. In fact, the major news agencies have the nerve now to call those stories OLD NEWS! Old news, but unreported by them.

Back to my talk with the station manager. When I moved here I was pretty excited about the prospect of hearing some of the Pacifica programming here. This was before internet streaming.

“Pacifica?” He’d never heard of it. Didn’t know anything about it. Boy was this subject out of left field. It seemed like I was suggesting some kind of operation put together in someone’s garage from deep inside the people’s republic of Berkley.

I didn’t know what else to tell him. I was rather naive about Pacifica’s pedigree at that time. I had no idea they were a force that has been nipping at NPR’s heels for decades. At the time of our conversation the KRCC manager had been in the radio business for two of those decades. I believe his feigned ignorance was completely disingeneous.

Let’s shed a light on the life of A Prairie Home Companion at KRCC.

A Prairie Home Companion, hosted by Garrison Keillor, has enjoyed a long run on KRCC and has an overwhelming following among KRCC listeners. It is broadcast on saturday evenings and then rebroadcast mid-day on sundays. But PHC’s run on KRCC was not uninterrupted. Let me explain.

In the mid nineties, at the height of his popularity, Garrison Keillor -with much national fanfare- decided to retire. The show went off the air.

But after a little more than a year, Garrison launched a comeback. He rebuilt his organization, found a new theater, and with a little less fanfare the show began anew.

But Colorado Springs didn’t hear about the show’s comeback. KRCC didn’t pick up the show.

Although PHC had been one of its most beloved shows, KRCC didn’t want it back. This, in spite of what the KRCC community would have wanted, had they known! Apparently PHC was expensive, and too corporate. And nothing to write home about.

But that’s what it took to get PHC back.

Thousands of other public radio stations had resumed broadcasting the show immediately. When Colorado Springs residents would visit their relatives in other parts of the country, they’d hear the show! They thought they were hearing reruns! Was the show back on?! Why weren’t they hearing A Prairie Home Companion on KRCC?

Those of you who contacted KRCC about this anomality probably remember what you were told: “expensive, budget, not that many people interested, etc.” And we’re not talking about a political show! We’re only talking about the highest visibility, most popular show on KRCC!

It wasn’t until you could hear PHC in Denver, as you drove over Monument Pass, that the momentum of disgruntled KRCC listeners built to a critical shrill. After a couple years of missed shows had passed, A Prairie Home Companion finally came back to the community of Colorado Springs on KRCC. It has reigned ever since, once again, as a popular favorite.

Is this a tale of despotic obstinancy? I think it is. Was KRCC behaving very much like a community based radio station? Only eventually.

But hundreds of people had to go blue in the face to make it happen. Why?

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