blog post #6

Matt Cornwell
Blog post #6
Interview


Ken Freedman, Station Manager and Program Director, WFMU
I emailed Ken Freedman as I did with Jason Sigal and was able to have a phone interview with him as well. I used the information Ken gave me in my station profile paper mainly for the dayparting part. It was interesting as to what he had to say about it because WFMU is a freeform station but have certain dayparts. Mon-Fri 6-9am is a Jewish show, except that they replaced the Jewish show with freeform programming on their online stream. Then they have a Mon-Fri 6-7pm slot for spoken programming and a 7-8pm slot for musical specialty shows. Since Ken is the PD he gets to choose who goes where.
Ken is the station manger and program director. He is in charge of who goes on air and when. He also co-hosts the conceptual comedy program Seven Second Delay as well as hosts his own freeform radio program on Wednesday mornings (9:00-noon Eastern Time).Ken got started at WFMU as a DJ in December 1983 and became General Manager in August 1985. Freedman began his radio career as DJ and later station manager of WCBN, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s freeform radio station.
Ken (like Jason) loves his job. He said that freeform radio has always (and will always) be his favorite kind of radio. The only thing he said that he does not like about his job was the fact that there aren’t enough hours in the day to allow him to be at the station more. Ken likes the fact that WFMU is a freeform station and he enjoys what he does because he knows that the listeners have the same love for non-mainstream music like he does.
Ken couldn’t emphasize enough the importance of the internet which is a main reason why WFMU can be successful. Because the internet allows anyone in the world to be able to listen to WFMU whenever they want they are able to bring in more fans and listeners then they would normally be able to reach. Since the “boom” of the internet donations to the station (which is funded exclusively by listener support) grew from $50,000 to over $1,000,000 in a 20 year spand.
Ken recommends students to not go into a career narrow minded. He says if you want to be in the radio industry you should be able to adapt with the times and to be flexible as to where you can work. He says you may not get the job you want right away but getting the experience in the field is important and eventually you will get the job you want.