KUSC (91.5
FM) is a listener-supported
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
broadcasting from downtown
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, United States.
KUSC is owned and operated by the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
, which also operates student-run
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
station
KXSC (AM)
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8.1 ...
and
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
's classical station
KDFC
KDFC (90.3 FM) is a non-commercial radio station in San Francisco, California, that broadcasts classical music 24 hours daily. It is owned by the University of Southern California. KDFC is the radio home of the San Francisco Symphony and the San ...
. It is the largest non-profit classical music station in the country and one of the two classical music stations in the
Greater Los Angeles Area
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
, KUSC and KMZT-AM.
History
The station was one of the first radio stations to operate on the FM band when it officially signed on using the frequency of 91.7 on December 5, 1946. Its primary benefactor was
George Allan Hancock
George Allan Hancock (July 26, 1875 – May 31, 1965) was the owner of the Rancho La Brea Oil Company. He inherited Rancho La Brea, including the La Brea Tar Pits which he donated to Los Angeles County. He also developed Hancock Park, Los Angeles ...
. It operated out the Hancock Foundation building on the USC campus and broadcast from a 250 foot tower above the building.
In the 1970s the station adopted a general public radio format. On April 2, 1973 new station manager Wally Smith oversaw the return to the all classical station. In 1976 the station's transmitter was placed on
Lookout Mountain
Lookout Mountain is a mountain ridge located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and along the southeastern Tennessee state line in Chattanooga. Lookout Mountain was the scene of the 18th-centu ...
() in
Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighb ...
, above
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
. In 1993 tower was erected near
Mount Wilson. In 1996 Smith left the station after changing the format to talk, classical, jazz, folk and world music (he would go on to develop
WPBB
WPBB (98.7 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station licensed to Holmes Beach, Florida and serving the Tampa Bay media market. It is owned by the Beasley Broadcast Group, and airs a classic rock radio format, branded as "98.7 The Shark."
WPBB's ...
).
In 2010 it moved its broadcast studio to the
USC Building in downtown Los Angeles.
In February 2014, public radio station
KCRW
KCRW (89.9 MHz FM) is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programm ...
of
Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...
announced that it would buy the Santa Barbara Foundation's classical station
KDB (FM)
KDB (93.7 MHz) is a non-commercial FM radio station licensed to Santa Barbara, California and serving Santa Barbara County and Ventura County. It is owned by the University of Southern California and broadcasts a classical music radio format, si ...
93.7 in
Santa Barbara for $1 million. The transaction will allow KCRW to begin using
KQSC
KQSC (1530 AM) is a radio station licensed to broadcast from Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, with a daytime power of 15,000 watts, and can be heard by day from the outskirts of Denver to the state's border with New Mexico.
In Augus ...
, USC's current repeater station in
Santa Barbara, as a repeater for KCRW's programming, while transferring KUSC's classical programming from KQSC to KDB, thus perpetuating KDB's role as Santa Barbara's classical station. The legacy KDB call letters have been retained. As of 2022, the radio station rebranded; therefore the new name for the channel is Classical California KUSC.
Programming
Notable local programming includes:
* Jennifer Miller and Alan Chapman’s weekday morning shows;
* Dianne Nicolini’s weekday noontime requests program;
* Brian Lauritzen weekday afternoon program;
*
Lara Downes
Lara Downes is an American classical pianist and cultural activist who has made the popularization of classical music by women and black Americans one of her causes. She was selected as the Classical Woman of the Year for 2022 by a poll of listener ...
’ weekday evening show;
* Jennifer Miller's Sunday opera show, and
* Weekend shows by Chapman, Lauritzen, Capparela, Miller, Van Driel and Robin Pressman.
* The overnight program Classical California All Night is hosted by Rich Capparela "Monday-Tuesday", John Van Driel "Wednesday-Friday", Brissa Segal "Saturday" and Suraj Partha "Sunday". It is shared with KDFC In San Francisco.
Management helped establish the nationwide
Classical 24
Classical 24 is a syndicated, satellite-delivered public radio service providing classical music to its carrying stations. It generally airs overnights on many non-commercial and a handful of commercial classical music stations. However, the se ...
network and also supervised Virginia's
WMRA
WMRA is a public-radio formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Harrisonburg, Virginia. It is the NPR member station for the central Shenandoah Valley. Combined with its full-power repeaters and low-power translators, it serves much of wes ...
network before taking up leadership at KUSC.
The station holds three membership drives annually to help support operational costs. These drives usually last less than ten days. Corporate sponsors include
Lexus
is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota. The Lexus brand is marketed in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide and is Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. It has ranked among the 10 largest Japanese ...
,
Miramax Films
Miramax, LLC, also known as Miramax Films, is an American film and television production and distribution company founded on December 19, 1979, by brothers Harvey Weinstein, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and based in Los Angeles, California.
It was ...
,
University of Redlands
The University of Redlands is a private university headquartered in Redlands, California. The university's main, residential campus is situated on 160 acres (65 ha) near downtown Redlands. An additional eight regional locations throughout Califo ...
,
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...
,
City of Hope National Medical Center
City of Hope is a private, not-for-profit clinical research center, hospital and graduate school located in Duarte, California, United States. The center's main campus resides on of land adjacent to the boundaries of Duarte and Irwindale, with ...
and
Providence Health & Services
Providence Health & Services (since 2016: Providence St. Joseph Health) is a not-for-profit, Catholic health care system operating multiple hospitals across seven states, with headquarters in Renton, Washington. The health system includes 51 ho ...
.
KUSC broadcasts in
HD.
[https://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?latitude=34.052230834961&longitude=-118.24368286133 HD Radio Guide for Los Angeles]
KUSC is not related to
WUSC
WUSC-FM is a student-run college radio station operating at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina.
Purpose
The purpose of WUSC-FM is to "educate and inform the listener and the DJ by providing musical diversity, infor ...
, the student-run radio station at the
University of South Carolina; the two institutions happen to share initials.
Transmitter network
Notes:
See also
*
Abram Chasins
Abram Chasins (August 17, 1903 – June 21, 1987) was an American composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer, musicologist, music broadcaster, radio executive and author.
Born in Manhattan, New York, he attended the Ethical Culture schoo ...
– American composer and pianist who helped re-organize KUSC in 1972.
References
External links
FCC History Cards for KUSCKUSC official website*
KCRW buying Santa Barbara classical station KDB
{{Authority control
Radio stations of the University of Southern California
Classical music radio stations in the United States
NPR member stations
NPR member networks
Radio stations established in 1946
1946 establishments in California