KPCC (89.3 FM) – branded 89.3 KPCC – is a non-commercial educational

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 radi ...

licensed to

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, primarily serving

Greater Los Angeles 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 ...

and the San Fernando Valley. KPCC also reaches much of Santa Barbara,

Ventura County Ventura County () is a County (United States), county in Southern California, the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, California ...

Palm Springs Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by land ...

and the Coachella Valley, and extends throughout

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

with five low-power

broadcast relay station A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater ( two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tr ...

s and three full-power

repeater In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Som ...

s. Owned by Pasadena City College and operated by the

American Public Media Group American Public Media Group, formerly the Minnesota Communications Group, is the non-profit parent organization of Minnesota Public Radio, American Public Media, and Southern California Public Radio. Jean Taylor is APMG's President and CEO. H ...

via Southern California Public Radio, KPCC broadcasts a mix of public radio and

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. N ...

, and is an owned-and-operated station for

American Public Media American Public Media (APM) is an American company that produces and distributes public radio programs in the United States, the second largest company of its type after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and o ...

; in addition to serving as an affiliate for

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

and

Public Radio Exchange The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) is a non-profit web-based platform for digital distribution, review, and licensing of radio programs. The organization is the largest on-demand catalogue of public radio programs available for broadcast and internet ...

; and is the radio home for

Sandra Tsing Loh Sandra Tsing Loh (, born February 11, 1962) is an American writer, actress, radio personality, and former professor of art at the University of California, Irvine. Life and career Loh is the younger daughter of a Chinese father and a German m ...

and

Larry Mantle Larry Mantle (born January 12, 1959) is a radio interview call-in show host in Southern California. He has been the host of ''AirTalk with Larry Mantle'' on NPR-member station KPCC (radio station), KPCC, 89.3 FM, since April 1, 1985. ''AirTalk' ...

. Besides a standard

analog transmission Analog transmission is a transmission method of conveying information using a continuous signal which varies in amplitude, phase, or some other property in proportion to that information. It could be the transfer of an analog signal, using an an ...

, KPCC broadcasts over two HD Radio channels,https://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?latitude=34.052230834961&longitude=-118.24368286133 HD Radio Guide for Los Angeles and is available online. The KPCC studios are located in Pasadena, while the station transmitter is on Mount Wilson.

History

The station originally signed on the air in 1957 from the Pasadena City College campus as KPCS; the

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...

stood for Pasadena City Schools, which operated the college before the advent of the state-controlled Pasadena Area Community College District. It used the former KWKW-FM 250-watt transmitter and studio equipment, and a small antenna on the roof of the campus administration building that provided limited coverage. The station was operated by, and for, students who were studying broadcasting at the college. KPCS changed to KPCC on December 1, 1979. Formerly, the station broadcast from a transmitter in

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

, later from Downtown Los Angeles (at the Frank Stanton Studios), and on the PCC campus. The station originally broadcast from the campus of Pasadena City College in Pasadena. KPCC decided to invest in a $24.5 million modern facility. In February 2010, the station moved to a converted office building on Raymond Avenue in Pasadena named the Mohn Broadcast Center and Crawford Family Forum. The station is operated by Southern California Public Radio, a group owned by

(the parent organization of

Minnesota Public Radio Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest. MPR ha ...

). However the license remains in the hands of Pasadena City College (PCC); the station is usually identified as a "public service of Pasadena City College" at the top of each hour. Since the APM takeover, PCC student participation has been reduced to internships supported by American Public Media. PCC's contract with American Public Media permits either side to terminate the arrangement after giving sufficient notice, APM with six months notice and PCC with five years notice after 2015 (effectively making it a 20-year contract with an unlimited option to renew). PCC gets on air recognition and funding for a broadcast

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...

program (along with the traditional responsibility of maintaining

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdictio ...

-related issues as the licensee), while APM controls the station and all the pledges, grants, and corporate underwriting revenues. SCPR acquired the rights to relaunch the LAist brand, which was formerly under the Gothamist blog. KPCC reaches 600,000 listeners each week.SCPR.org page:
About

Current programming

Weekday programming on KPCC includes:''Take Two with A Martínez''; ''AirTalk with

''; ''The Frame with John Horn''; and ''Off-Ramp with John Rabe''. The programs '' The Madeleine Brand Show'' and ''

Patt Morrison Patt Morrison is a journalist, author, and radio-television personality based in Los Angeles and Southern California. Media Morrison is a writer for the ''Los Angeles Times'', with the weekly '' 'Patt Morrison Asks' '' column, and received the ...

'' were replaced in 2012. The station also produces

's ''The Loh Down on Science'', a 60-second science feature on weekdays, and ''The Loh Life'' on weekends, which features her commentary on various issues.

HD broadcasting

KPCC broadcasts over two HD Radio channels: * HD1

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simulta ...

s the analog feed; and * HD2 airs

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

via a simulcast of

KCMP KCMP (89.3 FM, 89.3 The Current) is a radio station owned by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) that broadcasts a AAA music format including a significant rotation of songs by local artists. Licensed to Northfield, Minnesota and covering the Minnea ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

(branded "The Current"). Both subchannels also stream live on the Internet.

Repeaters, translators, and boosters

KPCC also extends its signal via full-power satellites KUOR-FM Redlands (89.1 FM), KVLA-FM

Coachella Coachella may refer to: * Coachella, California * Coachella Canal, in California * Coachella (festival), an annual music and arts festival in California * "Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind", a 2017 song by Lana del Rey See also

* Coachell ...

(90.3 FM), and KJAI

Ojai Ojai ( ; Chumash: ''’Awhaỳ'') is a city in Ventura County, California. Located in the Ojai Valley, it is northwest of Los Angeles and east of Santa Barbara. The valley is part of the east–west trending Western Transverse Ranges and is ...

(89.5 FM), as well as low-power translators KPCC-FM1

Santa Clarita Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-largest city by population in Los Angeles County, the 17t ...

(89.3 FM), KPCC-FM2

West Los Angeles West Los Angeles is an area within the city of Los Angeles, California. The residential and commercial neighborhood is divided by the Interstate 405 freeway, and each side is sometimes treated as a distinct neighborhood, mapped differently by di ...

(89.3 FM), KPCC-FM3

(89.3 FM), K210AD Santa Barbara (89.9 FM) and K227BX

(93.3 FM). KUOR is licensed to the

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 ...

, while KVLA and KJAI are licensed to American Public Media Group's SCPR. All three of the station's full-power repeaters also broadcast two HD Radio signals.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control

PCC PCC may refer to: Science and technology * Pearson correlation coefficient (''r''), in statistics * Periodic counter-current chromatography, a type of affinity chromatography * Portable C Compiler, an early compiler for the C programming language ...

NPR member stations American Public Media Group