New Management in Oregon

Station KBPS in Portland, Oregon announced last week that they have hired a new CEO, reports The Oregonian.

Jack Allen comes from the programming side of classical music radio, but with a lot of management experience. He was director of news and music for seven years at Minnesota Public Radio, including being an on-air host at Classical 24. For the past five years Allen has been in Austin, TX managing the much smaller, listener-supported classical station KMFA. This article in the Austin Chronicle makes it pretty clear that Austin is going to sadly miss Allen. His ideas have been terrifically successful for KMFA in the community. As an interesting aside, one of his goals has been to drop his own former product, C-24, from Austin’s overnights and replace it with live local overnight hosts.

KBPS in Portland has been looking for a CEO since Sarah Shelley left last fall. They have had some turnover in both on-air staff and management, which is surprising for a classical station. It’s more common to hear about people who stay for decades, despite the lousy pay. Jack Allen is coming to a dynamic, music-loving community (I say “coming” because I live just up the road in Seattle) that values activism. I think he’ll have an easy time getting community members involved, which seems to be his number one goal.

Allen keeps his hand in by doing an air shift. I’ve heard other managers say that’s a terrible idea, but I disagree. It’s the best way for a manager to keep his or her feet on the ground and remember what it’s like to talk directly to the listeners.

I’ve asked Jack Allen to respond and fill us in on his ideas for the station. I’ll post his response when I hear from him. As you know if you’ve read any of my posts, I’m always searching for people in classical radio who have actual ideas for improving what we do.