KUSC 'on a roll'

KUSC, at 91.5 FM, is "the largest listener-supported classical music station in the country and one of the last bastions of full-time classical music and arts programming on public radio," author Kay Mills says in a freelance story for Trojan Family Magazine. When competitor K-Mozart gave up classical, the station took off:

There is no doubt that the station is currently on a roll: The latest Arbitron ratings rank it as the most listened-to public radio station in Southern California, ahead of public radio powerhouses KPCC and KCRW; it has had three million-dollar-plus on-air fundraising drives since spring 2007; it picked up 8,000 members and thousands more listeners after K-Mozart, L.A.’s longtime commercial classical music station, changed its format; and it is looking beyond recorded music, both airing and reporting on a growing range of local concerts and other arts events, and exploring new ways of using the Internet.

“It’s daunting but also an incredibly exciting time to be covering the arts in L.A.,” says Gail Eichenthal, the station’s program director. “As an indicator, the New York Times wrote that L.A. has become the symphonic capital of the world,” she says. “There was also a major spread in the New York Times Magazine on Los Angeles as a great center for the visual arts, from lofts to museums.” And the appointment of 26-year-old Gustavo Dudamel as the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic has created headlines around the world. (With the excitement surrounding what some Philharmonic fans call “Dudamel sightings,” KUSC added live broadcasts of two sold-out concerts he conducted on successive Sundays last spring.)

Eichenthal, the story says, "returned to KUSC in 2005 after a 16-year absence, when she was an anchor and reporter at KNX 1070 Newsradio."

Also in the magazine: When John Wayne was a Trojan, and a little history piece on the first college credit course taught on Los Angeles television: "Shakespeare on TV."