KPCC (FM 89.3) – branded LAist 89.3 – is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed in Pasadena, California. KPCC itself primarily serves Greater Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley; through rebroadcasting and translator stations, KPCC's programming also reaches the Santa Barbara, Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, and Ventura County, California, areas, and part of the Inland Empire area. The station is owned by Pasadena City College and operated by the American Public Media Group's Southern California Public Radio (SCPR), in addition to serving as an affiliate for National Public Radio and Public Radio Exchange. It originates some of its own shows. The studios are located inside the Mohn Broadcast Center and Crawford Family Forum on South Raymond Street in Pasadena, and the station transmitter is on Mount Wilson.

, SCPR served "more than 527,000 listeners each week". It is one of two full NPR members in the Los Angeles area; Santa Monica-based KCRW is the other.

History

Pasadena City College has a history in radio back to when it was still Pasadena Junior College, a combined high school and college; in 1934 it began hosting a montly radio show on the Pasadena Presbyterian Church station KPPC (AM). Pasadena City College's 75th anniversary history book mentions "an experimental program every Monday night in 1942 on KPCS" named "Presenting Pasadena for Pasadena Preferred", produced by the PCC Radio Division and the Chronicle. with a studio classroom, engineering room, work room, and reception room, and no transmitter or broadcast license; the studio instead continued to broadcast its programs over other local radio stations,

<!-- KPCS; the call sign stood for Pasadena City Schools, which operated the college before the advent of the Pasadena Area Community College District. KPCS changed to KPCC on December 1, 1979. -->

The station expansion, particularly in signal coverage area, led to years of controversy in the 1990s over the station's change in focus from Pasadena-area to Los Angeles regional interest.

thumb|250px|right|KPCC's Mohn Broadcast Center in June 2011

In March 2010, KPCC moved from the Shatford Library to a converted office building on Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, at a cost of $24.5&nbsp;million, and named the new facilities the Mohn Broadcast Center and Crawford Family Forum.

On January 31, 2023, SCPR announced that the radio stations would move away from using "KPCC" as a brand, and adopt the "LAist" name across all its platforms, including the radio stations. The official call letters for the Pasadena radio station remain KPCC after the re-brand. The Loh Down on Science with Sandra Tsing Loh, and pop culture trivia show Go Fact Yourself with J. Keith van Straaten and Helen Hong.

The stations also carry multiple public radio shows from National Public Radio (NPR), the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), and LAist/SCPR's sister organization American Public Media (APM). This allowed for resources to be shared between the two stations. This proved useful during the southern California wildfires that year, as the station simulcast KCBS-TV's audio of their wall-to-wall coverage.

HD broadcasting

  • HD1 simulcasts the analog feed; and
  • HD2 airs alternative rock via a simulcast of KCMP/Minneapolis (branded "The Current"). Both subchannels also stream live on the Internet.

Repeaters, translators, and boosters

KPCC extends its radio programming via full-power satellites KUOR-FM Redlands (89.1 FM), KVLA-FM Coachella (90.3 FM), and KJAI Ojai (89.5 FM), as well as low-power translators KPCC-FM2 West Los Angeles (89.3 FM), KPCC-FM3 West Los Angeles (89.3 FM), K210AD Santa Barbara (89.9 FM) and K227BX Palm Springs (93.3 FM). KUOR is licensed to the University of Redlands, while KVLA and KJAI are licensed to American Public Media Group's SCPR.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|+Repeaters for KPCC

|-

!scope="col"| Call sign

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | Frequency

!scope="col"| City of license

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | Facility ID

!scope="col"| Class

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | ERP<br />(W)

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | Height<br />(m (ft))

|-

!scope="row" | KVLA-FM

| 90.3 FM || Coachella, California || || A || 340 ||

|-

!scope="row" | KJAI

| 89.5 FM || Ojai, California || || A || 97 ||

|-

!scope="row" | KUOR-FM

| 89.1 FM || Redlands, California || || A || 35 ||

|}

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|+Translators and boosters for KPCC

|-

!scope="col"| Call sign

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | Frequency

!scope="col"| City of license

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | FID

!scope="col"| Class

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | ERP<br />(W)

!scope="col" data-sort-type="number" | Height<br />(m (ft))

!scope="col"| Relays

|-

!scope="row" | K227BX

| 93.3 FM || Palm Springs, California || || D || 10 || || KVLA-FM

|-

!scope="row" | K210AD

| 89.9 FM || Santa Barbara, California || || D || 10 || || KJAI

|-

!scope="row" | KPCC-FM1

| 89.3 FM || Santa Clarita, California || || D || 3 || ||

|-

!scope="row" | KPCC-FM2

| 89.3 FM || West Los Angeles, California || || D || 350 || || KPCC (booster)

|-

!scope="row" | KPCC-FM3

| 89.3 FM || West Los Angeles, California || || D || 700 || || KPCC (booster)

|}

See also

  • Campus radio
  • List of college radio stations in the United States

References

Further reading