KPCC (89.3 FM) – branded 89.3 KPCC – is a

non-commercial educational A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements ( TV ads or radio ads), as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was o ...

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 ...

licensed to Pasadena,

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 Co ...

and the San Fernando Valley. KPCC also reaches much of Santa Barbara, Ventura County, Palm Springs and the

Coachella Valley , map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg , map_caption = Coachella Valley , location = California, United States , coordinates = , width = , boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacin ...

, 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 ...

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 repeaters. Owned by

Pasadena City College Pasadena City College (PCC) is a public community college in Pasadena, California. History Pasadena City College was founded in 1924 as Pasadena Junior College. From 1928 to 1953, it operated as a four-year junior college, combining the l ...

and operated by the American Public Media Group 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 event ...

, and is an owned-and-operated station for American Public Media; in addition to serving as an affiliate for NPR and Public Radio Exchange; 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 mo ...

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, 89.3 FM, since April 1, 1985. ''AirTalk'' is the longest-runn ...

. Besides a standard analog transmission, KPCC broadcasts over two

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...

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

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 ass ...

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, later from

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is a ...

(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 American Public Media Group (the parent organization of Minnesota Public Radio). 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 program (along with the traditional responsibility of maintaining FCC-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 Gothamist LLC is the operator, or in some cases franchisor, of eight city-centric websites that focused on news, events, food, culture, and other local coverage. It was founded in 2003 by Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung. In March 2017, Joe Rickett ...

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'' 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

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, simul ...

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 commercial ...

via a simulcast of KCMP/

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 origin ...

(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 KVLA-FM (90.3 MHz) is a public radio station owned by American Public Media Group, through its Southern California Public Radio subsidiary. Licensed to Coachella, California, it serves Palm Springs, the Coachella Valley, and surrounding areas. K ...

Coachella (90.3 FM), and KJAI Ojai (89.5 FM), as well as low-power translators KPCC-FM1 Santa Clarita (89.3 FM), 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. All three of the station's full-power repeaters also broadcast two HD Radio signals.

References

External links