Ruth Seymour, the longtime chief of Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW has died, her daughter Celia Hirschman informed the Los Angeles Instances. She was 88.
Seymour was on the from station 1977 to 2010. In that point she reworked it from a top quality neighborhood faculty radio outlet (at Santa Monica School) to probably the most influential NPR stations within the nation.
Seymour initially got here on as a guide and have become Common Supervisor in 1978. Her ascension to a administration function roughly coincided with the station shifting to a robust new transmitter, which tremendously expanded its attain.
At about the identical time, Nationwide Public Radio launched Morning Version. Seymour determined to make a morning block of the 2-hour present, working it 3 times 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. The transfer helped KCRW turn into a mainstay in lots of Angelenos’ lives.
“That means no person was going to have [the programs] after I didn’t have them,” she recalled.
Seymour was presumably most acquainted to listeners from her presence on the station’s on-air pledge drives. In 1995, she propelled the outlet to a then-breathtaking $1 million pledge drive.
Nationally, Seymour raised the station’s profile and significance by serving to increase funds for NPR’s Weekend All Issues Thought-about in 1985 and for NPR itself in 1991. She additionally was lively within the effort to simplify licensing preparations across the podcasting of radio stations’ applications.
Annually at Hannukah she hosted Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools, a energetic Yiddish music program. She was additionally a someday host of The Poltics of Tradition.
