KRCL 90.9 FM

I get a sense of community listening to this station. From interviewing bands in town that are on tour to having themes on special days. One can always hear ‘Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving Day or James McMurtie’s Memorial Day’ at the beginning of summer. New artists and local artist are often heard, as well as rock trivia. The public causes are called out and Saturday and Sunday morning show are truly a blessing. Let’s meditate for peace together.

I love KRCL. I realize that a lot of people bemoan the changes it has undergone, including a few of my friends who worked their hearts at KRCL before the transition, but I still love it. It’s the best station in Utah right now.

KRCL used to be my favorite radio station – I loved the music, I loved the DJs, and I loved being a part of something cool. For over two years I did a weekly show on KRCL and substituted for friend’s shows many times. Doing a weekly show on KRCL was a lot of work but I loved doing it and really enjoyed sharing my love of music with the KRCL listeners.
But KRCL started changing… they let many of their volunteers go, cutting out a lot of the diversity that made the station cool to begin with, and took on a more corporate sounding format. They did this in an attempt to help grow the listener base so they could continue receiving money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
As part of this change KRCL hired a handful of paid DJs which took over the majority of the station’s day time programming, from 5am until 6pm. This change got rid of much of the diverse programming that KRCL had offered since it’s beginning. Instead of having shows hosted by «musical specialists» (my term), people who knew and loved a particular genre of music, KRCL instead had hired DJs who attempted to play a mix of just about everything, and it sounded awful. During the daytime KRCL effectively became just another Top-​40 radio station. News of these changes resulted in a lot of hostile public opinion from both listeners and volunteer DJs.
The soul of KRCL died along with these changes (in my opinion) and the station has never been the same since. Community radio in Utah died after nearly 30 years on air… It makes me sad and frustrated that KRCL thought it was necessary to undergo such changes. Maybe two years later they’ve gone their listeners, but at what cost? Can you become better by selling out? I don’t know. But for this listener I’m tuning my radio to another frequency…