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Ruth Seymour, the longtime leader of Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW has died, her daughter Celia Hirschman told the Los Angeles Times. She was 88.
Seymour was at the from station 1977 to 2010. In that time she transformed it from a quality community college radio outlet (at Santa Monica College) to one of the most influential NPR stations in the country.
Seymour initially came on as a consultant and became General Manager in 1978. Her ascension to a management role roughly coincided with the station moving to a powerful new transmitter, which greatly expanded its reach.
At about the same time, National Public Radio launched Morning Edition. Seymour decided to make a morning block of the 2-hour show, running it three times 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. The move helped KCRW become a mainstay in many Angelenos’ lives.
“That way nobody was going to have [the programs] when I didn’t have them,” she recalled.
Seymour was possibly most familiar 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 importance by helping raise funds for NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered in 1985 and for NPR itself in 1991. She also was active in the effort to simplify licensing arrangements around the podcasting of radio stations’ programs.
Each year at Hannukah she hosted Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools, a lively Yiddish music program. She was also a sometime host of The Poltics of Culture.
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