KPFA (94.1FM) is a public, listener-funded talk radio and musicradio station located inBerkeley, California, broadcasting to theSan Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed on the air April 15, 1949,^[4] as the firstPacifica Radio station and remains the flagship station of the Pacifica Radio Network.

The station's studios are located inDowntown Berkeley, and its transmitter site is located in theBerkeley Hills.

Launched in 1949, three years after the Pacifica Foundation was created by pacifistLewis Hill, KPFA became the first station in the Pacifica Radio network and the first listener-supported radio broadcaster in the United States.^[1][5][6] Previously, non-commercial stations were licensed only to serve educational functions as extensions of high schools, colleges, and universities. This departure into listener-oriented programming brought many detractors as KPFA aired controversial programming. The first interview with anyone from the gay political movement was broadcast by KPFA, as well asAllen Ginsberg's poemHowl in the 1950s. In 1954 the broadcast by a group of marijuana reform advocates extolling the pleasures of cannabis resulted in the tape being impounded by the California Attorney General. In the 1960s KPFA and Pacifica were accused of being controlled by theCommunist Party, and several challenges to its license were waged, none of them successful.

In the early 60'sPhil Lesh, future founding member and bass player for theGrateful Dead, worked there as a volunteer recording engineer.^[7][8]

KPFA was the first station to broadcast a radio show specializing inspace music, with the debut ofStephen Hill andAnna Turner'sMusic from the Hearts of Space in 1973. Ten years later, the show – now known by the shorter titleHearts of Space – was syndicated in the U.S. toNPR stations, while remaining at its first home at KPFA.

In the 1970s and 1980s, it broadcast a weekly long-running radio program calledFruit Punch for gay and lesbian listeners.^[9]

Since 1981, the station is known for airing the pioneeringculture jammingsound collage showOver the Edge. Originally hosted byDon Joyce ofNegativland, it is the longest-running block of free-form audio collage in radio history.^[10]

KPFA is also known for Puzzling Evidence, the longest running radio program of theChurch of the Subgenius hosted by Doug Wellman andHarry S. Robins. The program was the inspiration for theTalking Heads song of the same name from the band's filmTrue Stories.

In 1999 the station was effectively taken over by KPFA's governing Pacifica Foundation, after Dennis Bernstein, the long-established host of the station'sFlashpoints news magazine, was forcibly removed by police for airing grievances on air over a labor dispute.^[11][12][13] A broad cross section of protesters joined indirect action outside of the station^{[14][15][16][17][18]} in a weeks-long lockout during which station management spent over half a million dollars on security measures.^[19]At one point, listeners created a separate fund to accept listener pledges that would be directed away from the Pacifica Foundation.^[20]

In 2007, KPFA derecognized its Unpaid Staff Organization. The staff claimed that Pacifica Radio had been making network more corporate, softening its voice of dissent, and attempting to get rid of some of the volunteers at the station. In 2008, a forcible removal by police of a KPFA volunteer highlighted the concerns between management and volunteer staff.^[21]

A member of the KPFA board suggested that it was problematic that there was no grievance procedure for unpaid staff at the station.^[22]

In November 2010, the management of Pacifica laid off most of the staff of the popular KPFA Morning Show. The union representing the paid staff of KPFA claims that the layoffs were done in violation of the union contract.^[23] Pacifica management says the layoffs were financially necessary and done according to staff seniority.^[24] Pacifica management replaced the paid staff of the Morning Show with an all-volunteer crew.^[25]

KPFA's sister stations areWBAI New York,KPFT Houston,KPFK Los Angeles, andWPFW Washington DC. Pacifica continues today to be a listener-supported network of stations. The main KPFA transmitter is a 59 kilowattclass B, though there is aboosterKPFA-FM3 inOakley.KPFB 89.3 is a smaller station, also in Berkeley, that covers areas of Berkeley that are shielded from the main KPFA signal by the Berkeley Hills. It also carries some separate programming specifically for its Berkeley audience. KPFA programs are also rebroadcast byKFCF in Fresno.KZFR in Chico also carries KPFA's programming from 2:00-6:00 a.m. daily.KZSC Santa Cruz simultaneously broadcasts KPFA's Pacifica Evening News on weeknights. In the Bay Area,Comcast carries KPFA's broadcasts on cable channel 967, as part of its digital radio offering. The channel is labeled "Variety/Berkeley".

• Lasar, Matthew (April 2000).Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network. American Subjects Series.Temple University Press.ISBN 1-56639-777-4. Archived fromthe original on June 14, 2006. RetrievedJune 7, 2006.
• Lasar, Matthew (January 2006).Uneasy Listening: Pacifica Radio's Civil War.Black Apollo Press.ISBN 1-90035-545-0.
• Walker, Jesse (September 2001).Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America.NYU Press.ISBN 0-81479-381-9.
• Pacifica Radio Archives
• The Lengthening Shadow: Lewis Hill and the Origins of Listener-Sponsored Radio in America

• Official website
• Facility details for Facility ID 51246 (KPFA) in theFCC Licensing and Management System
• KPFA inNielsen Audio's FM station database
• Facility details for Facility ID 51243 (KPFB) in theFCC Licensing and Management System
• KPFB inNielsen Audio's FM station database

• 1949 establishments in California
• Counterculture of the 1960s
• Culture of Berkeley, California
• Mass media in Berkeley, California
• Pacifica Foundation stations
• Radio stations established in 1949
• Radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area

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