There's a great article in the Seattle Weekly (not a typo) this week about Seattlest's favorite little radio station that shines just a little bit of light into the previously dim corners of the station's management. You know about their DJs, their playlists, their events, their membership drives and their website. Did you know that KEXP is actually owned by someone, though? Actually, Seattlest did know that. We knew that the station belonged to the University of Washington, but it was still interesting for us to see the names of all the governing board and advisory council members. Pillars of the community one and all. more ›

KEXP recently announced that they will be pulling out of the Tacoma area and ceasing to broadcast on the 91.7 KXOT FM band they were using down there. The easy thought on this is similar to the one that appeared when, say, the Bellevue Art Museum announced it was shutting its doors: That is, "Anyone that lives in the area outside of Seattle is lame and doesn't care about art or culture and if they did they would live in Seattle. Furthermore, attempting to bring anyone outside of Seattle art or culture is a lost cause because they just don't care." Seattlest doesn't subscribe to that, of course, but it's out there. Actually, we were intrigued by the whole KEXP South experiment from the start, although we wouldn't quite say we thought that investing that volume of resources in old school radio land was the best idea. We don't pretend to know enough about the inner workings of KEXP to deliver any actual facts here, but it seems apparent that a battle has been waged on the inside of KEXP pitting geographic, FM expansion vs the internets and the internets have come out on top. The Tacoma invasion has been repelled and that AP "Little Radio Station That Could" piece has been reprinted in seemingly every paper in the country. more ›