KCRW Cuts Another 10% Of Staff
• UPDATED: Faced with further budget cuts following the administration’s elimination of federal funding for public media, Triple A KCRW/Santa Monica has trimmed an additional 10% of its staff. As reported by Variety, included in the cuts were several of the station’s most well-known music DJs, including 27-year KCRW vet Jason Kramer, along with Jeremy Sole and José Galván. All three confirmed their departures via social media. As part of the changes, Elvis Mitchell‘s long-running interview series The Treatment will now run inside Weekend Edition.
“Like so many other public media organizations, KCRW is restructuring parts of the organization in response to our new budget reality,” said KCRW President Jennifer Ferro in a Friday letter to the station’s subscribers and supporters. “The result of this restructuring is a 10% reduction in our staff. These decisions were made after careful consideration of how best to position us against the twin challenges of needing to adapt to how people consume media today as well as the loss of federal dollars.”
“After 27 years, I have unfortunately been let go from KCRW. Along with some other of the best DJs in the world,” said Kramer (left), who hosted his long-running new music discovery show on Sundays from 8-10pm. “The show was designed around new artist and/or new releases and some nuggets also,” Kramer tells RAMP. “A lot of artists that are well known got their introduction on the show… it was always about featuring folks that may not get noticed.”
Kramer’s social post added, “[KCRW] will always have a place in my heart, and every artist that I play I will still be there in another way.”
Looking ahead, Jason Kramer can now be reached at lordofnoise@gmail.com; contact Jeremy Sole at j@jeremysole.com; and José Galván is available at jose@thebumbys.com.
