History of KLSU
Andrew Nackley, a KLSU alumni who worked at the station from 1988 to 1994, explains the station's shift to alternative programming in the early 1990s. Andrew Nackley Oral History Interview, Mss. 4700.2592, LLMVC, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, La.
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ANDREW NACKLEY: The idea of making the station more commercially acceptable or accessible . . . Nobody ever came to us when I was there and said, "Here's a computer print out and this is what you're going to play." Or even, "This is going to be an incentive cut for you to play." That was maybe off on the margins, but I never actually saw anybody do it. That said, there were times at which they would try and nudge that toward us. And sometimes they . . . That was one way that they would hire their staff around . . . to try and . . . People like the station manager, or, I'm sorry, the faculty advisor or LSM would try and sort of work around. They would hire students who they felt would be a little bit more amenable to commercializing the station.
The Manships bought into the school of Journalism and there was a push from the 80s to get the School of Journalism more involved with the station. So that meant that you would have sort of a more commercialized sound coming from the School of Journalism. They wanted the journalism students to sort of be front and center in terms of air personalities, in terms of music direction, entertainment, and also in journalism. And none of that really worked out for them. There was a lot of pushback to that from the students. And I think this is where, again, this is where the idea of a more commercial, Top-40 sound was coming from.
Former station manager Laura Blereau comments on the KLSU alternative programming and the ensuing student backlash. Laura Blereau Oral History Interview, Mss. 4700.2594, LLMVC, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, La.
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LAURA BLEREAU: Nonprofit radio stations across the country, it was really struggling for dollars, right. I don't know if that's the case with KLSU, but it was part of the climate. What Darren [Gauthier] wanted to do was pay the deejays. I mean, we were getting minimum wage or something. It wasn't lots of money. But there was this idea that the students were being controlled. The people who opposed it thought, "Oh you're going to control the students and make them play this stuff from a computer." Of course the computer is programmed by a human. It's not like, you know, the singularity has occurred. But the whole thing was controversial also because of the people who were ousted. And they were all very vocal, creative people too. So you had some people who were involved in designing stickers that made it all over, like, everyone's cars across Baton Rouge. And they were really cool stickers. They took the KLSU logo and then rearranged the letters and spelled the word "suks" S-U-K-S. And they were so popular on Chimes Street, and like, all over town. The people who made them were designers, and they were good designers. And they figured out an underground way to distribute the stickers. I actually wrote a paper when I was in journalism school here. I had a professor named Matt Reavy and we had to do a story that was basically navigating a controversy. And I was like "I'm sitting right in it".