Dear Friend,
It may seem like an odd time to look back on 2024, given how drastically the world has changed for public media since then. From where I stand, last year feels like several ages ago. But as the world’s been shifting around us and we’ve seen serious threats become reality, we’ve been able to move forward with confidence thanks to investments we made and groundwork we laid in 2024.
Last March, we launched our broadcast at 92.7 in the Bay Area and we’re now reaching over ten times as many people in a market that was already in our top four nationwide. It’s been incredible to feel the energy and enthusiasm there and see the impact we’re starting to make. And it’s an investment that’s already paying dividends for the entire organization.
We also invested heavily in our digital infrastructure, beginning work on our new apps (which launched this spring), improving the back-end systems our DJs and producers use to program music, and launching our new donor portal to make it easier for donors to engage with us.
Our DJs and production crews got out into more local communities than ever before, building and strengthening relationships through remote broadcasts in neighborhoods all around Seattle and the Bay Area, and across the globe through Live on KEXP.
And on top of all that, we continued to provide programming that is both deeply meaningful AND relentlessly joyful, broadcasting human-curated radio that is uniquely beautiful and hard to find anywhere else. This sort of fiercely independent programming is more important now than ever. It’s because we are independent public media that we are able to be creative with our programming, tenacious in making everything we publish freely accessible, and most importantly, human-driven in all we do.
We continue to believe that the impact we have is based on a very simple idea - that music makes our lives better. The investments we made last year have set us up really well to navigate all this, but we can’t do it without your ongoing support. It’s been incredible to see our community step up to help get us through this.
We know you’ve got our back and we’re deeply grateful for that.
Thank you so much!!
Ethan Raup
Chief Executive Officer
It was one of the most significant evolutions in KEXP’s history - on par with the transition from KCMU to KEXP, the move to our Seattle Center studios, or the explosive growth of global audience through the Live on KEXP YouTube channel.
2024 brought us the launch of KEXP Bay Area - a brand new (but old-school) radio broadcast serving the San Francisco Bay Area, owned free and clear by the KEXP community. Kicking off on March 19th with a launch celebration at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, KEXP steadily grew into our new second home, connecting with listeners new and old, forging new partnerships with Bay Area friends and institutions, and welcoming our first on-the-ground team of DJs, behind-the-scenes staff, and dedicated volunteers outside of Seattle.
As the year unfolded, we began to introduce new and distinct elements exclusive to the broadcast in the Bay Area, breaking away from a simple simulcast of what we air in Seattle. We started by working with community nonprofits to air special messages for Bay Area listeners, at no cost to them. Then, we launched Vinelands, a brand-new local music show celebrating the music of the Bay Area and Northern California, airing Saturday nights with new hosts Kelley Stoltz and Gabriel Lopez. A little later in the year, we welcomed Goyri, our new co-host on El Sonido. We partnered with local public radio station KQED, and our staff and DJs were able to work and broadcast from their studios.
In the Fall, we pushed even further with Spin Around the Bay — a tour of Bay Area record stores, broadcasting live from a different store each day for a full week. John, Cheryl, and Larry were joined live by special guests, and spent the week meeting fans and listeners in neighborhoods across the Bay and celebrating the power of record stores, radio, and community.
