Ruth Seymour is dead: KCRW’s pioneering longtime general manager was 88

Ruth Seymour, the longtime head of Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW, died Friday, station president Jennifer Ferro confirmed to Deadline. She was 88.

Seymour was with the station from 1977 to 2010. During that time, she transformed the station from a top-rated radio station that originated in a high school classroom into one of the most influential NPR stations in the country, produced in a state-of-the-art studio in Santa Maria. Monica College.

Seymour initially came as a consultant and became managing director in 1978. Her move to a leadership position roughly coincided with the station’s transition to a powerful new channel that greatly expanded its reach.

Around the same time, National Public Radio launched Morning Edition. Seymour decided to make a morning block of the two-hour show, which runs three times from 3am to 9am. The move made KCRW a mainstay in the lives of many Angelenos.

“No one would have it that way [the programs] when I didn’t have it,” she recalls.

Seymour was perhaps best known to listeners through her presence at the station’s on-air fundraisers. In 1995, she expanded the branch to a then-staggering commitment of $1 million. These efforts were critical after the passage of Prop 13, which limited property taxes and forced KCRW to find its own financing. She organized KCRW’s first fundraisers and contracted with the city of Santa Monica to broadcast its city council meetings in exchange for a grant.

“These measures saved the station financially and allowed it to grow and prosper,” noted Ferro.

Nationally, Seymour raised the station’s profile and importance by raising money for NPRs Weekend All things considered in 1985 and for NPR itself in 1991. She was also active in simplifying the licensing regulations surrounding podcasting of radio station programs.

“KCRW and NPR grew up together, and Ruth knew that the national organization belonged to public radio,” Ferro recalls. “She was a champion for journalism and NPR. When NPR nearly went bankrupt in 1983, Ruth rallied other public radio stations to raise money to save the station.”

A friend of poets like Allen Ginsberg and artists like Leonard Cohen, Seymour brought a literary sensibility to KCRW. Ten hour long radio plays were broadcast under her direction baby And Odysseus. She created Jewish Short Stories from Eastern Europe and Beyond in two audio collections in which contemporary actors read the works of Jewish authors such as Sholem Aleichem, Philip Roth and Isaac Bashevis Singer. According to Ferro, KCRW has sold more of these collections than ever before in its history.

Every year she hosted Hannukah Philosophers, violinists and fools, a live Yiddish music show. She was also once a hostess The politics of culture.