All's Well

[Update] The Rachel Guyon saga chronicled in our late February cover story, Just Stop, ended not with a thunderous judicial bang but rather a negotiated whimper on March 31.

Guyon, who was charged with conducting a lengthy e-mail harrassment campaign against Utah's Attorney General and members of his staff, took four pleas in abeyance for class B misdemeanors of electronic communication harrassment.

Her co-attorney Kris Rogers said part of the deal that had been brokered with Salt Lake County's District Attorney Greg Ferbrache involved Guyon not contacting any of the alleged victims.

So ends a tale that had everything a salacious conspiracist might crave -- sexual innuendo and a call girl past, apparent abuses of power by the AG's office in the quest to silence whoever was taunting them, and finally, most intriguingly of all, the astonishing sight of one person and the most powerful legal governmental institution in the state reduced to a level playing field by the anonymity provided by the Internet. (Stephen Dark)

Saying Goodbye

[Update] Today's Salt Lake Tribune includes an obituary for Mary Canzater. She died Tuesday night at the age of 57, after a five-month battle with cancer.

Just before doctors informed her that the bowel cancer which had been successfully removed 10 years before had returned, she sat in on a discussion about her son, Chris Hutcherson's battle with cancer, which formed the climax of the City Weekly story, Dying to Live, published last summer.

Chris wanted to pursue a radical new chemo therapy treatment to continue his six-year-long battle with his rare form of cancer. Mary had her reservations about the new treatment, but she was always there, fighting in her son's corner.

Watching her downcast eyes, the sadness on her face as her son struggled to make sense of the medical opinions and the emotional arguments made by hospice employees he was then being advised by, it was striking how much the love she had for her son shone from her features that morning, even at what must have been one of her darker days.

Chris continues to battle his cancer, although it appears he has opted not to continue with chemo therapy. This Saturday his fight will be put aside as he buries his mother at Memorial Estates. (Stephen Dark)

KRCL Update: Get Ready for Baby Boom Radio

[Focus Group Hell] A consultant hired by KRCL 90.9 FM presented findings of his focus group research to the station’s board of directors last night (see City Weekly's Jan. 31 cover). The upshot: Focus groups really like listening to the Beatles, Stones, Doors, Dylan and Hendrix.

The KRCL focus groups can’t stand indie (“too crazy"), or Americana (too “twangy”). They really hate black music. (Those rap people use bad words.)

Babs De Lay, one of the KRCL’s volunteer programmers who attended the board meeting at Horizonte, wanted to know if the consultant had asked any black people?

The consultant’s response: How many minorities, are there really in the Salt Lake valley? (That brought grumbling from some at the back of the room, considering KRCL has for years been telling granting agencies that serving Utah’s minority communities was the reason for its existence.)

It’s all a numbers game, Peter Dominowski, principal of Market Trends Research, told volunteers and the board: Don’t get all high and mighty thinking you are providing some special service.

“Public service equals audience. They are synonymous,” he said. “Getting people to listen is the mission.”

Those who hoped focus groups of KRCL listeners would behave any differently than focus groups anytime, anywhere, were sorely disappointed. The pinheads who participate in focus groups said what they always say:

They want music that is “comfortable and familiar.” Music that is “appropriate” to listen to at work; that’s “uplifting and calming.” They don’t like to be challenged, or “work too hard” listening to the radio. As one focus group participant put it: “Different kinds of music, I just don’t like them.”

Focus groupies do like to hear the same songs over and over again. People don’t form emotional attachments to music, or a music station, without repetition, said Dominowski. And those emotional attachments are what make listeners contribute to fund drives.

KRCL should “adapt” techniques used by commercial stations. It should play “time tested artists,” and avoid “stressful,” “odd” or “polarizing” music during primetime, said Dominowski, who has been consulting public radio since 1985, providing focus group magic to more than 100 stations in the past two years.

Dominowski knows what the people want, because, with KRCL’s program director, he played music to six focus groups of 10 people each in late November. All participants were KRCL listeners. Two groups said KRCL was their favorite station. The other four were made up of people who sometimes listened to KRCL, but liked other stations better.

The guinea pigs were played five different two-and-a-half-minute music mixes, then asked to rate the music and give their thoughts.

Focus groups weren’t played any blues, jazz, or R&B. Those music types had already been excluded by analysis of Arbitron data measuring KRCL’s historic listener numbers.

• The “heritage rock” mix of Beatles et al. had the broadest appeal across age and gender lines. (“All bands that I know,” said a focus groupie. “Felt like an old friend.”)
  
• The Americana mix (including Lyle Lovett and Alison Krauss) got the thumbs down.
  
• The indie mix (including Tegan and Sara and TV on the Radio) was “not uplifting” said focus groupies, who somehow were scared by the poppy The Thermals.
  
• Older listeners hated the “urban contemporary” mix including M.I.A. and The Roots.
  
• On the other hand, the “modern adult contemporary” mix (including Josh Ritter and Feist) was “well accepted.”

The consultant’s bottom line: KRCL should play a mix of “heritage rock” and “modern adult contemporary.” In the future, the difference between KRCL and the oldies station will be that KRCL will play the B sides.

Dominowski said the sound would be like (all together now) WXPN in Philadelphia. That just happens to be the direction station management was hinting at more than one year before the consultant ever set foot in Salt Lake City.

Much of Wednesday’s presentation to the board was made up of bar graphs segmenting KRCL’s listeners in categories like “loyalty by half hour.” Several volunteers noted that, according to the Arbitron charts, KRCL’s most successful current programs were playing exactly the types of music that would be banished from daytime in the proposed format switch. ("That's half of what we play," one said.) Currently KRCL's days from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. have among the highest listener “loyalty.”

But the consultant said people tuning into today’s popular KRCL programs were “fringe” listeners who listened only to a few programs and would never become “loyal.”

In addition to the recommended format change (KRCL should be all-music “minimally” from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays), the consultant recommended KRCL hire paid programmers.

Also, that KRCL’s music director program all music that is played during the days. No more having “inconsistent” DJs picking the music that goes out over the air.

Formally, KRCL’s board of directors won’t vote on the recommendations until Feb. 7, two days after a scheduled meeting of volunteers to discuss the proposal. But in fact the train has left the station. KRCL is already advertising for a new music director. Volunteer daytime station DJs were given their walking papers two weeks ago. It now appears that station directors agreed to hire paid DJs sometime this summer when KRCL signed a contract with the Corporation with Public Broadcasting, the agency paying for the station makeover.

All but lost in the general confusion and hubbub of the consultant’s presentation Wednesday was one of the his last recommendations: “Weekend primetime is just as important,” read the phrase projected on the wall.

Meaning that KRCL’s remaining volunteer DJs—the weekenders who thought they’d been saved in the switchover—may want to start getting nervous. (Ted McDonough)

No Lands Man

[Update] This afternoon I ran into J.P. Garman looking as happy as I'd seen him in months.

Garman is the man without a country I wrote about this summer in No Lands Man who has spent his entire adult life trying to convince authorities he is a citizen of the United States.

A bungled California adoption meant that Garman wasn’t considered a U.S. citizen. No other country claimed him either. With no Social Security card he worked short-time jobs under the table, frequently moving.

When Garman landed in Utah, he decided to make another go at becoming legit. He went to the media and—until recently—it seemed like a bad idea. When an article about him appeared in the Deseret Morning News, Garman, now a celebrity, lost what work he’d been able to get to that point.

But today, he’s sporting a spanking new Social Security card.

Following years of working through California public agencies, Garman recently received a new birth certificate listing his birthplace as California, instead of “unknown.” That led to the Social Security card.

Garman—who is hoping to get a Utah ID tomorrow—is brimming with ideas for using his new Social Security number to start a business of his own. (Ted McDonough)