NORTH BAY BOH EMI A N | SEP T E M BE R 14– 20, 20 1 1 | BO H E M I AN.COM
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Paper GLOBAL REACH Fittingly, Ken Rose’s radio show about saving the world is listened to the world over.
Small Station, Big Ideas With a three-watt radio station, Ken Rose is hoping to change the world—one interview at a time BY DAVID TEMPLETON
A
s self-made philosopherinterviewer Ken Rose looks ahead to the third season of his internationally tunedto radio show What Now, he’s reasonably optimistic
that the world will not come to an end before he’s completed another slate of high-profile, one-on-one conversations. “I’d say we still have five to 10 years to save this thing,” Rose says amiably of the global
economic and social crisis that is the main focus of his exploratory attentions. “I’m definitely interested in saving the world. I do feel that we can fix this ghastly dilemma we find ourselves in.” When Rose, now in his 60s, first began his weekly, long-form interview show two years ago—
broadcasting on the volunteerpowered three-watt local radio station KOWS (107.3-FM) out of Occidental—no one predicted that he’d end up with more than 10,000 regular listeners, over 10 times the population of the town primarily served by KOWS. Of course, 99 percent of Rose’s listeners are not actually hearing his show live on the radio every Monday afternoon from 11am to 2pm; most are catching the show online, either through KOWS’ live streaming or by dipping into the show’s vast archive of podcasts. “Lets face it, my live listenership is minuscule,” Rose shrugs. White-haired and bespectacled, Rose is seated at a table surrounded by notes, papers, spreadsheets and books. “We get a few people listening to the show as it streams live,” he allows, “but the podcasts are what is making this show work.” Rose plucks one page from among the many and slides it across the table. “Look at this. I just found out a couple of days ago that in 2011 the podcasts have been listened to in more than a hundred countries all over the world!” The majority of listeners are in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, but the analytics indicate a fair number of listeners in Sweden, Spain, Israel and the Czech Republic, and a handful in Uganda, Jamaica, Peru, Belarus and Macedonia. “Isn’t that amazing? A local three-watt radio station is reaching thousands of people across the planet,” Rose says, shaking his head. “That’s the world we’re living in now. The local is global. Looking at these reports, I feel a little like a farmer. We plant the seeds by inviting the world’s greatest thinkers to come on the air and talk with me, the goal being to harvest superior, reliable, human intelligence, and to provide it free of any cost to a global listenership. That’s how I see what I do—the show provides intellectual nutrition to a starving world.” The key element to Rose’s