Anna Kosof's first success was "Night Call," a Larry King-type
call-in show. Photo by Craig Kojima, Star-Bulletin

Part of it is a wake-up call for the budget realities of the '90s. Public radio will never be a juiced-up, top-40-formatted station, but it has become broader in its appeal, delving into jazz, folk, features and chit-chat.

The other part of it is the simple, elegant appeal of radio itself, a very personal medium that has become part of the daily routine of a boomer audience. Unlike top-40 and yak-radio, public radio nurtures while it comforts.

Anna Kosof, the new president and general manager of Hawaii Public Radio, understands that the medium is the massage. A veteran of public-radio and public-TV stations on the mainland, as well as an author of several books on human issues - her latest is "Living in Two Worlds: The Immigrant Child's Experience" - Kosof finds herself returning to radio, her first love.

Kosof came here in February from "New York, New York, New York!" where she ran WBGO-FM, the first public-radio station to meet the requirements for a $1 million National Endowment for the Arts Challenge Grant. Understand, a million bucks is a big pile of money for radio. The economy of the medium is one of the things that appeals to Kosof.

"Only on radio can you get the tremendous breadth of subjects and impact, and for a fraction of what you pay for other mediums. That's what drove me into radio," Kosof said. Hawaii Public Radio is four stations, KHPR at 88.1 FM, KIFO at 1380 AM, KIPO at 89.3 FM and North Shore repeater station KKUA at 90.7 FM. The budget for everything is a million and a half dollars a year.

Just because it's inexpensive, that doesn't mean Public Radio is addressed on Easy Street. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides about 15 to 18 percent of the budget, and the rest of it is raised through corporate underwriting, donations, memberships and endless fund-raising.

The membership drive completed last week garnered 1,800 members, a record number. Total membership is about 8,000. It isn't enough. Memberships bring in about 40 percent of HPR funds; Kosof estimates that only 1-in-10 HPR listeners are members. "Our big goal is to get that to at least two out of 10," she said. "A year's membership is only $35, less than what many people pay for a month's cable-TV subscription."

The Spring Fund Drive's goal was $225,000 and it was met. That will help meet payroll and operating expenses for the next few months, and buy syndicated shows. Nothing's free. "All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," "Adventures in Good Music with Karl Haas," "Morning Concert," "Talk of the Nation," they all cost. For example, "Car Talk," the popular Boston-based auto-repair chat show, costs $9,000 a year.

There's not a lot left over for capital improvements. KIPO, for example, is hamstrung by a relatively weak transmission signal (Waipahu residents don't know this problem.) "It would cost $150,000 to $200,000 to boost the signal, and we simply haven't got it," Kosof said.

So what keeps Kosof in the game? Magic. The undefinable spark that transmits over the ether from microphone to listener. "Radio is so immediate. You're really in touch with the audience," said Kosof, whose first success was "Night Call," a kind of ancestor of the Larry-King-type phoner show.

"You listen to radio in the morning to wake up; you listen to it at night to calm down. There's a psychology involved; it's both intellectual and emotional at the same time.

"Public radio here has so many programs - there more than 100 a week over the three stations - that there's incredible breadth and depth. What other kind of radio would let a symphony run for 47 minutes, uninterrupted?

"Despite the variety of programming, radio listeners feel immediately connected, on a personal level. It creates a kind of relationship and a community."

A community willing to pay for the privilege of listening? Kosof and the newly reorganized HPR staff will be doing more fund-raisers, and more marketing, and more special events in order to keep the airwaves alive. Put your money where your ears are.

Upcoming events include a concert by classical guitarist Jeff Linsky, 7:30 p.m. June 1 at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Admission is $15. The following day, Linsky will offer a guitar workshop - admission $15 - at the station's in-house performance center, the Atherton Performing Arts Studio.

After that, it's the popular "International Beer Tasting," 5:30 to 8 p.m. June 27 at Ward Warehouse. Admission to the event - and to the taste of a hundred different brews - is $20. Information: 955-8821.