E-mails laced with words like "mourning" are circulating in light of changes at the Albuquerque classical radio station KHFM, which include the firing of Program Director Bob Bishop and the on-air resignation of popular programmer Kip Allen.
 
Marty Ronish of the classical blog Scanning the Dial has the scoop on the shake-up, writing all the way from La Jolla, Calif.:
 
The station finally moved out of its storage closet and into a real studio recently, thanks almost solely to the efforts of Program Director Bob Bishop and former Program Director Kip Allen. Bishop pulled a couple of all-nighters to get the studio up and running. I’m sure the company wanted to wait until he finished the work before they fired him.

 

Ronish, a former New Mexican who says she trained at KHFM, first broke the story with a post Aug. 10 detailing not only the firing of Bishop and Allen’s resignation, but the loss of two other employees. As she pointed out, management "lost no time removing any mentions of Bishop and Allen from the station Web site."

 

 She followed it up with an update Aug. 14 explaining this past winter’s low ratings after a rocky few years:   

The reason winter ratings are down so drastically is that the transmitter was hit by lightning, and the station was off the air for six weeks between February and May.

 

 

She noted with some irony that on Sept. 12 Gov. Bill Richardson will be awarding KHFM the highly coveted Governor’s Award for service to the community, and that the film to be shown at the award ceremony features Bishop and Allen. 

 

Bishop, Ronish said, was recently honored as Employee of the Year.

 

Allen had a broad fan base, and was famous for his birdsongs at 6 and 7 weekday mornings. As D.S. Crafts wrote in the Albuquerque Journal on Dec. 30:



 

The Bravo music award this year was most appropriately given to KHFM’s Kip Allen, whose morning program "A Joyful Noise" has long been a cultural fixture in our town. (What would we do without his birds in the morning?) I can only add that this award was long overdue for someone who has served the classical music community with such dedication and humorous good spirits.

 
 

Fans are worried that the station will change format to what is known as "lite classical" and that other casualties of the shake up will be the station’s emphasis on community events, which was championed by fired promotions manager Lindy Gold, along with arts news and interviews.