Ruth Seymour (née Epstein; February 17, 1935 – December 22, 2023)[1] was an American broadcasting executive known for her innovative work with public radio.[2] She has been described as a pioneer in public radio[3] and "a commanding presence in the public radio arena".[4]
Epstein's parents were involved in Yiddish-speaking society, and were active in the Workmen's Circle.[1] They sent Epstein to Sholem Aleichem Folk School[7] to learn Yiddish literature and language as a supplement to her public schooling.[8] During her years at City College of New York[9] she studied Yiddish and Hebrew with Jewish linguist Max Weinreich.[1][4]
Career
Seymour's first venture into radio came at KPFK in Los Angeles from 1961 to 1964.[10] She had moved to the city with her husband in 1961.[6] As that station's drama and literary critic, she produced award-winning series.[5] From 1971 to 1976,[10] she worked as program director there, and she did freelance work for the Pacifica Foundation while traveling in Europe.[5] She was fired in 1976, after the FBI raided the station in search of a tape KPFK had aired from Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, which the station manager refused to turn over.[6][11] Seymour broadcast the raid live, as it occurred.[11]
Seymour joined the staff of KCRW at Santa Monica College in 1977 as a consultant and was named manager a few months later, in 1978.[12] She retired from there in February 2010[13] after having helped the station "transcend its basement location to shape the culture in Los Angeles".[14] During her tenure, the station grew from being based in a playground at a middle school and having an old transmitter to covering much of southern California with its broadcasts. It also developed streaming services and podcasts.[13]
In 1979, two factors combined to enhance Seymour's efforts toward advancing KCRW's status. Soon after the station began using a new transmitter, National Public Radio launched Morning Edition. While the area's then-most-significant public radio station ran the two-hour program before 6 a.m., Seymour decided to run it three times each morning from 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. on KCRW. "That way nobody was going to have [the programs] when I didn't have them," she said.[5]
Seymour also brought other programs to KCRW, such as Le Show (hosted by Harry Shearer), Left, Right & Center,Morning Becomes Eclectic, The Politics of Culture, To the Point, and Which Way L.A.? (hosted by Warren Olney).[6] In 1996, KCRW became the first station other than Chicago's WBEZ to air This American Life,[6] and she pushed host Ira Glass to rename the show from its original name, Your Radio Playhouse.[1] She also supported programs that brought literature to the radio, including airing radio dramas adaptations of Babbitt and Ulysses.[12] She also created two popular volumes of the audio collection Jewish Short Stories from Eastern Europe and Beyond, in which well-known actors read works by Jewish authors.[12]
Seymour spearheaded fundraising efforts not only for KCRW, including a $1 million pledge drive in 1995,[5] but also for the network program Weekend All Things Considered in 1985 and for NPR in 1991.[15] She also was active in the effort to simplify podcasting of radio stations' programs. Without blanket licensing agreements, such as those that apply to over-the-air broadcasts and streaming of programs, a separate contract with each record label used in the podcast was required.[16]
In 2008, Seymour successfully lobbied for a municipal bond issue that would allow KCRW to build its own building.[6]
Hanukkah broadcast
In 1979, Seymour launched a program on KCRW that became a tradition, going strong a quarter-century later. Noting the lack of radio programming related to Hanukkah, she created and hosted Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools, a program that included recordings of Yiddish folk music and songs from Yiddish music halls, a short story by a Yiddish author, and a memorial to the Holocaust. Initially surprised and disappointed because only two people called the station during the broadcast, Seymour thought that it was a failure—until it ended. Then calls kept the staff and their telephones busy for three hours. Thereafter, the show was broadcast annually,[4] with Seymour hosting until 2007.[6]
Personal life and death
Seymour married the poet Jack Hirschman in 1954, after meeting him at the City College of New York, and divorced him in 1973.[1][17] They had two children.[6] The family traveled often, due to Hirschman's job as a professor at Dartmouth and UCLA.[1] Her son, David, died of lymphoma in 1982, at age 25.[1] Her daughter Celia Hirschman is a music business consultant and is the host of the "On the Beat" program on KCRW.[18][19]
In 1993, she changed her surname to Seymour to honor her paternal grandfather, who had been a rabbi.[9][17]
