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While a junior in high school in Waco, Texas, John Proffitt took his first job in broadcasting as a part-time record librarian and office assistant at KWTX AM/TV. This began his life-long love for radio. From 1966 till 1970, he attended Oberlin College, graduating with a B.A. in History. While there, he worked for the campus station, WOBC-FM, and did his first classical music broadcasting.
In 1970, he joined the U.S. Army and served for 4 1/2 years with the Armed Forces Radio affiliate station in Berlin, Germany. There he hosted a morning rock-n-roll show on the AM station and a daily classical music show on the FM station. AFN-Berlin employed a number of excellent German recording engineers who trained John in the recording and production of concert broadcasts with area musicians.
Upon leaving the Army in 1975, John joined the staff at KLEF-FM in Houston. With the goal of increasing community involvement, John initiated broadcast series with the Houston Symphony and Houston Grand Opera, as well as with the schools of music at UH and Rice.
In late 1979, John took his first job as radio manager with a National Public Radio affiliate station, WXXI-FM in Rochester, New York. The change in "corporate culture" came as a real shock. In commercial radio, the bottom line was advertiser satisfaction: all programming decisions were by necessity influenced by the need to sell advertising, because that is what paid the bills. In professional public radio, the bottom line was listener satisfaction, because listener donations were what paid the bills. And rather than working for owner/investors who expected the station to make a profit for them, as is the case in commercial radio, he now found himself working for the listener/supporters of the station. This was a liberating experience.
In spring 1986, word came to John in Rochester, from friends and family back in Houston, that KLEF-FM had changed its classical music format and had donated its extensive classical record library to the UH station, KUHF-FM. When KUHF-FM began its search for a new general manager, John saw the opportunity to return to Houston to develop a quality professional public radio format of classical music and NPR news for the nation's fourth-largest city. In addition to providing cultural and educational programming as a public service, KUHF-FM under John's leadership established broadcast partnerships with the region's major performing arts organizations, including the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, and the Houston Ballet Orchestra.
In the year 2000, KUHF-FM celebrated 50 years of broadcasting to the greater Houston area. The 50th birthday celebration in November 2000, featured a gala concert in the Moores Opera House with performances of four classical music works commissioned by the station in honor of the occasion. A compact disc of these birthday celebration works was subsequently released.
In 1986, the KUHF-FM budget was under $500,000. Today it exceeds $5 million. In 1986, the station's weekly listening audience was under 80,000. Today, over 300,000 Gulf coast residents listen to KUHF-FM during the week, making it the most listened-to radio station in Texas for classical music and for NPR news.
KUHF-FM's commitment to community outreach embraces the wide diversity that makes Houston a leader in the performing arts. Working with friends in the performing arts is central to the station's public service mission, and KUHF-FM Houston Public Radio is proud to serve a pivotal role as an electronic meeting place for the arts in Houston.