Originally posted June 13, 2014
Berkeley-Members of the Siegel/Brazon faction, which sits in a slim majority on the Pacifica National Board, continue to express their enthusiasm for network breakup and the sale of one or more of the licenses of the smaller Pacifica stations, in informal online communications. In a Facebook discussion group, KPFA local station board member Kate Gowen called for the “amputation” of New York’s WBAI from the national radio network and former KPFA general manager Andrew Phillips declared “the East Coast stations are toast. Cut em loose”.
Their comments are below:
Andrew Leslie Phillips Of course the east coast stations are toast. Cut em loose. It’s over. Save what works and the east coast stations don’t. Fuck sentimentality.Yesterday at 3:13pm · Like · 1
Kate Gowen I don’t have any hope left to lose with regard to WBAI; my concern is that the dysfunction pioneered there is NOT going to stop there, and that even amputation will not stop its spread.
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A petition to keep the network together by the Pacifica Directors for Good Governance-affiliated directors has gathered hundreds of signatures in days from foundation members who do not want to see the network disassembled by the slim majority on the board.
SF Labor Council delegate, former Ramparts editor and KPFA local station board member David Welsh has brought a resolution forbidding a sale to the June 14th KPFA local station board meeting (the meeting will be held on Saturday from 11 am to 4 pm at the North Berkeley Senior Center at Martin Luther King Jr Way and Hearst Streets in Berkeley. Public comment begins promptly at 11:00 am). Welsh’s resolution is placed rather low on the board’s meeting agenda.
The resolution states: “Resolution that the KPFA LSB strongly recommends that the Pacifica National Board explicitly adopt the following written policy: That under no circumstances will the broadcast licenses of the five stations that comprise the Pacifica radio network be put up for sale or lease”.
The KPFA board meeting will also feature a resolution from listener-representative Janet Kobren asking for the local grassroots 8 am program strip: The Morning Mix, which included labor, anti-corporate, and media literacy programs, be restored to KPFA’s drive-time morning line-up.
A series of community events discussing the program grid change and the state of the network (the program change has already elicited letters of condemnation from the San Francisco Labor Council and the Gray Panthers), will be held in Northern California including:
WPFW (Washington DC) station manager Michelle Price reported in a printed report distributed to her local board that Pacifica’s interim executive director Bernard Duncan demanded $50 thousand dollars from her station, telling her the money would be removed from WPFW’s bank account, if necessary. He said the money was needed for “payroll.” It isn’t clear which Pacifica station(s) needed payroll subsidized nor why the network would be unable to meet an approximately $250,000 semi-monthly payroll obligation weeks after reporting $2.4 million dollars in new member pledges from the May telethons.
This summary of 7 Reasons Why Pacifica Needs An Investigation breaks out the reckless and irresponsible actions of the 2014 board. A complaint filed with the California Attorney General by 8 former board members can be found here.
As discussion of network breakup continues to rage in many online forums across the country, the central issue with WBAI’s sustainability continues to be ignored. The station suffers from an extremely high-priced antenna location at the landmark Empire State Building in a 20 year lease negotiated in 2006 (the last time the same slim majority had control of the Pacifica National Board) when the loss of the World Trade Center in 2001 had supply at a deficit. The lease agreement rises every year for 20 consecutive years, currently costs $500 thousand dollars plus a year and will cost more than 3/4 of a million annually by 2025. All of the Pacifica stations would be underwater if they took on WBAI’s level of operating expense.
The Empire State Building location assures (or should assure) WBAI a strong and widely-heard signal throughout the huge metropolitan area, which is the biggest media marketplace in the United States. The deterioration of WBAI’s transmitting equipment (which like DC’s and Houston’s equipment is not solid-state) prevents the station’s sound quality from capitalizing on the extensive signal range and means a move from Empire would require a $200 thousand dollar investment in equipment replacement as the old equipment is unlikely to survive a move.
The Empire State lease does provide an option for subletting the rental space, but other available tower spaces in Manhattan (primarily the 4 Times Square building where PRN and WFMU, among others, are housed) are similarly expensive and available tower spaces in New Jersey represent a substantial loss of signal range. A meaningful debate about about whether a planned move of the transmitter could be done with adequate support for WBAI would be a welcome sign of sanity on the national board, which mostly busies itself arguing about long-time broadcaster Gary Null, whose premiums-based programming provides for much of WBAI’s current financial base of support.
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Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-supported radio.