Originally posted July 31, 2014

Berkeley-Pacifica Radio, the nation’s oldest and first listener-sponsored noncommercial radio network  finds itself on a precipice as FM radio moves steadily towards increased digital distribution. The network’s Sound Exchange discount, which permits the financially troubled network to stream copyrighted music on the Internet , will not continue for long if Pacifica does not recover grant funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The 2006 Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) established Sound Exchange to collect fees and discount programs available to CPB-funded stations insulate the network from additional operating costs.

Internet streaming is costly because royalties are due on both a per song and a per on-line listener basis. A basic annual fee covers about 3 Internet stream listeners per hour but additional streamers would have to be paid for song by song and listener by listener. More details are available here in this reference memo.. The five Pacifica stations broadcast approximately 21,000 hours of music every year in toto with about 80 hours each week devoted to music in each signal area. Dropping Internet broadcasts and 2-week archival playback for the network’s 500+ volunteer DJ’s would be a big blow, and wreak havoc with the network’s Internet presence and appeal to mobile listeners.

At last week’s meeting, the board voted down a bylaws amendment requested by Pacifica’s FCC and CPB attorney, John Crigler, modifying meeting notice requirements in Pacifica’s bylaws so they were the same as Section 396(k) of the Communications Act, in response to CPB requests that Pacifica be in compliance with its own bylaws as one condition for restoring funding.

Members objecting to the board majority’s chaotic actions over the past six months, which will lead to the network’s dissolution, can sign a petition here.

The single largest obstacle to ongoing CPB-funding is the inability to start, much less finish, the 2013 audit. Originally scheduled for March of 2014 and then derailed by the abrupt firing of the executive director, whose replacement left after 10 weeks, leaving board chair Wilkinson ED for the 2nd time – after orchestrating the firing. The audit has now missed two announced start dates, one at the end of June and another at the end of July. Preliminary financial statements released on July 22nd show deterioration in the network’s financial recordkeeping in the past few months, including no records for affiliate income (usually $200-250K annually), no revenues posted from LA station KPFK, backed-up payroll data entry, and noticeably different numbers in the local and national books for Berkeley station KPFA. Unaudited profit and loss numbers for 2013 prepared prior to the March chaos can be seen here. 

The fired-and-then-rehired-34-days-later CFO has presided over a national office accounting staff that has largely fled in the past 2 months, with the majority of the accounting staff either quitting or going out on medical leave after an 8-hour mediation session did not resolve complaints dating back to the fall of 2013. A certified workplace investigation report was completed prior to the board-induced chaos in March of 2014, but it has been suppressed and only a few board members recently saw it after making directors inspections. The contents do not appear to have been disclosed to the employees who filed complaints.

The network experienced several deaths in the past week, losing WBAI On The Count host Eddie Ellis, former WBAI and then NPR broadcaster Margot Adler and Geneva Reese, the mother of former executive director Summer Reese. They will all be missed.

The board majority continues to delay the election postponed from 2013. The March 1 deadline to hire an election supervisor passed 4 1/2 months ago and nominations should have opened in June. Plans to convert to an online voting system to save $50,000 in printing and postage costs cannot be implemented until the board appoints someone to do the job. Former PNB vice-chair Bill Crosier applied for the job months ago and issued detailed plans for how to proceed, but the PNB election committee stated the applicant pool is not diverse. Local board members elected in 2010, including Wilkinson, would enter their 2nd unelected year if the election does not go forward.

Berkeley-based satirical sound collage Twit-Wit Radio, a 3-minute collaborative spoken word collage produced by noted theatrical director George Coates, continued to spoof the board-induced craziness on July 27th, with snippets of audio drawn from Pacifica’s actual board meetings.

A community town hall meeting will be held on August 2nd at the Berkeley Federation of Unitarian Universalists and live-streamed nationwide. 

###

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.