In this clip from KPFK’s 10-16 local station board meeting, GM Radford threatens that if she is forced to pay for the SAG-AFTRA arbitration loss caused by her union contract violations in 2015, she will turn off KPFK’s repeater signals in Malibu, Santa Barbara and Ridgecrest/China Lake, turn off the station’s transmitter altogether from midnight to 6am, and turn off the air conditioning.
Board members suggested instead reversing Radford-initiated program changes that decreased revenue and provided documentation that the changes had cost the station at least $137,000.
Radford replied that programmers whose hours were removed, Roy Tuckman and Sonali Kolhtakar had “refused” to return to their old on-air schedules. Later in the meeting, both Tuckman and Kolhatkar responded in emails that they had not refused and would be pleased to resume their previous broadcast schedules and fundraise for the station.
Turning off the transmitter from midnight to 6am would likely violate signed rental contracts in effect for the use of the station’s sideband signals, besides angering the large overnight audience cultivated by Roy of Hollywood for decades.
Financial statements released for the fiscal year that ended 9-30-2016 documented a KPFK listener support loss of $300K between 2015 and 2016, the largest in the network for the year.
As reported by the Pacifica National Office:
KPFK listener support 10-1-2014 to 9-30-2015: $3,000,802.
KPFK listener support 10-1-2015 to 9-30-2016: $2,701,054.
The $137,000 projected increase in listener support would pay for 65% of the cost of Radford’s union violations. A return to the pre-Radford listener support numbers in 2017 would pay for them entirely.
