Pacificana.Org - all things pacifican

Aug. 23, 2009

GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE SUMMER FUND DRIVES!

WBAI moved way ahead of its $450,000 goal for its summer mini-drive. The drive was scheduled to end, Wed., Aug. 19th. But, it had already reached $579,000 in pledges as of mid-afternoon on Tuesday, Aug. 18th.

Here's part of an email that I got from LaVarn Williams, WBAI iGM, on Friday, August 21st:

"The goal of $450K for WBAI was surpassed on Friday, one day early; however, we continued until Wednesday raising over $640K. This total allows us to catch up on all rent by the end of August and to send money to the NO for a least our share of Democracy Now. Thank you for your support. Staff and Listeners are becoming believers in the WBAI
mission once again."

This is the second wildly successful fund drive at WBAI since management changes were made in the spring. THANK YOU TO LaVarn AND ALL WBAI STAFF!!!

According to Grigsby Hubbard, WPFW iGM, their station's 4 day mini-drive went much better per day than past fund drives: $92,000 was raised in 4 days, plus an added $3,000 for the sale of old records. Most of the pledges were made by credit card. In fact, the revenue per fund drive day is much higher than it has been in years. WPFW staff agrees that there was better planning, better morale, and more buy in from staff and programmers. Also, there were a lot of new volunteers. The only programming that underperformed was national programming (Democracy Now!). All in all, Grigsby and the WPFW staff are very pleased with their summer mini-drive.

KPFT's current summer fund drive also performed very, very well. Here is a note from Duane Bradley, KPFT GM, from yesterday, Aug. 17th:

”Howdy, KPFT has successfully completed its final membership fund drive of FY09. Unofficial results show us around $135,000, about $10K over the budgeted goal. Congratulations to all!!! Peace, Duane “

Significant programming changes were made at KPFT recently. Those changes have obviously been very well received by KPFT's audience and as a result this current drive has broken a negative trend. It is particularly heartening in that KPFT's winter drive was 27% under budget with slight improvement in the spring drive which was still about 10% under their budgeted goal. Also, according to Duane, KPFT received a check last week from the estate of a former member of KPFT who passed a few months back. The amount was almost $16,000, roughly the same as the goal for a whole day of on-air pitching!"

KPFK is doing 3 or 4 mini-drives to make up for budget shortfalls. A 1-day drive underperformed last week. The total for that day was about $12,000. However, as usual, KPFK's staff is very resilient, gears were changed, strategy was tweaked and the next 1-day drive performed better than the first, I believe making a combined total of about $35,000 for the two 1-day drives. I regret that I don't have the exact numbers for you.

According to Lemlem Rijio, KPFA just completed a successful summer mini-drive. Again, I have no exact numbers.

NOW THE BAD NEWS

There are terrible cash flow problems at the National Office, WBAI and WPFW. This is mainly due to backlogged rent that has to be paid for both WBAI offices and the transmitter Tower. If this back rent is not paid, the station could face eviction. Also, WBAI had racked up $1.2 million dollars in debt to the National Office over the last year or two. As it has had to pay back rent adding up to about $400,000, even though its 2 recent fund drives have been excellent, most of the proceeds have had to be used to pay back rent. Consequently, WBAI has not been able to pay its Central Services to the National Office for over a year, leaving the National Office very, very short of cash. Hopefully, this will soon change and WBAI may even be able to send the National Office some money shortly, as noted above.

In the case of WPFW, that station has had a series of failed fund drives over the last 1 1/2 years but its most recent mini-drive was successful. As a result of almost 2 years of mediocre fund drive performance WPFW had completed depleted its unrestricted reserves and is now in a very poor cash flow situation. Added to that, there are back bills which need to be paid, including some going as far back as the 2007 Gala. However, problems that have mounted up at the station are now being faced and remedied, the staff morale is very good, programming is being improved and if this current mini-drive performance is any kind of yardstick, revenue will be increasing in the fall drive.

So, all in all, we are seeing very significant revenue improvement at 3 stations. If things keep improving and if we can hang on until the fall fund drives, all should be well.

PACIFICA ARCHIVES

The Archives also DID receive the second phase of its American Archive Pilot Program Grant!! $100,000!! (See the Pacifica Archives Report
for July posted at the Pacifica.org website.)

The "Redefining Black Power in the Age of Obama" book/broadcast
project is moving along rapidly. Three 30 minute radio broadcasts are
being scheduled for airing at our stations with the ability to add
phone-ins.

PACIFICA AFFILIATES PROGAM

Ursula Ruedenberg reports that her major area of focus from now until October is to confirm contracts and get affiliates' payments completed for FY09.

However, she has been working on a lot of other projects. I have attached an email I recently received from her that details them.

STATION NEWS

Most of the following station and other news is from the last General Managers' and Affiliate, Archives and Technical Director teleconference of Thursday, August 13th, so it may be slightly out of date. Some of these are from rough notes. Please pardon any errors or misquotes.

Bob Conger was recently promoted to the position of interim General Manager of KPFK. He has been with the station for 10 years. He as originally introduced to the KPFK GM at the time by Don Mussell, a long-time Pacifica engineer and consultant. Bob had been working for years as a free lance engineer and has worked at KPFK as Chief Engineer ever since being hired 10 years ago. He has been in radio for a long time. He says he feels good about being the iGM, that the staff is good and that everybody's been very supportive.

Duane Bradley has been involved with KPFT since 70s and has been GM for 6-7 years.

Grigsby Hubbard, the current iGM of WPFW was a founder of WPFW more than 32 years ago.

Lemlem Rijio is KPFA GM in Berkeley. She and Sean Heitkemper had been working on a long range plan to make the stations more collaborative. The evening news collaboration that is ongoing between KPFK and KPFA is working well.

According to Lemlem, KPFA just completed a successful summer mini-drive. They are happy to have completed the budget. Lemlem also said, "The way we plan our fund drives is we spread them out and have mini-drives here and there. We appreciate Efren's patience in working with us on the budget. We're working on a planned giving seminar that didn't result in large gifts or bequests and running several campaigns to close shortfall in off-air fundraising. 10% deficit projected for this fiscal year. Our fall fund drive may mean a 6% to 14% deficit for this fiscal year. We are being real and pragmatic. The Budget we've developed for next year is very frugal. There is a little bit of an increase in several areas. Want to welcome new KPFK GM Bob. Our California stations are now sharing resources. We want to have that be a way to leverage our resources in these economic times."

Much positive feedback was received network-wide after the airing of the Sotomayor hearings. Many thanks goes to KPFA, and particularly Lemlem Rijio, GM, and Mitch Jeserich, moderator, for elevating the stature of Pacifica by producing impressive national offerings of this type. And, of course, Jon Almeleh, Pacifica Technical Director, needs to be acknowledged for his hard work in making this possible.

According to Bob Conger, KPFK is going to be doing 3 one day fund drives rather than putting them all together. "Our fall fund drive will be started in mid September all the while trying to get the candidate statements on the air."

Duane Bradley, KPFT GM, said: "KPFT is half way through the 2nd day of a mini-thon. We're real happy with the way things are going. We're pleased that our new afternoon and evening schedule is getting good response from our listeners. We've been seeing good energy out of Democracy Now! Yesterday it went $2,000 over goal. Today DN! raised $11,000 when the goal was $4,000. The energy is very high -- by and large very positive for what has been a really traumatic schedule change. We're making plans for our 40th Anniversary celebration.

"We had some interesting things happen. KPFT was awarded Houston Press Reward for best radio station. We've been nominated by the local environmental media coalition for their media award. The news from KPFT is positive. Cash flow is good and moving forward on every area."

Grigsby Hubbard, iGM of WPFW said, "We raised $92,000 in a 4 day mini fund drive. Plus $3,000 for the sale of old records. We are instituting on-air fund drive events. We are going to have one soon with a geographic theme fund drive with a 'North Carolina Day'. Our mini-drive was very upbeat. People really enjoyed it. Lots of new volunteers."

"We're also media sponsors of Hailey Grammer's new film (?) We've had a number of time critical maintenance issues. Had to call in the engineers. We are doing scheduled maintenance on our antennae – we have no back-up. We've renewed a collegial working relationship with people at the antennae site. The thing that excites me the most is we have begun to reinstitute training without any added expense. Planning fall fund drive. We always have interesting special events here. Looking at critical issues of cash flow. It was precarious when I got here. We're feeling very positive here."

Most of the WBAI news has already been mentioned, but LaVarn also said,”Listeners are responding. The programmers are doing their magic. Also, when all of us got here and were able to sit and talk about things, it's jelling and people are excited. This is a tremendous learning experience for me. We are planning for the fall fund drive. We're learning that programmers have an audience and the audience goes with them. We're planning on premiums for the fall drive. There are two one act plays at the Riverside Church that are dynamic -- we're trying to do something there. Ethan Young has some things lined up for listener forums.”

"We're talking with Chuck D again and are talking about bringing him in soon."

Talking about training and internships, KPFA has a very successful internship program. There is training going on at KPFK as well. Ali Lexa, KPFK webmaster, put together a sampling of different volunteer and internship type opportunities going on at KPFK. I've attached that for your info. Ali also sent us here at KPFK some very interesting website usage statistics that I've attached for those of you who enjoy that type of info.

ELECTION NEWS

The elections have attracted many candidates for every signal area with the exception of KPFT, which has 11 candidates for 9 open seats. All the other stations have an abundance of qualified and excited candidates, both for the listener and staff seats. The ballots will be mailed out soon, candidate forums are going on, there are lots of on-air candidate statements and on-air candidate forums are being planned and will be on the air soon.

There is quite a lot of energy around the election this year and we hope to reach quorum easily at all 5 stations.

That's all for now, folks!

In Peace, Grace Aaron
Chair of the Pacifica National Board
Interim Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation