> There are currently 29.5 full time equivalent employees at WBAI
> (including part-time employees). The management is making plans to cut
> back to a skeleton staff of 14 full time equivalent employees as of
> December 1st. Pink slips are being issued today, I believe. This may be
> the most painful cutback in WBAI's history -- the "Christmas Coup" pales
> by comparison. Many staff members are in shock and denial. I don't blame
> them. Some have vowed to fight these layoffs -- and they are pleading
> with management not to carry out the layoffs if they can come up with a
> "credible" plan to raise another $200-$300,000 by the end of December.
> Sadly, $200-$300,000 is nowhere near enough. And, even if it were enough
> to get through January, it is not sustainable to continue at the current
> staffing levels when the listener support is not coming in through the
> fund drives.
So how many people who do shows get paid? I can see paying engineers and office staff money, but I suspect that there is some dead weight on the programming side that could be made up with volunteer labor. There have to be dozens of media activists in New York City who would do shows for free.
How much money is being wasted on syndicated programming like Gary Null's worthless show? I don't blame the community for not supporting "community" radio if the syndicated programming is garbage.
I find it hard to be sympathetic when I hear appeals like this for help. I started listening to WPFW about a year ago and found that most of its programming was crap and I got really tired of all the fucking jazz. I *like* jazz programming, but given the scarcity of access to community radio, I think that some room has to be given to shows that feature latin music, punk, reggae, hip hop, and other genres that aren't being heard on commercial radio.
There is some controversy here in Kansas City over KKFI, an independent station that is loosely affiliated with Pacifica. I find the programming to be much more interesting that what I heard on WPFW, both in terms of music and talk. WPFW has some really stupid talk shows that are just platforms for people who have managed to snag those slots. I rarely heard anything of interest on these shows and I've found that KKFI puts more callers on the radio than WPFW ever did.
Another problem with these stations is the dearth of local reporting.
I hope that WBAI can find a way to survive, but I hope that WBAI listeners and supporters pose some tough questions to those coming around asking for money to support the status quo.
<< Chuck0 >>
Homepage -> http://chuck.mahost.org/ Infoshop.org -> http://www.infoshop.org/ Monumental Mistake (blog)-> http://chuck.mahost.org/weblog/index.php Practical Anarchy Online -> http://www.practicalanarchy.org/ Infoshop Portal -> http://portal.infoshop.org/ Infoshop Science -> http://science.infoshop.org/ AIM: AgentHelloKitty
"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)