KPFA

The high cost of bad management: longer fund drives

by

In his last newsletter, KPFA interim general manager Andrew Leslie Phillips released first-quarter financial figures for KPFA with little comment. One year ago, the station’s first-quarter results showed it better than budget by $237,000. This year’s figures show the station has fallen $60,000 short of budget in just three months. Yikes!

The plunge is mostly due to a drop in fundraising during the morning hours. But the situation is actually much worse than it looks. SaveKPFA‘s analysis of KPFA’s fundraising calendar shows that the station made up from the fundraising plunge during morning hours by massively lengthening KPFA’s fund drives. In the 12 months after the Morning Show was cancelled, on-air time spent fundraising jumped by 19 days, a 30% increase. And time spent fundraising is budgeted to increase still further this year. By contrast, less than two days of normal fundraising would raise enough money to pay the salary and benefits of Aimee Allison, the only Morning Show staffer whose reinstatement Pacifica has managed to block.

This is a serious problem. Long fund drives are more than just annoying: they drive away listeners, which means, eventually, there are fewer people left to ask for money. Other stations — most notably Pacifica’s WBAI in New York City — have followed this path into a downward spiral. WBAI now spends one out of three calendar days in fund drives. Yet, in a signal area with three times the population of KPFA’s, it has fewer listeners, raises less money, and runs the largest deficits in Pacifica.

Pacifica National Board votes to waste listener dollars

by

The Pacifica National Board met in Los Angeles during the last weekend in January 2012, spending the majority of its time in executive session consultations that were closed to the public.

Of the actions reported publicly, there are two concerning KPFA. First, the board  authorized its chair, Summer Reese, to appoint an elections supervisor to run the KPFA recall vote — something that should have happened two months ago. Reese said she’d “try” to do it within two weeks.

Secondly, Pacifica’s board has decided to appeal the court injunction that compelled it to seat SaveKPFA representatives Laura Prives and Dan Siegel last year. Such appeals have a very low likelihood of succeeding. What’s more, Siegel and Prives have already completed the terms the injunction applied to — and been re-elected to the national board — so the issue is now moot. We would call this another bid to disenfranchise KPFA’s duly-elected representatives, but it actually looks like something more petty: a quixotic waste of listeners’ money and SaveKPFA‘s time.

KPFA’s Local Station Board met on February 4, and among other actions, overwhelmingly passed this resolution with bi-partisan support criticizing Pacifica’s board for its money-wasting legal appeal and demanding it reverse course. The vote was 14-2 (the two voting against the measure were Anthony Fest and Janet Kobren). You can listen to the entire 5-hour-long KPFA board meeting here: part 1 | part 2

Donate to KPFA now!

by

Given how Pacifica is treating KPFA’s voting members right now, this is going to sound a little weird, but it’s still true: you need to give money to KPFA. Here’s why:

  • First, Pacifica will use any shortfall in KPFA’s fund drives as a pretext for more layoffs.
  • Second, your pledge is your vote. If you want a chance to vote in this recall election, or to run in next fall’s Local Station Board elections, you have to be a paying member of KPFA. (It takes a minimum of $25 per person per year to join.)
  • Third, KPFA — warts and all — is well worth it. Where else are you going to hear the Great Recession dissected by a Marxist economist? The social justice implications of scientific breakthroughs described by an theoretical physicist? A live broadcast from inside an Occupy demonstration? The world needs KPFA, and that’s why we’re in this fight — but KPFA still needs money to carry on.

PLEDGE FOR KPFA ONLINE at https://secure.kpfa.org/support, or pledge during your favorite show, and feel free to add a comment with your pledge.

If you would also like to support SaveKPFA‘s work to keep management accountable, please visit our online donations page.