In all of my recent writings I have attempted to give an accurate representation of what is planned and what is currently happening to WBAI and the rest of the Pacifica network at the hands of the new Pacifica Board majority supported by the ACE/Inependents led by Steve (Big Money) Brown. Through the use of lies, half-truths and fear they have the network embarking on a path that is going to destroy the very reason why Pacifica came into being. I don’t believe Lew Hill, Louis Schwietzer or Samori Marksman would be happy with Pacifica’s new direction. This long-time coveted, newly adopted and enacted direction is being shaped and guided by a commercial, race negating and class based audience measuring tool…the Arbitrons and more recently the Personal People Meter (PPM). These measuring tools are notorious for their unwillingness to include people of color and poor people as a significant presence in their assessment process. These devices do not measure the listening habits of the aforementioned groups because they are designed to measure people who have discretionary income. The primary function of the Arbitron and now the PPM”s is to ultimately determine the amount of money radio stations can charge advertisers for their ads. The stations that reflect large numbers of people listening can of course charge the most for their ads. Under this new board majority the conclusions of the Arbitron and PPM ratings are now supplying the logic for program changes at Pacifica.
Both KPFK’s and KPFA’s managers are telling us this new direction is temporary. However, the managers who are fronting for this form of change are not being honest in their illogical attempts to make us believe that once they increase audience then they will revert back to listener-sponsored, non-commercial, community radio. Since they have gone along with having these changes imposed by fiat from the top they have eliminated the protective wall that kept programming from being fashioned primarily by economic concerns.
These changes are not temporary and they will not work. You can’t make program decisions for community radio based on the findings of a commercial audience-measuring device without making your programs more commercial. The logic of this course of action means that you must begin to eliminate programs that focus on the concerns of poor and marginalized communities and replace them with programs that have a broader (whiter) appeal and will attract listeners that have greater incomes.
I have stated from the beginning of the coup at WBAI that this was not about my termination or Anthony Riddle’s removal or about the finances of the station. Although falsities about finances and claims of bad management have been placed in the fore ground the real target is our programming. The goal of the racist firings without providing due process, the bannings, the gag rule, the numerous reports to the listener and the mendacious upbeat attitudes of those staff who are collaborating with the interlopers are the main ingredients in the smokescreen that obfuscates the real target of their desire…WBAI’s programming.
If this cabal was really interested in increasing revenue one place they might look is the escalating amount of money that the PNB spends each year to conduct its business. This year it cost about a million dollars of subscriber’s money to hold national meetings and conference calls. That’s more than WBAI wastes on maintaining its Wall St. address.
The management at KPFA in San Francisco is the latest to have capitulated to the PNB majority’s misguided vision for the network. They have adopted both the form and the language of the Arbitron/PPM. Pay close attention to the email sent to the staff at KPFA and visit the State of the Station posted at kpfa.org. You will find it very revealing.
Here they come.
Bernard White
---- Forwarded Message -----
From: "KPFA Staff Announcements"
To: kpfa-staff@mailinglists.kpfa. org
Sent: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 4:50:48 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: KPFA Staff: Changes at KPFA
Dear Staff,
The current economic conditions are having a significant impact on all
organizations, including KPFA and the wider Pacifica Network. As you
can see in our State of the Station posted at kpfa.org, the trends we
are experiencing as a station and, specifically the decline in
listener donations and overall listenership is significant. Our
current share of bay area audience, especially in some parts of the
day, is too small for a station with a signal of KPFA’s size. At the
same time, our current pace of spending and expenses versus revenue
(listener support levels and donations) is unsustainable and adds up
to a budget deficit. In spring 2009, the Pacifica National Board and
the Interim Executive Director directed KPFA and all sister stations
to improve audience share and fundraising immediately.
In order to implement this directive and stay true to the Pacifica
mission, we are working on a plan to expand and grow KPFA's audience,
in particular loyal audience, because if we want to have an impact on
social change and nurture cultural expression, we need to reach a
significant number of people. We have gathered and analyzed audience
feedback for the past two years, and have conducted extensive analyses
of our audience data. In addition, we have sent out more than 15,000
surveys to our members and listeners to learn more about them, their
interests, and their needs. Please see KPFA State of the Station
posted at: www.kpfa.org for details.
We have the responsibility of identifying short term solutions as well
as long term strategies that will set KPFA on a successful track.
Within the next several months KPFA will implement organizational
changes to ensure the station remains competitive and relevant both
terestrially and on the Internet.
For the past two years, we have prioritized expanding KPFA's
technical, administrative and development capacities. Thanks to the
entire staff and managers in all those departments for their
diligence, excellent work ethic, and care for KPFA. Growth and
development is a long term process, and I am very grateful there is a
lot of energy, talent, and skill within KPFA, and to have worked
alongside many fantastic people---both unpaid and paid--- to build the
necessary foundations for KPFA to grow as a very special radio and
media institution.
As you may know, management and staff have completed several important
projects: digitizing and upgrading equipment, redesigning our website
technically and aesthetically, tightening up on compliance so KPFA is
not at risk of loss of license, addressing legal risks to end hundreds
of thousands of dollars in legal spending (see last page of State of
the Station), getting long time KPFA supporters to include KPFA in
their wills and thus, securing KPFA's future operations.
In programming, we have implemented several programs and projects.
One of these, piloted as a series twice, Letters to Washington, will
be airing daily 10am to 11am.
Music of the World, which is an excellent program with outstanding
hosts and programmers, and which has a huge competitive advantage for
KPFA because great world music is hard to find on the FM dial, has
unfortunately been sandwiched between news and public affairs
programming. As a result of this scheduling issue, the audience tunes
out in significant numbers at 10am, and those listeners go to other
public broadcasters with public affairs and talk programming.
We have identified one of the key weaknesses we need to address in our
programming department is flow of our content, so it is crucial we
adjust our scheduling to ensure flow. While we have excellent and
unique content, we need to improve the flow in our schedule, promoting
our programs, and in some cases, we need to improve our content.
As you can see in the State of the Station, we have a strong morning
block and many problems with flow starting at 10am. We are beginning
to implement a plan to address the audience loss that occurs at 10am
to noon, as well as afternoon drive time, improve average listening
time, and increase loyalty.
At this point, we would like to gather input from music of the world
programmers to identify a successful schedule for our wonderful music
of the world programming. Once we are able to work through the
scheduling logistics, we will phase music of the world out of the 10am
to noon slot and move it to another time slot.
We have a lot more work to do in to improve our audience share for
music as well as public affairs programming. One of our long-term
goals is to cultivate listeners ages 20-40, and some of the most
effective strategies available to us to galvanize this generation of
listeners are our music programming as well as our presence on the
Internet.
We are on our way towards improving our audience share on the radio
and the Internet and believe we can achieve this goal working
together. We would love to get your feedback, so please email us your
thoughts. You can reach me at gm@kpfa.org and Amelia Gonzalez at
iagm@kpfa.org
Best,
Lemlem
--
Lemlem Rijio
general manager
KPFA 94.1 FM www.kpfa.org
1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 848-6767 (ext. 203)
(510) 644-1699 Fax
gm@kpfa.org
_________________________________
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Kpfa-Staff@mailingl ists.kpfa. org
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