Is KCPW worth saving?
Salt Lake public radio station KCPW is winding up a fund-raising drive to make a $600,000 down payment on the station. In an impossibly complicated financial situation, a new non-profit organization Wasatch Public Media, is asking listeners to buy back the station that they have financially supported for nearly two decades from Park City Community Wireless. The bottom line? $2.4 million.
In a sad story reported by the Tribune, the station's managers, mainly Park City-based Blair Feulner, made some questionable financial decisions, hurling the station into debt. Meanwhile, Feulner's enormous compensation package undercut the Salt Lake community's trust in the station.
Since Wasatch Public Media began its last-ditch effort to save the station from being sold to a Christian broadcasting network, I've been getting skeptical emails from former KCPW supporters. One of the more cynical listeners describe the KCPW community's plight in terms of owning a home:
He assures supporters the new non-profit will have conflict-of-interest controls in place to "so that what happened to Community Wireless won't happen to us. There are things we can do to make sure that won't happen again." Says Sweeney:
In a sad story reported by the Tribune, the station's managers, mainly Park City-based Blair Feulner, made some questionable financial decisions, hurling the station into debt. Meanwhile, Feulner's enormous compensation package undercut the Salt Lake community's trust in the station.
Since Wasatch Public Media began its last-ditch effort to save the station from being sold to a Christian broadcasting network, I've been getting skeptical emails from former KCPW supporters. One of the more cynical listeners describe the KCPW community's plight in terms of owning a home:
You've made loan payments for years on a house, plus poured sweat equity into it, then the bank tells you it is selling your home to someone else — unless you buy it back at market value. You get zero credit for your money and sweat.Ed Sweeney, who is leading the campaign to keep KCPW an NPR affiliate, has been hearing similar comments:
People ask, 'Didn't we buy it once? Why do we have to buy it again?' It's a very legitimate question.But he says: "There's nothing I can do about that situation. We are starting a new KCPW."
He assures supporters the new non-profit will have conflict-of-interest controls in place to "so that what happened to Community Wireless won't happen to us. There are things we can do to make sure that won't happen again." Says Sweeney:
We are still shell-shocked by what old Community Wireless did — what the hell happened? We understand [KCPW listeners] are mad. I tell them, 'I'm as angry as you are. But anger is not going to save KCPW.'The drive is in the home stretch with about $80,000 to go towards the down payment, Sweeney says. "I'm optimistic, but we're not out of the woods yet."
4 Comments:
and exactly what did the naysayers do when you broke the story about blair's extraordinarily high and unorthodox salary? and are they NOT listening at all any more? boycotting the station, are thee? anyone with a brain, which paints with a broad brush the public radio consumer, knows blair somehow managed to finagle one last grasp at lining his pockets. yeah, he'll get MORE money out of the sale of the station (sort of. but that bad financial decision to buy the am made for lots and lots of debt that'll need to be repaid). would the naysayers rather have christian rock/evangelical radio than grudgingly step up to support a fledgling independent public radio shop? what a mess.
The Christians want to buy KCPW?
Isn't it ironic don't you think?
That would like a group of intellectually honest people without chips on their shoulders and who didn't think government was the answer to all of our problems buying the Salt Lake Tribune.
It's like raaaaainnnnn on your wedding day.
i'm donating to the capital campaign right now, for fear the valley will be without kcpw. imagine! {{{shudder}}}
you can do it too, at www.kcpw.org
This non-profit gig is great! You get to beg for dollars all the time, your donors get a tax deduction, you get grant money and are heralded for your community service of providing NPR or some other service to society. And the best part is you, as the head of the organization, get to pay yourself tons of money; sums you would never see in the free market since ratings for KCPW suck compared to commercial, music or talk radio. But several hundred thousand dollars per year, cash for sale of assets like a broadcasting license. Didn't I recently read that the head of Utah Boy Scouts gets $250,000/year and has no college degree or management experience? Wow, this is almost a lucrative as starting your own religion!
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