KCPW takes a hit
Salt Lake public radio station KCPW has been forced to lay off two employees, including news reporter Faroe Robinson, and cut salaries due to disappointing fund-raising drives.CEO and President Ed Sweeney says the station's underwriting (the public-radio equivalent of advertising) has been "great," but individual donations have fallen short. Part of that is because KCPW had to mount a capital campaign to separate itself from a financial mess created by its previous management. KCPW listeners — whose numbers are up — may be feeling tapped out. Says Sweeney:
It's a reflection of the economy more than anything else. We are not immune.The station's future is secure, Sweeney tells me. But KCPW, which prides itself on street-level coverage of local politics, policy and government, will suffer for having its reporting staff cut in half (two reporters to one).
As part of the belt-tightening, Sweeney himself now cleans the Library Square station's bathrooms, saving $400 a month.
1 Comments:
KCPW distinguishes itself for its money grubbing modus operandi. It has its "hosts" constantly breaking into NPR News so that it can insert its commercials, oops, I mean "underwriting promos." Its former manager Blair Feulner came up with the ingenious idea of turning what was a "public" radio station into a crassly commercial one. Run commercials every 10 minutes. Truncate NPR News from nine minutes to only three, then have one minute of "local news," followed by five minutes of commercials. For KCPW, NPR programs are merely "bait," so that KCPW can obtain more and more revenues. Apparently KCPW fell "short" by $50,000, yet we the public have no idea of how much the station actually took in, or how much it pays its five highest paid employees. KCPW delays relasing its financial statements for many months after the close of its fiscal year. There ought to be an investigation.
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