[Kzyxtalk] KZYX, Broken Radio

[sako4 at comcast.net]

Responses to Mendocino County Today, Saturday, September 29, 2014 


    1. 


John Sakowicz Reply 

September 27, 2014 at 10:11 pm 


KZYX, BROKEN RADIO 



The KZYX Birthday Bash is nothing more than another fundraising event for a failing radio station, a station that is completely controlled by management for its own benefit, and which purges itself of its critics and fails in so many other ways. 

How does KZYX fail Mendocino County? 

Show content is controlled, censored. Programmers with strong personalities, who do shows on important and controversial topics with guests with national reputations, and who stand up to management are pushed out. They are purged. 

Programmers who criticize station management or otherwise “rock the boat” are purged. Popular programmers such as Norman De Vall, Doug McKenty, Johanna Schultz, and myself were all purged for speaking out. 

Newsperson, Christina Aanestad, was purged. 

Earlier in the station’s history, Beth Bosk, the editor of The New Settler Interviews, was purged. 

Also, K.C. Meadows, editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal, was purged, and Els Cooperrider, who worked so hard to make to make Mendocino County the nation’s first GMO-free zone, was purged. 

This is appalling. 

There’s more bad news. Equipment regularly fails at KZYX.The broadcast signal was down for three whole days earlier this year. Equipment breaks down a lot. It’s old and needs to be replaced, not held together by spare parts, masking tape, and bailing wire. 

Another thing. There is no Ukiah studio, and never will be. Any fundraising attempts during the Birthday Bash or Pledge Drive at creating a Ukiah studio are patently fraudulent. Folks should know that all monies raised go to the general fund, and most monies go towards salaries. A decade ago, $6,000 was raised by a few dedicated volunteers to start creating a Ukiah studio. That money disappeared. It wasn’t restricted. It wasn’t escrowed. John Coate was later forced to admit that $6,000 was spent on salaries. 

Regarding salaries, four points: one, salaries are not disclosed at KZYX, they’re secret; two, all staff recently got a raise at the last meeting of the KZYX Board; three, General Manager, John Coate, gave himself a 10 percent raise in 2013 at precisely the time county workers were getting a 10 percent pay cut. and four, the budget at KZYX is upwards of $650,000, meanwhile the budget at KMEC is $17,000, not a big bang for the buck. 

The KZYX Birthday Bash is a farce. It is little more than a celebration of the egos of John Coate, and Mary Aigner. Aigner is the KZYX Program Director. She handles the purges. Stalin had nothing on Aigner. Not a thing. Aigner has been with the station for its entire 25 years, and in that time Aigner has beaten back four attempts to oust her. 

The final insult is that Coate and Aigner rig Board elections. They tell some candidates like myself not to run. They discourage others. Meanwhile, Coate and Aigner recruit their flunkies to run for the Board, and endorse them, and work to get them elected in every way. In other words, the flunkies have the home field advantage. It’s why progressive candidates, like Doug McKenty and Patricia, lost this year. 

Bottom Line? 

The FCC has received numerous objections to the renewal of KZYX’s licenses. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is also on notice about the station’s numerous and serious problems. And so is NPR. Now the station’s members and underwriters need to take notice. 

KZYX will fail under current management. To save the station, the plan is simple. We need fire Coate and Aigner, downsize the station, invest in equipment and technology, archive shows, create a Ukiah studio, restore the right to free speech at the station, and bring back all those programmers who have been purged. 

What KZYX should not be is a jobs program for the five people who work there, and I’m using the word “work” loosely, because my attempts to get job descriptions, work hour logs, and performance evaluations were completely shut down by Coate. Staff won’t even archive its shows. 

Most of all, KZYX should not be a private clubhouse. I repeat: KZYX is not a private clubhouse. It’s a community radio statio. But right now, it’s a broken radio. 

And so, my friends, the time has come to vote with your dollars, or more precisely, to not vote with your dollars. KZYX should not be supported while Coate and Aigner are still calling the shots. Having them in the two top management slots reminds me of a management takeover in the private sector. That’s when insiders buy all the assets and operations of a company, but in the case of KZYX, Coate and Aigner didn’t put up a dime. Worse, with our membership and underwriting dollars we members and underwriters have actually paid Coate and Aigner to take over the station and make it their own. 

A takeover. A broken radio. 

Boycott the Birthday Bash. Boycott Fall Pledge drive. 

Thank you. 

John Sakowicz, Board member and suspended host of “All About Money” 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/kzyxtalk/attachments/20140928/1f280a7f/attachment.html